Tag Archives: 6FTM

Two Puerh Heavyweights from ’06

Posted on by Yang-chu
30 Nov

I’m finally ready to release Two Puerh Heavyweights from ’06.  They reside at opposite extremes of the puerh spectrum, mid-aged to be precise.  One is the Fohai, 6FTM and the other is Xinghai’s BZ Peacock.  I’ve had the former better part of 18 mths and the latter over a year though began tasting in April.

The Fohai is old name of Menghai city and the famous tea factory.  Since a great many of 6FTM’s productions are region specific, perhaps the choice of Fohai is a creative nod to the past.  Perhaps this formulation hearkens back to a much earlier formula than but similar to the 7532. The reference might be to the Menghai factory itself but I cannot recall any direct MHTF linage as is the case with many notable others, e.g., Xinghai, Haiwan, and Du Qiongzhi to name a few.

The citrus and floral attributes sound with resolute clarity and joy.  I’ve been tinning it since Feb ’21 and the honey notes and viscosity increased considerably.  Being stored in conservatively cool conditions, it’s definitely on the younger side of ’06 by six years.  This is more or less the case with most 6FTM productions between ’04 and ’09, the compression years.

Interestingly, tighter compression is less an index of quality than it is for how the treasure should be extracted from the whole and brewed.  As far as the Fohai is concerned, larger pieces with a bit of shake is superior to any form breaking into smaller or individual leaves.  This is not that type of production and tea bits invariably brew up more bitter and abrasive.  Allowing the leaves to unfurl naturally through the course of several infusions yields a superior experience to the nuance of the tea itself.

The Fohai is stunningly elegant as far as most 6FTM productions I’ve encountered.  It has a citrus note reminiscent of the Jade Mark but utterly foreign to any of their other 6FTM productions in the stash or collection.

The BZ Peacock is not for light weights.  It’s in the Spirits Class of productions.  Mesquite pervades the character of this Xinghai puerh cake.  It possesses nearly all of the hideous notes: petrol, ash, wood, leather, and smoke but includes a most unexpected tartness.  Without having experienced their ’06 Delta Peacock, I would have considered this sourness a bit of a flaw.

The cakes were magnificently stored on the drier warm side.  The wood note thrives in such dryness.  Others might discern mushrooms.  Since being in my possession from Nov ’20, the BZ Peacock has only now reached a level of sweetness where it can be considered at drinking weight.  It’s the sweetness amidst a welter of contrasting tastes that likely accounts for its precipitous appreciation of three fold since ’19.

If there’s any consolation, the BZ Peacock will be classified under Tobacco, since no Spirit category exists.  Though banzhang is a part of the production’s name, it plays zero part in why it became part of the Collection.  Name of terroir is only incidental to factory and wrapper.  Mid-aged Xinghais with fancy wrappers command a great deal of the Puerh Junky’s attention.  Offerings with the name BZ may command the attention from a great many others.

These two treasures will be offered by the 5th of Dec ’21.

 

Puerh Storage Update Jun 2021

Posted on by Yang-chu
26 Jun

Puerh Storage Update is part of an on-going saga involving our villain, the Puerh Junky, and his paltry puerh storage attempts.  Since Feb ’21 he has been engaged in a recovery project: convalescing top-shelf puerh cakes sedulously stored in puerh perfect cardboard boxes, which ended up fiendishly robbing the cakes of flavour and possibly qi, while imparting a cardboard taste.  As our camera zooms in we see the Puerh Junky rifling through his stack of convalescents.

“The 6442 isn’t going to be in here.  It’s not convalescing.  Still, now is a perfect time to balance the ’09 Bluemark, DQZ’s fruitiness, summer sublimeness.” He reaches through and grabs a generic bazhong wrapper, gives it a whiff, is satisfied, and examines what it is.  “Ah-haa!  The 8582 with the sexy aqua blue neifei.”

Aqua Neifei

Later during confession. . .

