Tag Archives: aged puer

Puerh Junky Report: Fruit Monster

Posted on by Yang-chu
01 Mar

So on Friday my wife and I were up for some heavy drinking.  I only remember thinking Fruit Monster would probably round the sesh out nicely, since the other offerings were higher on the keyboard.  Fruit Monster, being from 2011 and dry stored, isn’t exactly full of low notes.  However, it does have quite a bit of smoke and grit, along with a bit of incense.  The fruit muskmelon notes of yore are no longer detectable and its bratty finish lead the Puerh Junky to conclude that in some regards it’s about three years off.

The Puerh Junky Report: Fruit Monster concerns leftovers from Friday.  Today is Monday.  A couple infusions consumed on Saturday led to a final infusion forgotten amidst the welter of puerh treasures.  Water remained in the bell pepper pot for two days.  This morning I thought I give it a try, expecting a bitter lesson.

Bell Pepper Pot with the ’01 GM Puerh

To my astonishment, the Fruit Monster tasted of strawberries.  This is a taste usually evident of productions at least fifteen years old.  It portends the return of fruit to the monster, but I will have to wait a while.

This reminds us that puerh is a moving target, particularly raws.   The Puerh Junky found a similar progression with the Dali Tuo, where now enticing strawberry fruitiness starts expressing after about the fourth infusion.  It’s the same fruit note so common to many ripes.  In fact, upon recent tasting only this weekend, the Silver Peacock is starting to express fruit notes as well.

We’ll see how the the Fruit Monster progresses.  Right now the days of musky fruit are long gone.  Its edginess and depth are satisfactory but not where they will be in a few years.  In some cases these variables would have the Puerh Junky state outright that it is not ready, but from very early on Fruit Monster has proven itself a solid tobacco-class drinker.  However, the course of changes from this weekend portend the return of a different fruit to the monster sometime in an unknown future.

Big Leaf Sancha Puerh

Posted on by Yang-chu

A few years back I picked up some big leaf sancha advertised as wet stored.  Sancha is also maocha, i.e., loose leaf.  Although there was some wet-stored quality to it, the overriding sense was that it was too vegetal and just not very tasty.  Sunday 7 Feb 2021, I thought I would give it a try.  What a difference.

This ripe sancha is no longer vegetal.  Sancha (散茶）shouldn’t be confused with the Japanese sencha (煎茶）; the former references how the production looks at market, whereas the former references a processing method particular to green tea.

This particular Wild Big Leaf sancha purported to be from ’03.  Maybe.  Items of this sort, however hard to find, I can’t imagine being the ages they purport.  It’s often hard to tell given storage conditions but even so, I’d say that many are as off as many as seven years but usually 3-5.  This “offness” in years makes it difficult to determine how good the production actually is either at the time of tasting or in the future.

The blackness of the leaves here are indicative of a shou.  The taste and colour are more deceptive.  Furthermore, there is zero humidity or old taste, a la newspaper, to tip the hand one way or another.  This is a faint cinnamon, however, suggesting aged raw and a superior ripe accomplishment.

The overriding expression of berry, reminiscent of some raw and ripe productions in the ’99 to ’07 range is exhilarating.  At the same time, the light cinnamon note makes it extraordinary.

It brews crystal clear.  There is nothing murky or dank or “ripe” about it.  This is mandarin ripe, not a coffee substitute.  It doesn’t angle toward coffee but toward old raws, the way real ripes should.

Puerh Eternal: Green Mark

Posted on by Yang-chu
07 Feb

Puerh Eternal: Green Mark– The Quest Continues

This week had the Puerh Junky embarking on a recovery mission.  If you haven’t been brought up to speed about Puerh Storage Horrors, you need to.  One of the cakes that I’m endeavoring to revive is an ’02 Green Mark (A), GPE.  It was one of the most expensive and deadly productions that I’d ever had when first sampled in April of 2020.  By August of the same year it had tamed considerably, but I hadn’t put two-and-two together to identify the cardboard box as the culprit for than a less favourable turn.

