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Ripe Puerh Gaiwan Challenge: Day V

Posted on by Yang-chu
25 Dec

For the final day of the Ripe Puerh Gaiwan Challenge, I reached for Kunming TF’s “55“.  What can I say but that Day V was definitely the best.  First of all, the camphor notes sounded more resolutely.  The tannic attributes quite common to the 55 were not detected.  The brew comes out very round and sweet.  It compared quite favourably to the Boss Tuo in regards to the sweetness, fullness, candy like qualities along with a sparkling clarity and redness of hue.

By day three, I had begun to do the test using a porcelain and a clay cup.  There is a qualitative difference between the two.  The porcelain has a rounder quality which is more muting, whereas the clay is the opposite more amplifying.  The clay enhances minerality and can be the difference maker for a brew that might otherwise taste flat from gaiwan brewing.

I can see the virtues of brewing ripe puerh in a gaiwan depending upon one’s preferences.  I prefer clay because it produces a fizzier brew with more depth, something necessary for optimal appreciation of Xinghai productions like the Silver Peacock.  The notable exception was how the 55 performed, which was nothing short of stellar.

Update II: 07 Peacock Puerh Cake

Posted on by Yang-chu
05 Oct

Alas, it seems only a month ago I reviewed the ’07 Peacock, ZC.  I wanted to see how it was doing after the span of the the summer.  You can gander the review here.  The root beer notes that I mentioned have intensified.  This taste isn’t for the initial infusions anymore either.  Root beer has permeated the taste.

Zen Puerhs

The ’07 Peacock puerh used to be a Zen production.  The taste used to be gentle, soft, and evocative of misty clouds with a bit of Wheaties.  It is hard to conceive of how such a taste can transform into what it is now.  There isn’t much astringency.  Even beyond the root beer tastes of roots and vanilla is some bitterness.  There are are even pronounced floral notes which could easily be mistaken for being in the original profile– which couldn’t be further from the truth.  The zing of “puerions” on the tongue indicates top quality material.

Such night-and-day transformation of the raw material usually points to productions hailing from the Yiwu region.  That would be my best guess for the Peacock.  Yiwu puerhs are known to get better with age, a truism that I took to be more folklore than fact.  It is still quite difficult to get my head around how something ever so subtle in taste could change so remarkably only through aging.

Not all Zen puerhs, it should be noted, make this type of transformation.  Not all Yiwu offerings will transform into a zingy, rooty, vanilla melange of sweet with a splash of bitter nectar.  Some rather old YPH productions, for example, only begin to taste old or clean-old.  They never exhibit that particular zing.  One exception is the Glee.    I do not know if this is attributable to processing or terroir.  Others that do not transform is due to less than ideal quality.  This points to both soil quality and tree age.  Older trees have a more extensive root system drawing more minerals from the soil.

Peacock Puerh Photos

Autumn ’19 Infusion 6 and 7

Different Angle of Peacock Puerh

A couple times people have asked a question that suggests that they believe that “Peacock” is a particular puerh type.  It isn’t.  Peacocks are just an icon popular among the puerh producing tribes of Yunnan.

Update: ’07 Peacock Puerh Cake

Posted on by Yang-chu
03 Sep

Here’s an update on the ’07 Peacock puerh cake, by Kunming Tea Factory, i.e., the venerable Zhongcha, aka China Tea.  It just dawned on me that Zhongcha means China Tea.  Anyway, the ’07 is one among three ’07 Peacocks edition in my possession.  The only one for sale is this, though it is arguably the least tasty of the three.

Puerh Nostalgia

When I first acquired the ’07 Peacock, I drank quite a bit of it.  It called my name regularly, not because it was particularly delicious but because it was just that cryptic.  I’ve called it “Thick Zen” in another post.  One of the things that particularly struck me about it was just how waxy rich the leaves were.  It just looked like it had a lot of stuff in it, though the Zen taste did seem more than a shade incongruous.

It seemed plausible that the Peacock would age into its puerh relative the Blue Mark.  This means it would develop into a more aged-taste Zen treasure.  This week it started showing signs that it would actually transform into the Root Beer class.  Hooray!  It’s still at its incipient stages.  At the end of the hot season, by Dec ’19, it’s possible that it will be a degree or two deeper.  Another 12 to 16 mths, I anticipate that the root beer will be much stronger.

 

 

 

Quesadillas and Zhongcha’s “55”

Posted on by Yang-chu
18 Aug

This Sunday morning, my wife whipped up some quesadillas that had sausage, pepper jack, zucchini, and scallions.  After a bite or two, I thought some ripe puerh was in order.  I wanted something that could hold up to food.  Zhongcha’s “55” called my name.

Let’s start at the end.  Bam!  Two pots shared between my wife and me and we were definitely feeling the qi.  I’m still feeling it.  Maybe it’s the chemical reaction between Italian sausage and puerh that’s producing this wooziness, kinda like the two herbs mixed together to make ayahuaska.  Warmth swirls in the chest and throat and the hackles at the back of neck and arms go into full effect.  I was asked just last week if it was possible to get high from a ripe as with a quality raw.  The ’06 “55” puerh cake emphatically answers this question in the affirmative.

Thick and Complex Ripe Puerh

We only drank those two pots.  It’s that satisfying.  It’s sweet like molasses.  Imagine Postum, if you can, with molasses.  I’m quite fond of postum, as my mom used to make it for me when I was but a lad back in Detroit.  It tastes like a very close approximation, a taste that’s still echoing in the flavour chambers of my mouth 45 minutes after the fact and with food!