“I bought this in ’18 under no pretenses that it was real.  It was a ping to the vendor, as well as an opportunity to snatch up a bazhong wrapper with a unique neifei.  It was not up to standard till being stored for one year.  Whereupon it imparted a Zen cum root beer taste with a creepingly wicked qi.  Quickly, I checked to see if any more of that offering was available but it was long gone.

In a puerhitious attempt to baby or otherwise elevate its status, the 8582 was removed from one storage unit, placed in a puerh cardboard box, and stored among the top-shelfers of the Stash.  All the Stash top-shelfers can never become Collection offerings because they’re mostly simply not available.  These can sometimes be sent out as little treats for general edification and to show off some of what I consider top-shelf.

So, from Jun ’19 to Feb ’21 the 8582 lay in that cursed cardboard in my least favourite storage container– the fridge.  Day-after-day, month-after-month, that poor treasure received nothing short of the worst possible treatment.  The worst!  The fridge is essentially suspended animation.  Transformation is slow.  The perfect parameters have not been worked out.  Where things are placed and whether it is in plastic matters.  There are many variables that also depend on where the individual production is and what direction it needs to take.

In the case of the 8582, I was not looking for transformation, just storage.   The fridge is close to ideal for suspension, though it does has some undesired storage effects.   Still, it doesn’t even approach what cardboard does.  Let me say this as emphatically as I possibly can. . . cardboard isn’t ideal.”

By this time the priest is considering calling in for reinforcements.  The Puerh Junky goes on. . .

“Cardboard in the fridge is just a nightmare.  The fridge already does something to make the tea “stuffy” in the first place, and the cardboard worsens matters by bleeding its essence into the tea, while sucking from it as well.

These boxes are Dracula to puerh.!” he expostulates, while the priest reaches for his ultra-tetra-inter-hyper caring science gizmo.  Seemingly oblivious the Puerh Junky goes on. . .

“In ideal conditions perhaps it’s less of an issue.  I nevertheless removed all my tuo from their fancy boxes, despite fantastic storage containerdom.  Most have been stored box free anyway.  The thin box of the Dali Tuo worries me little.  The thin brown paper bags of the same material as cardboard worry me even less.   So, my sleeves of tuo remain in sleeves, much as the rain in Spain, if you catch my drift.

Positively none of the ripes have ever warranted cardboard boxing, but I removed my treasured ripe Monkey from its gift box.  Some Poison is stored in a big gift box and there are a few boxes in which productions arrive that I’ve been storing productions, but not in the fridge.  Some of those have been covered in plastic, as I’ve noticed that can make a big difference.”

Ripe Monkey in Gift Box

Later at the sanitarium in a lecture before no one. . .

“In any event, the subject here is rehab.  Rehab in this case consists of bagging the the treasure in packages that are waxy or plastic lined with the outter covering being white cotton or brown paper bag material, a close relative of cardboard.  I recently placed an order for a bunch of them, which I want to make available.  I think I got the ones that are white cotton.  That’s what the 8582 was placed in, in its original wrapper, unsealed, into the convalescent and archive tomb. ”

At the World Body of Puerh Nihilists, sanctioned and licensed by the world body of sanctioning, we find the Puerh Junky at the sanitarium standing before his gizmo wristwatch, synched with his thoughts through a super-convenient injectable nanobot luciferase care gel in a Zoom lecture.  He’s about to conclude.  . .

Findings

Tomato Shape

Aroma dry and in the heated vessel inviting.  Deep notes of root beer.  Evocations of Imperial Roots and the Tulin tuo that I’ve been tracking for a more affordable price and lost in the water in April.

250g Tulin raw

Overall, its association with Imperial Roots is impossible to avoid.  Hasty conclusions might lead one in the direction of Poison, but the latter is more camphorous whereas the former is peatier.  It’s a bona fide root beer, with more ginseng and less cardamom.