This February 2021 marks the one-year mark of having that cake.  Since it was so damn expensive, I put it in cardboard thinking that I was giving it the best of love, only to be slowly suffocating it.  What a contrast to ze Marquis du Green Mark, whom I stuffed in the Zhongcha box where he has not missed a beat.

Since the ’02 Green Mark (A), GPE had only been stored for a year in the box, it was not as drained of blood as some of the other top-shelf victims.  The others, even after day two of drinking, were quite boring and it may be the case that it’ll take a full year for them to revive, for my poor ’03 7542, DQZ even longer.  On the other hand, the GPE may only need only as few as three months.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw out this tea.  I gave it several long infusions the next day and then let it soak overnight, a doing that has prompted this post.  Tremendous.  A sweetness, depth, and incense that does not remotely disappoint.

One of the most confusing aspects of puerh is how one production or recipe can have so many different makers and how the same maker can go through so many different versions of presenting the same production.  In the case of GPE the answer in part has to do with the era in which it emerged.  This was the decade of transition, basically ’97-’06.  Factories would  generally follow the prevailing marketing trend and often paid some type of fee to use the Zhongcha label.  Sometimes there were outright collaborations.  It’s hard to say, but the neifei gives NO indication that it is a GPE production.  This is where you just have to defer to the vendor, who’s not steered me wrong yet.

 

Lonely Days: Fuhai’s 7536

Posted on by Yang-chu
06 Feb

Lonely Days takes up the baffling disregard for Fuhai’s 7536 recipe.  On the one hand, that’s a relatively good thing because the price hasn’t exploded for still relatively aged material from a well-recognized brand.  On the other hand, it seems a same that it doesn’t get the love it deserves.

I’ve only tasted the ’07 version of the 7536 but have purchased or sampled a few of their other offerings.  The 7536 is their benchmark raw recipe, as they’re known for raws and ripes.  I read somewhere that it was supposed to be Fuhai’s take on the 7542 (maybe the writer meant the 7532), but their 7536 is decidedly less floral, which might account for its tepid reception among Western drinkers in particular.  This Fuhai has considerably less petrol than the standard, with more sweet roots and aromatic pods.  Cardamom and bay laurel  also come to mind.

I took it out on Sunday (31 Jan ’21) and had a very enjoyable session with it for two days.  I left it out and now is much bolder aromatically, with a waft of smoke as it’s taken from the plastic.  The cake smells like smoke-cured wood, deep.  From the dry heated clay comes a burst of fruitiness, the bay laurel.

Even the rinse is ready and tastes sweet.  The aroma from the leaves is rich, sugary, spiked with light spices.  There is NO hint of any floral.  A lot of sugar cane, brown sugar with top notes of sandalwood that just fade away into the sugar.  The smoke is evident in the broth, but it is a nice complement.  The aroma in the cup is also of incense.

The second and third infusions are visibly frothy, which carries over into mouthfeel.  The wood starts to make a considerable presence along with the smoke and you start to ask yourself whether you hang with the hounds or piss with the pups.  The sweetness is very addictive; it coats the mouth, lips, and throat, such that all questions of philosophy are lost.  The astringency has never been an issue with this production and now is quite lubricious on the lips and teeth.

No matter how many years drunk, this production still evokes a sense of Christmas.  It’s very warming and cheery, like Christmas.  It exudes the smell of a fire and Christmas spices, hence its name Mincemeat, visions of Tiny Tim and Tchaikovsky all in one.  It forms an interesting contrast to the Water Blue Mark, which is also sweet and woody, but with strong plum notes, whereas 7536 is more incense and spice.  Neither are remotely floral.

 

Puerh Storage Horrors!

Posted on by Yang-chu
04 Feb

Puerh Storage Horrors– Realtime tales from the Puerh Junky Crypt

Last time we left our villain, the Puerh Junky, he was lamenting the performance of his totem-totaling icon ’04 Monkey, 6FTM.  That was in summer of ’20.  At the time it was removed from the box and placed in plastic upon the top-shelf of the somewhat controlled conditions of the unplugged refrigerator.

