Puer Rating: Female Teamaster
The Puerh Junky Rating System (PJRS) takes on the renowned female teamaster Du Qiong-zhi. Let’s say she’s no slouch. Coming through the ranks of the vaunted Menghai TF since the 70s, she’s had a hand in numerous next generation factories of great repute. This is her production of the famous 7542 in ’05.
After three rounds the total was as follows:
- Aroma 12
- Clarity 8
- Sweetness 9
- Viscosity 9
- Astringency 15
- Huigan 15
- Qi 12
Reflections
Stacked infusions 7, 8, 9. Less than 10 sec.
There’s no getting around the wetness of this storage. Du Qiongzhi’s 7542 received perfect scores in astringency and huigan, as the dank humidity smothered the sharp green notes. At the same time, this puerh cake did not lose much of its punch in terms of qi or aroma. The picture above shows intense copper at a phase where typical productions either fade in colour or intensity. This kept going, but never in a ferocious or discourteous manner.
Old Taste and Funk make this puerh reminiscent of an older style of puerh storage, when HK and others of the Chinese diaspora comprised the overwhelming share of the puerh market. The dank style is not agreeable to the big bucks in Beijing and Shanghai, but is highly favoured among a handful of old-school puerh drinkers in the non-Chinese world.
The Puerh Junky associates “old taste” with musty books and newspapers. It bears no resemblance to root beer because there is no fizz and little sweetness. In the few days of drinking this production, couldn’t come away not feeling that the storage ruined the tea. Nevertheless, the PJRS allowed my to focus squarely on the relevant parameters and not my taste preferences. As far as humid storage is concerned, this.
Conclusions
There’s no doubt that the ’05 Du Qiong-zhi 7542 is a serious tea. The dank storage has not damaged its qi while greatly throttling the astringency, making this a very smooth, some would say “earthy” experience. It bears old taste traits similar to Taiwan stored productions of a roughly similar age. It’s currently not for sale, but you can hit me up for a sample. Puerh Rating: Female Teamaster
79/105, B