Storage, that’s the focus, determining the results of a four-month rehab for the 8582.  The matter here is not the 8582 itself, but how the findings contrast from before rehab entry. The findings are unequivocally positive, not ebullient but nonetheless unequivocal.

The 8582 is not as stultified as it was before entry.  Beyond that it is now a pleasure to drink.  All the attributes that made this treasure top-shelf are present.  At the same time, it has changed but so have I.  One of my own changes is in finding a more appropriate use for the tomato-shaped pot, which I’d previously believed to be best with tippy teas.  Now I’m thinking the opposite.  Obviously, the 8582 cannot have been changed by its cardboard ordeal.

I’ll keep it in rehab till October when it goes back to the fridge without cardboard (obviously) and in package, probably sealed.

Puerh Report: Tin Water Blues

Posted on by Yang-chu
04 Jun

Puerh Report: Tin Water Blues is part of an on-going look at the development of various tinned puerhs.  Here “tinned” is broadly construed to include raw puerhs stored in clay and porcelain as well.  Tin Water Blues is the Water Blue Mark stored about six weeks in a big fancy porcelain vessel with a tight-fitting porcelain lid having a foil underside.

I tested the Water Blue Mark as many as three times in that period, with a stint where the lid was left ajar.  It didn’t gain anything from porcelain.  A case for the blues if I’ve ever heard one.  It seemed to get airier when what it needs is to continue to cook through some of the smoke while letting the more complex spices and fruits develop.

I moved it to a kraft bag seal pouch, which I use for posting larger samples.  I’ve had some success with these storing a few items.  I consider their storage different from clay and perhaps porcelain in that it is sealing in flavor as opposed to seasoning it with a great deal more air exchange through clay.  Porcelain may not do this and might be best for stuff you want to keep as fresh as possible.  Porcelain aside, this vessel is so impossibly large that it might be best for sancha.

One must consider the change in season and variances in brewing vessels and brewing amounts.  The Puerh Junky using a scale much less lately with raws.  A scale still finds use with ripes more interested in testing performance relative others in the collection.  With raws I’m paying more attention to compression and eye-balling.

The most recent eye-balled session with the WBM stored in the kraft bag for around 10 days is a success.  Altogether eight infusions were had on day one.  At the eighth, which got a minute, an interesting thing happened. . . it got sweeter, while the smoke toned down.  Rocks and sugar.  Infusions the following morning were both sweet and savory.  The production has taken on a more serious tone, savory along with petrol, in the vein of the 6FTM Tuo and other considerably pricier items.  By the 12th infusion it got boring, but the shift at eight bodes well for what WBM is becoming.

I guess not all blues has a sad ending.  I’m at a stage now where I’m much more willing to make quick calls in my six-ring circus of storage.  It’s largely a matter of fine tuning given the variations I have at my disposal and what the tea prefers.  Volume and density is a major axis along which storage hinges.  Right now WBM is in a density phase.  We want more depth and richness to cook the fruit and spices not air them.

Puerh Junky’s Three

Posted on by Yang-chu
01 Jun

The Puerh Junky’s Three is pretty much like any other story.  There’s good guys and bad guys and the bad guys turn good and the good bad and everyone has a drink to just forget about it all.  Choose you heroes carefully.  You might get snakebitten.  Here I take a foray into three 6FTM productions.

Step right up, I got your snakes here. The ’13 Snake is the tenth edition of the Lunar Series and is relatively young.  The production struck me as a sweet Riesling, with clear taste of honeydew and a sweet aroma.  The experience was short lived, as it starts to wane precipitously after the fifth infusion, but those are all very good infusions.

I decided to follow such a young production with the 07 Tinned Pig, which was tinned probably mid February 2021.  This 6FTM production is more resolutely pressed, but it’s been broken down to chunks.  Here the production didn’t really start to hit its stride till about the fifth infusion.  I switched from clay to gaiwan, as a noticed a hint of metal that I think the red clay was bringing out.  I got an additional four infusions and when pushed it didn’t bottom out, remaining sweet and textured.  Overall, it expressed a colour and nature that could be mistaken for a very good production from around ’15.  No doubt compression accounts for much of this youth.  At the same time, it is very round and smooth.