In the meantime, an entire stack of boxed cakes all ’04 and younger were getting the life sucked from them through those damn boxes.  Maybe if wrapped in plastic then enclosed in the box. . .  but otherwise a big thumbs down on boxing.  Certainly cardboard boxes.  If you had a nice clay box, that would be another story.  Cardboard is a horrible storage vessel.  It sucks moisture from the tea while imparting a deadening taste.

Using the boxes was conceived with keeping the fancier productions all nice and tidy.  You can write the name and year on the box and quickly identify what you want.  But it’s horrible.  It makes the tea horrible and robs it of qi.

Case:  I tasted three of my most powerful productions after finding my ’03 7532, DQZ turned horrible.  I put it in a plastic baggie and it’s now in the TTP.  The three from yesterday were not as wretched but that 7532 has been stored since ’15, where the others from around ’17.  Each of the three showed marked dimunition in expression, while being rather dead.

“8582” Blue Lable Big Qi, Root beer/Zen

One basis of direct comparison was between the ’03 Lily of the Valley,YPH, one stored in container and the other in a box in the fridge.  The former has gotten much more succulent and refined in its floral presentation, where the latter is muted and is flatter than it should be.

The final test was with the ’04 Monkey, which had been destroyed by the box but wrapped in plastic and kept on the top-shelf of fridge in an effort to resuscitate it.  It is now fine but quite different from what I ever remember it being, particularly in the later infusions where there is much more apple and sweetness.  The floral has definitely entered a different stage.  There’s still much bitterness if over brewed and drunk hot, but as it cools the bitterness mellows and the astringency is not worth mentioning.  After six months removed from the box much more life has returned to the cake, though its expression either much different due to age or what was removed by the time in the box.  None of the other lunar productions are expressing fruitiness of this order.

All of the box-abused have been placed in plastic and in a container.  In July I’ll test a few.  Fortunately, only the most unique of the generic label productions were affected.  I used to think plastic was a bad thing.  That’s much less a concern than protection of wrapper, conserving leaves that escape from the bag, and additional transformation capacity.  Some bags are lined in what in a waxier plastic than the plane cellophane but they all work far better than boxes.

Boxes are a horror for storage but it doesn’t spell the bloody end, only a few months in plastic with some likely changes in character.

 

Marquis’s Floral Puerh

Posted on by Yang-chu
31 Jan

The Puerh Junky finds most floral productions too ostentatious for this tastes.  There’s something about flowery productions that sound an off note.  There are some notable exceptions, like the Lily of the Valley, YPH and the Banzhang Organic from ’08, neither of which listed, but you can message if interested.

Liming and MKRS cake productions really push the limits of cordiality as do 6FTM‘s.  These are all floral productions in the stash but not ones that ever beckon beyond mostly for purposes of checking in on how they’re possibly toning it down. . . which they’re not, except the Monkey.  Then there is the Marquis du Green Mark, quite urbane and agreeable in every regard.

Could the reason for the Puerh Junky’s love for the Marquis have to do with storage?  Probably not.  The ’09 Ox, 6FTM for example is also more humidly stored but but it doesn’t hit like the the Marquis.  No doubt sweetness plays a factor. Many report such productions as Tulin’s T868 or the Lancang Jingmai 003 as sweet, though they strike me as being more like that woman at church who wears loud perfume that oppresses the senses, so much so that the sweetness is muffled.  Those two are both very tippy and could be a very telling factor.  Let’s continue. . .

There’s something about where most florals strike on the scale that poses a challenge for the Puerh Junky.  That  place is about two octaves above middle C.  The Marquis and Yiwu Princess seem to sound an octave lower, and alas, their leaves are considerably larger, as is also the case with Lily of the Valley and the Banzhang Organic.  With the Marquis, perhaps leaf size is also that which provides the overlay of vanilla and undertow of minerals.  In other works, there’s something about the leaf size that not only tames the scream of flowers but also provides additional layers of complexity and deliciousness.