Finally, I went with another production from ’07, Poison. This production is in an altogether different class.  By the third infusion and drinking w/ my wife, we both tapped out.  The brewing  was perfect, with each round a bit darker than the previous.  It’s open from the first infusion and just wows with each subsequent infusion, but it’s a lot to process.  So you tap out.

June 2021 will be around one year LA storage for this raw puerh cake.  In that year it has continued to wow me.  The camphor is starting to make a turn toward down right medicinal beyond root beer.  There’s also an interesting sour that affects the salivary senses.  Something about the woody productions that go beyond the leafiness of the Tobacco class, a Spirits class if you will.  It evokes senses of whiskey and tequila, digestive liqueurs, with spices like clove and star anise.  Vanilla, sarsaparilla, but with an edge evocative of spirits aged in oak and mesquite.  Oh, and smoked bubble gum, even locquat.  It is anchored by some serious bitterness and sweetness.  You tap out again at the 9th-infusion.

In terms of Spirits class productions, Glee comes to mind.  The Jade Rabbit and the 6FTM Tuo both exhibit spirit attributes as well.  They’re all good studies in excellent productions.

Puerh Junky Harassment!

Posted on by Yang-chu
23 May

Seems Puerh Junky Harassment is omnipresent these days.  Your Puerh Junkyness can’t go anywhere without being hectored by the rabble about my tinning developments.  “Yo PJ!  What’s up with the ’06 Fohai you still haven’t posted?” shouts the bedraggled woman with the big nose and colourful shawl covering her greying hair.  “PJ, hey PJ!  Are you ignoring my texts?  What the word with the Lucky 7542, DQZ you’ve had in clay well nigh two months already?  Why you ghosting me?” read the email from someone in some place called “Topeka.”  Some dude with his eyebrows tattooed, one reading “Puerh” and the other “Junky,” in a pink Dodgers baseball cap in a big red Dodge Ram rolls down his window at a stop light asking, “Hey man, you still got the Water Blue Mark in porcelain?”  How did he know that?!!

I tell ya, it’s getting hectic out there, a real cramp to my Puerh Junky anonymity.

As luck would have it, there is word on a few productions that I can share.  Speaking of luck, lets start with the aforementioned Lucky 7542, DQZ, which has been in zisha since late Feb/early Mar 2021.  If you’ve had occasion to gander this production, you’ll know that there are two storage options avail, wet and proper.  Yes.  If it’s called wet, the storage is the opposite of proper, so the objective of claying it was to do something about the detestable dank oppression.  Findings are highly favourable.

There’s zero dank in the first five infusions.  There’s a nice balance, thickness, and sweetness that didn’t previously exist because the garbage taste was too loud.  It’s about half way seasoned presently, part of the age and nature of 7542 also factoring.  It was set aside for the next day, which produced even more sweetness and pleasantness for an additional 6-8 infusions.  Clay seems to be the very best way to season wet-stored puerhs where they can actually become drinkable.  At six weeks storage give or take, the effects are quite pleasing, sufficient to make it a top-shelf offering for puerh drinkers with fairly high standards.

Since we’re on the topic of clay, it’s worth noting that the ’01 Yiwu Huangpian has received similar treatment but for different reasons.  If I were to guess, it was subjected to a period of heavy wet storage and then a very long period of dry storage.  Upon taste, the Yiwu Huangpian receives high marks for storage and taste but some finishing touches never hurt.  Claying in this case provides volume that takes a good production to the next level.

Oh yeah, the Fohai, 6FTM.  It’s coming along in the tin.  The first couple weeks it was bright, ebullient even in the vein of the Fu or the Bulang Business, which I delisted, as somehow I’m only down to one left.  Anyway, about two weeks I checked in on the Fohai, which is the old name for Menghai, and it’s changed dramatically.  There’s much more petrol, the taste is much more serious in a scotch kinda way, even though I hate scotch and find the petrol vibe far more interesting.  Findings for the Pig, 6FTM have been similarly positive.

Fohai’s Tin

I’ve been letting those productions just have their way in the tins.  I’m not taking pains to manage air exposure, for example.  I am wondering how such measures will influence their root beer potential.  The ’04 Monkey, for example, is in full root beer glory.  It’s never been broken up and all dalliances with it have only involved moving it from one ring of the storage circus to the other– and out from the cursed cardboard, sometime relatively late in the game.   The Monkey has hardcore compression, as do all the 6FTM offerings up til 2010.  The ’11 Rabbit is shockingly agey, with a petrol expression that emerges much later in its tightly pressed predecessors.

I’ve referenced a few unlisted items here. Just touch base if you’re interested in any samples.

Puerh Junkosophy: Camphor

Posted on by Yang-chu
05 May

Some will undoubtedly question whether camphor is truly a subject for Puerh Junkosophy.  Such concerns are warranted, but the Puerh Junky has noticed a prevailing confusion about camphor and so some measure of junkosophy is necessary.

There are complex chemo descriptions for camphor that prove utterly elusive to a simple junky like myself. Camphor is simply a sensation.  This sensation can appear in the aroma and taste but it is primarily an aromatic sensation.  Just as chilies impart a sensation that unifies varying types of chilies by their shape and sensation of heat, so too does camphor unify varying profiles by the sensation of cooling.

When but a lad my mother would rub Vicks Vaporub on my chest when I came down with something. Vicks is camphor.  If you don’t know Vicks, then peppermint also qualifies.  I know that chemically camphor and menthol differ but the cooling effect is the same.  Camphor is also present in freshly ground cardamom.  Some others are eucalyptus, tea tree, and pine.  Camphor is that fresca, chilly feeling.

Interestingly, in Chinese medicine camphor is considered so hot it’s cold.  Technically, the camphor you buy as a bug repellant comes from cinnamon.  It’s the crystalized form, a “crackification” of the cinnamon bark.  It’s more pure than frankincense, which also possesses some camphor compounds though in a less concentrated form.  That faint thrilling aspect of chrysanthemum is also camphor.  Now let’s talk about camphor in terms of puerh.

Puerh and Camphor

There’s a book that I caught wind of documenting over 100 camphor attributes in puerh.  In sum, every taste or close to it is a type of camphor.  However, such a declaration clearly only muddies the water.

First, it should be remarked that certifiable medicinal camphor notes express more resolutely in productions with some years under their belt.  This is not to say that camphor is absent in young productions.  Tips, for example, tend to be aggressively camphorous but are of a less medicinal and more minty quality.  This tippy camphor pop may just be a stage in development.  For example, a tinned version of Mangosteen developed an explosive camphor sensation at one stage before transitioning into a creamy, fruity, citric acidy creation.

Mangosteen

Raw camphor notes are familiar to most puerh drinkers.  The bright finish of tippy productions is exemplary of floral camphor.  The Jingmai “003” is a case in point, so are the Rat tuo and the LME Spring.  Here, the camphor is a zing that strikes like a whistle, hands down the most popular variety of puerh.

A more obvious expression of camphor resides further down the register.  Here, tastes are often referred to as medicinal, like cough drops.   For this to emerge the camphor notes age along the backdrop of the raw material to sound a crystal note.  Again, the note is impossible to distinguish from menthol because the effect is essentially the same.  The king of medicinal in the Puerh Junky collection is Quincy, the name taken from the TV show.