Still, Liming and MKRS offerings aren’t always comprised of little leaves though they almost always pack a very serious punch.  Here’s where age seems to factor in, at least to some extent, perhaps also terroir and production style.  MKRS/Daxue Shan, just isn’t a terroir style suiting the Puerh Junky, though there are always surprises.  The MKRS ’10 Tiger was simply fabulous, a creation where the root beer formed very early and throttled the flowers forming a fantastic experience.

The Marquis is not the DXS flower.  It isn’t in DXS sharp and the Puerh Junky is just not one to know flowers like that.  Yes, with some it’s obvious, Lily of the Valley, Jingmai 003’s honeysuckle, but with many other’s its a toss up.  The DXS and Fengqing floral definitely resonates with black tea floral.  Low and behold, that’s where much black tea actually hails.

The Bad Crowd Raw Puerh

Posted on by Yang-chu
31 Jan

The other day I mentioned something about “the bad crowd” in the context of the Water Blue Mark.  You know, those husky raw puerhs that have a big bite, with an equally big taste, astringency, and that something that lingers in the mouth that is decidedly of the tobacco class.  I’ve written on the Liming Square in the past, but the climactic conditions of cold and rain convinced me to revisit it.

Liming OG Square: A Bit Bigger and Warmer Raw Puerh

The Puerh Junky seems to recall having ranted on the merits of Liming TF in the past.  They’re clearly one of the most underrated of old-school factories and by old school, we’re talking  about before the 60s.  They generally have two types of productions: cakes and bricks, with the former far out numbering the latter.  There is a difference between the two that goes beyond shape.

Liming cakes express varying ranges of floral.  They go from a very strong, high-pitched floral that could be likened to Meng-ku rong Shi productions to a slightly lower level of florality with an overlay of azz-whoopin’.  These are extremely popular expressions among many puerh drinkers, and will largely judge quality and qi by level of brashness.  One of the interesting features of Liming’s floral expression is that it doesn’t fade or transform but seems to just get more sonorous, like a scene outta Hitchcock.  It bears mentioning that many of their mid-aged cakes are extremely reasonably priced, presenting a superb value given the base material.

Sonorous Liming

Bricks on the other hand are not nearly what the Puerh Junky would class as floral but more as tobacco, not that any of the bricks tasted could be in any way smoky.  Here, tobacco refers to a darker cured Similar to the cakes bricks are quite durable, releasing many infusions.  The ’07 Organic Square still appears green around the gills but the taste is not green in the least, with very obvious root beer notes.

The sweet, grounding, and medium tone sound of the OG Square is very pleasing in the cold of winter.  The bad crowd is real good at times like these.

Water Blue Mark: The Woolly Sweater

Posted on by Yang-chu
29 Jan

The Water Blue Mark is a Woolly sweater.  The level of complexity with this raw puerh cake cannot be overstated.  It it is reasonable to call it in the the tobacco class but it is not that simple.  Tobacco class productions although darker by nature aren’t necessarily woody.  There is a real woodsiness to this.

When the Water Blue Mark first posted, it was primarily aggressive and smoky.  It was evident that it was strong but difficult to gain a full sense of its attributes.  This brings us to the obvious fruitiness.  In fact, when the Puerh Junky’s better half smelled the dry leaves she blurted out “fruity.”  It is very fruity.  When she smelled the wet leaves, her eyes brightened in surprise exclaiming, “plums and prunes.”  Yes, it is a very fruity production, but. . .

The fruit so evident in the aroma must contend with wood and smoke.  For being a 2007 production, the material is beyond its age by around three years.  It resides in the low end of the scale, hanging with the bad crowd of the Puerh Junky’s collection, Joey White Tips, Mugsy Dragon, and OG Baby Face Square.  Let’s put it this way, it’s as far from Zen as absolutely possible.  It is very much NOT in the Zhongcha/KMTF house style.