Incense, pencil shavings, and to a lesser degree wood evocations are shades of camphor less associated with camphor.  Incense is made from wood or wood sap.  Similarly, incense, petrol, pencil shavings aren’t going to manifest till the raw material gets more woody.  More dry-stored puerhs of this variety can take on perfume and talcum properties, while the slightly wetter-stored and older exhibit sandalwood and other bark type fragrances.  A nice representation of of the former profile is Grenouille, possessing a light incense expression and the jaw-droppingly precocious Jade Rabbit, which has a lot of gasoline going for it.

Jade Rabbit

Root beer is also a camphor expression, particularly raw puerh.  Root beer, the beverage, is a complex recipe containing more than just sasparilla.  Vanilla, ginger, even star anise also contribute.  This is the melange of nuance in the delightful root beer puerhs.  Examples include, Thick Zen, Vanilla Palace, and Poison.  These are easily the favs for the Puerh Junky.

Closing Remarks on Puerh and Camphor

Camphor is a familiar sensation that in the context of puerh has two connotations.  One is nothing short of minty medicine, like Vick’s Vaporub or the inhaler.  The second refers to a broad range of flavor expressions, evident in both raw and ripe puerh.  Attention has been directed solely to raws in this communication as the nuances are more stark in raws than ripes.  Floral, graphite, petrol, and root beer are all unique camphor profiles, some associated less with camphor than others.  On the whole, camphor is as much a sensation as a taste.  This sensation and aroma is cooling, refreshing, and expansive.  Let the Puerh Junkosophy conclude here.

Floral Class Puerh II

Posted on by Yang-chu
10 Apr

Puerh Picking Season

We left off talking about age and terroir as indications for floral class puerhs.  Season also factors greatly.  The earlier the picking, the more likely it expresses high-pitched florality.  “Early spring” is the puerh term most usually used to describe “first flush” selections.  Pickings are differentiated in spring by those picked before or after Qingming Festival in early April.

Many puerh offerings are sold by designation of season picked.  “Spring tea” implicitly means Floral Class.  Some recipes may have a preponderance of spring tea to be in the Floral Class.  Maybe many versions from the late 90s to early aughts of 7542 fall into this category.

Puerh Leaf Picking

A significant factor in floral expression is the actual leaves picked.  The closer to the bud/tip, the more floral the expression.  There’s some famous British brand of black tea sporting the name “Tips.”  Ostensibly, this is a very floral and energizing beverage.  Similarly, small grade puerh leaves size 1-3 (from 1-9) are bright and bracing.  Conversely, small leaves are usually flashes in the proverbial pan, being less durable than larger leaf sizes.

Conclusions on Floral Class Puerhs

Really the only true grip one can gain on the subject of Floral Class Puerhs is to drink and and lots of them.  The quality of flowers is going to vary upon age of production, terroir, season, and leaf picking.  Some Chinese factories have floral notes serve as signature of their house taste; Liming, MKRS, and Tulin are factories to look out for in this regard.  Of course, there’s always 6FTM.

Floral Class Puerh

Posted on by Yang-chu
06 Apr

Floral Class Puerh is not a monolith.  Many variables factor into the quality of flower notes.  These are age and terroir primarily, not to mention the time of year and whence the leaves are picked.  Let’s examine each of these a bit more closely.

Floral Class Puerh and Age

One of the main drivers of floral attributes is age.  By age, we’re talking about  how old the leaves actually are.  If we imagine floral notes as keys on a piano, then we could assign younger productions to higher keys and older productions to mid-range keys.  Young productions have a tendency toward being “pitchy.”  It’s not uncommon for these to possess sharpness, an edginess that carries with it a measure of bitterness and astringency.  These attributes most often mellow with age, though some will intensify into perfume and incense depending on the particulars of the production.  Some young productions will express no florality only to age into it.  such is the case with some very highly regarded Yiwus.  This floral attribute will be of a much different nature from its young counterparts from other terroir due to where they reside on the keyboard.  These are not the least bit “pitchy.”

Floral Class Puerh and Terroir

The topic of floral class puerh and terroir is bound to create confusion and elicit strong reactions.  Part of the discord arises from differences among villages within a terroir.  Village productions within a terroir may differ considerably from the region name itself.  For example, Yiwu region productions are not floral, while Yiwu villages Mahei and Yibang often express floral tendencies.

Another factor for consideration in this regard is house style.  Some house styles despite being situated in one region may focus upon a niche not generally associated with the terroir itself.  Here the brand carries the day and seems to be the approach of most vendors from Taiwan, but is also evident in Chinese factories offering recipe productions.  Recipe productions here is characterized by bearing numbers, like 7542 (of course).

In general, if the productoin states the name of the the terroir, then information about the puerh class to which it belongs follows.  Daxueshan, Jingmai, Fengqing are some of the most vaunted floral terroirs.  Factories tending toward the floral side are Liming, Mengkurongshi (MKRS), and 6FTM.

To be continued. . .

 

Puerh Tin Report

Posted on by Yang-chu
06 Mar

The Puerh Tin Report takes the reader deep into the doings the Puerh Junky.  This time it involves testing the effects of tinning of two productions after only two weeks.  Well, more precisely one after a week and the other after two.  They are both 6FTM productions: week one ’06 Fohai and week two ’07 Pig.  Sooner or later the the Fohai will be offered, whereas the Pig is part of the Lunar Series.

Recently yours truly raved about the findings from tinning the raw puerh cake Fu for three years. Would it be necessary to tin for such a long time to obtain the same results?  The Fohai and the Pig struck me as good candidates for different reasons.  The former didn’t possess the same zing as when originally purchased, and the latter has always struck the Puerh Junky as too zingy.

I tried the Fohai after a week.  The tin above is one that I found on a dock in the marina after returning from a three-day sailing trip about eight years ago.  I figured it must have been a gift from the gods and it contained chun-mee that I’ve possibly had three times.  The tin has double-lid action.  Something might have to be done about that.

The first thing this Puerh Tin Reporter noted was a storagey aroma that also affected the taste of the first two infusions.  This will have to be watched.  Nonetheless, the liveliness initially found had returned much to my delight.  Preliminary findings are cautiously optimistic and remarkable after only one week.

Week two featured the Pig from a Folger’s tin from the 60s.  I got this from my since-passed 90 something neighbor, who was storing some black tea in it also from the 60s.  You can tell this tin is old and actual tin because of the visible seam.  Would it impart a metallic taste?  Kazaaa!

For the first time the Pig was spectacular.  I used a conservative 4.5g in my slow pour, florally designated zisha.  The piercing edginess was not only no longer there but the same lively tangerinesque attributes also present in the Fohai.

Puerh Tinned Report tentatively reports overall very positive findings from the tinning of two raw puerh cakes from 6FTM.  These are two floral offerings, but it is doubtful that tinning in anyway is better for one type of expression over another, say tobacco vs Zen vs floral.  We’ll have to wait and see.

Yeah, I still have that black tea from the 60s, in case you were wondering.

2020 Puerh Reflections

Posted on by Yang-chu
14 Dec

As is customary during the long dark days, opportunity for reflection on the year past presents itself.  I thought it might be nice to contrive a list of what I found to be the best five performers for the year 2020.  Since we’ve had plenty of drama this year, I’ll display my impressions as concocted sans the drama.

First Tier Puerhs of 2020

There shouldn’t be any doubt that “Poison” is the best performer of 2020.  It has completely destroyed my conceptions about 6FTM. I’ll go into why this is such a slam dunk (yeah I remember sports) in part two.

The Yang Pin Hao Lily of the Valley is the perfect counterpoint to Poison.  “Counterpoint” seems the trap into which Bach has been placed, but this does both him and counterpoint a disservice.  In any event, some puerhs definitely express counterpoint within the class they exist, but here counterpoint is taken as the balance across class, floral vis mineral, tobacco vis Zen for example.