A natural question to ask is whether the cake is coming or going.  That is to ask, “Is it getting stronger or is it fading?”  That is difficult to answer.  The usual thing is to expect the smoke to dissipate.  However, this is not overwhelmingly smoky.  From the time of listing in thsummer of 2020 it has become better.  The fruit note combined with the wood and smoke make it unique.  An obvious association with XG’s Forever Love might be made but the Water Blue Mark is is darker and woodier.  Its not just fruit and ash lie FL.  In fact, there is little ash.  The sense of oak aged liquors comes to mind.

Brandy? Whiskey? These are all too dry given WBM’s sweetness.  Did I mention sweet?  At least for the first four infusions it is very sweet and thick with a bit of frothiness thrown in.  At the same time, it has a warming quality like some kind of spirit.  It’s warming and surprisingly relaxing.  It hangs heavy on the body like a woolen sweater, absolutely appropriate for cold winter nights, eliciting a counterintuitive power that welcomes curling up in the bed with some cozy Beethoven sonata in the background.

After the sixth infusion, it loses most of the woodiness and in contrast to Forever Love, loses all of the smoke.  The production takes on a more characteristic KMTF Zen tone, sweet yet always with a hint of bitterness.

 

 

Fruit Monster: From Hyde to Jekyll

Posted on by Yang-chu
27 Jan

The ’11 Fruit Monster first came into the Puerh Junky’s possession in early 2018.  At the time it was aptly named, but three years later it takes considerably more infusions to get to the tobaccoey, smokey attributes.  Furthermore, the tropical fruit like jackfruit notes have all but disappeared.  Yes, the Fruit Monster has turned from Mr Hyde to Dr Jekyll.

Transformation is the name of the game with raw puerh.  Where something is this year doesn’t speak for the following.  A production sharing the same name from the same factory will most assuredly differ from year to year.  So it goes.

For the most part the big and bold Hyde has transformed into something considerably more refined.  There’s lots more vanilla in there.  In fact, vanilla is the overriding taste, not dissimilar from the old school Vienna fingers.

There can be no doubt that Fruit Monster is now a decidedly different animal, far more genteel than earlier in its life.  The broth is rich and frothy with lots of sweetness.  It imparts a filling and enjoyable experience.  The macho fuerte of tobacco is still there but lies hidden for the late infusions to reveal.  Overall, however, Fruit Monster for the time being has turned Zen in 2021.  This is not an awkward phase of expression.  There is nothing off about how it performs.  The contrast from the early stages of drinking and the later ones, however, may leave the impression that the cake is still “young.”  This may particularly be the case if it had not been sampled during its youth.

Dali Tuo’s Fade into Forever Love

Posted on by Yang-chu
26 Jan

The Puerh Junky has been on a ride with the ’08 Dali Tuo for a number of years now.  Yesterday’s weather was quite nippy, so I thought of something from the tobacco class to warm me up.  I first reached for the Fruit Monster but my leaf amount was too little, feeling left unsatisfied.  I’m going to leaf up on that today and issue a report.  My next choice was the Dali Tuo.

The first few infusions were what I had expected but deeper in, a taste I hadn’t noticed before made itself known: tutti-fruti— all Rudi.

So a few weeks ago I tried a sample of XG’s Forever Love, a production comprised of ’03 material and pressed in ’13 if I’m not mistaken.  The similarity between the two is striking.  This particular fruity note is is only evident in productions that have some years under their belt.  As stated, the numerous years of tasting the Dali Tuo, no fruitiness was ever evident.  It was sweet, rich, and warming but never remotely fruity.  The ’06 production under the same name but different box and size (150g) still bears zero marks of fruitiness.  There’s just the solid tobacco grit and ash with peaty minerals laced with sweetness, maybe a little petrol, ya know Xia Guan.

Exactly how many infusions one must dig into Forever Love to get to the sweet I cannot recall but a fellow sampler seemed to note a progression with it that his Puerh Junkiness has discovered with the Dali Tuo.

The real notable is that it doesn’t bottom out.  The ash infused fruit spiked with stevia goes on and on.  Once you get to that stage it stays to the very end.  The color and clarity are superb if not deceiving, as it is hard to imagine hue and clarity could pack so much flavour.

“A bobbabbalubao, a-bob bam…”