As far as the Lily of the Valley goes it is clearly a Mozart concerto.  It isn’t trite, but it is clever with a sophistication that surprises.  Poison, despite prior references to Bel Biv Devoe, is Rachmaninoff— yeah it’s that serious.

Bridge

This year, the local classical station had a Top 250 List as determined by voters. (ahem)  I listened to a great deal of it with great zest only to be crushed that my boy JS tapped out in the 30s or 40s with the Phantom of the Opera.  Gimme a break!  The Mass in B-Minor was in the 70s while Star Wars was in the teens.  I know that my Bulgarian, French, and Lebanese readers are gripping their sides with guffaws of incredulity.  Show some sympathy for your humble Puerh Junky why don’t cha?

Second Tier Puerhs of 2020

Now by second-tier, the Puerh Junky doesn’t mean to imply that these productions are in the least second-tier.  In fact the ’10 Bingdao, YP could easily contend for THE very best production of the year.  It’s simply fantastic.  One of the most disappointing and expensive at the time of purchase six years ago, it turned out to be amazing after considerable neglect and abuse.  And were you to taste it, you’d guess it was maybe from ’14 at the latest.  I cannot say what a big deal this treasure is and haven’t because it’s not for sale and the Puerh Junky isn’t one for rubbing it in your face.  This is not a sales job but an honest record of the year’s puerh experiences, so it had to be mentioned.  No puerh experience exceeded the ’10 Bingdao, YP, which lasted five days.

The Thick Zen has produced the greatest gratification this year.  It blossomed to root beer and tastes so alive.  It maintains the Zen but brings the zing.  It’s so warm and stirring.  Yes Smetna.  It’s an Yiwu that didn’t just fall from the radar but is cloaked from detection altogether.  There are some things that one could nit pick about but comparatively speaking, productions thrice the price aren’t this sweet, smooth, and root beery.

Here’s why Thick Zen is so special.  Upon acquisition it was completely straw Zen, much like the “dirtier”, i.e., more humid productions from generally ’03-’99, without any hint of dirt.  These productions command a very handsome price, but to the Puerh Junky’s mind they’re a shade ho-hum, like many of Beethoven’s sonatas where he continuously plagiarises from himself.  Many of those older dirtier productions seem to have a ways to go or have gone and went.  Thick Zen is at a point where it is very alive in the mouth like. . . root beer, sweet and. . . I want to say David Sylvian.

Third Tier Puerh 2020

Grenouille blew my mind.  It doesn’t bear this name beyond Grenouille being a master at his skill.  It’s not about how he produces the most magical of perfumes.  Perfume can be interesting but the term should be defined.  “Perfume” usually stands an octave above floral.  When a perfume is an octave below floral it is incense.  Incense possesses wood notes, sometimes sap which ventures into petrol and various “camphorols” like mint, toothpaste, borneol, cinnamon, which a wood-grade camphor.

Grenouille expresses incense AND perfume along a substrate of Zen.  I’ve always considered it good but most recently discovered that it had evolved into something truly exceptional, literally transitioning from tobacco to Zen class.  At least one other person believes Grenouille still to be decidedly tobacco, but the difference might reflect the Puerh Junky’s fortunes to track Grenouille’s development over time.  Penitence perhaps?

I Haven’t Mentioned. . .

The Tiger, CMS.  I’ve only shared with two others.  Sublime and defies conception.  Absolutely the best tea I have EVER had of any sort.  I have mention the Simao Green Mark (7542) petrol qi destroyer, which as tamed a bit.  Simao is bad-azz when they choose to be.

In the next missive, I’ll take up the Puerh Junky’s Top Five Flavour preferences.  Upon reflection, three tiers emerge from this year; the first two tiers are counterpoint to one another, each at different ends of the tonal range.  Grenouille is probably more “trans” but now functions as a fulcrum balancing the two upper levels, an ineffable middle c . . . in the minor key.