But there’s more: light camphor in the aftertaste, incense in the front of the mouth, and baby powder in the back.  There’s also smooth chocolate candy, a la Tootsie Roll, notes.  This accounts for much of the sweetness.

Fourth Infusion 10s

Aging and Ripe Puerhs

There seems to be a consensus that ripe puerhs only require a year or two of settling before they’re drinkable.  I haven’t found this to be the case.  When I first got the 55, from the Kunming Tea Factory (KMTF)/Factory #1, it was overly astringent.  Perhaps it was two years ago that I began to detect the camphor and baby powder notes; only today the incense.  I understand that it may be a year or two (allegedly) for the wodui odor to dissipate.  However, there is more to a good ripe than dissipating the “fishy smell.”

In the world of puerh, what the “7542” is to Dayi, the “7581” is to the KMTF.  The older a “7581“, the higher the market price.  If the matter is simply wodui, then the market is either crazy or the older productions possess some distinguishing property that makes it more valuable.  It turns out that even though the “7581” is a ripe production, part of the secret recipe includes raw puerh material.  Perhaps this is the modus operandus of for most of their ripes.  Anyway, this is the first year in which I can say the “55” is really good, raw seasoning or not. It’s from ’06.

I don’t think I imagined reading something about ripes topping out.  Maybe this is a phenomenon akin to the wretched “oolong processed” so-called “gu-shu” puerhs peddled by some boutique sellers.  It sorta makes sense that the recipe and processing would contribute to the shelf-life of a production.  Dunno.  There’s a lot of boring ripes out there after sifting through the hideous.  The thing is some of those after 2 yrs in the wondrous environs of LA might turn out to be a delight.  I just can’t tell. .  . most of the time.

Similarly, some of the best raw puerhs are those that transform into something almost unidentifiable from its youth.  Maybe there’s something similar going on with the good ripes.   That something can only be attributed to boss source material, I suppose.

Secret Recipe

Food and Puerh

I’ve never been to any of those Yam Cha places in Hong Kong where they are purported to drink puerh with their dim sum.  I’ve done a little travel through SE Asia and I never encountered puerh.  I guess that means that if I want to kick my quesadilla with a treasure like “55”, then it’s only evidence of how adaptable tea culture is.  Let’s talk details.

Italian sausage and pepper jack cheese possess traits that greatly compliment a complex production like the “55”.  The fennel of the sausage, the fat of both the sausage and cheese, the smoothness of the toasted tortilla and cheese, all find correspondences with the brew.  The remaining astringency and the emerging camphor cleanse the palate and opens the breast, while warming the gullet and belly.  Grease and astringency are a perfect pair.

That’s enough for now.

 

Wow! Beijing Olympics Puerh Cake Update

Posted on by Yang-chu
13 Aug

The ’07 Beijing Olympics puerh cake is a Kunming TF (KMTF) production from ’07.  I’ve been drinking it from one season to the next since its acquisition in ’13.  Whereas many productions from that period have jumped rather high in price and there has been a prevailing sense of disparagement toward ’07 more than any other, this puerh gem suggests this viewpoint is more urban legend than truth.

Puerh Cake Stats

The Beijing Olympics is a commemorative puerh cake for the ’08 Beijing Olympics.  It’s pressed mercilessly and comprised of chopped leaves.  Infusion times are consequently much longer than is generally the case, but standard for the “atomic” pressed cakes, bricks, and squares.

I generally refer to KMTF productions as Zhongcha.  This is because until quite recently I only dealt in Zhongcha productions from that factory, the factory designated #1 by the erstwhile state monopoly.  KMTF has always seemed to take a back seat to factories #2 Menghai TF (Dayi) and #3 (Xiaguan).  Each “house” has its own processing methods and natural material preferences.  I had taken it upon myself to focus on KMTF in part because shysters didn’t find it economically feasible to fake their productions and because they maintained ownership of the iconic 茶 symbol displayed from days past.  Yes.  Total frivolity.

Puerh Progression

The house taste of Zhongcha productions tends to be very soft, in great contrast to either of the other two.  I’ve a few posts on the Beijing Olympics.  The gist is that until this May ’19, it could only be characterized as Zen with peachy, waxy notes.  Now, there is no Zen.  The wax has transformed to petrol.  The first infusion is unbelievable, a sandalwood depth that is extremely exciting about its future.

Let’s face it, its very difficult to divine the future of a puerh.  There are Zen productions that will transform into the forest and ones that will just turn out ok.  The same applies to sweet, floral, sharp, and astringent productions.  How a production ages is a huge factor in assaying its quality and also a great mystery.

This Beijing Olympics has been babied.  Most of the six years in which its been stored has been under very moderate Los Angeles conditions.  There’s just no mistaking that Hong Kong and Guandong/Taiwan stored items, albeit transformed, lose loads of character and complexity over time.  Nothing has been lost here.  In fact, the Beijing Olympics is gaining a head of steam, getting stronger and more complex.

Puerh Class Transition

Whereas the puerh class into which the Beijing Olympics had been placed was Zen, now it now more squarely falls into the Petrol class.  Additionally, it is now ridiculously sweet, even as you plow into the deeper infusions.  It’s a saccharine sweetness, which combines with petrol that might be confused with smoke.  Consequently, the huigan is instantaneous, sweet from broth to aftertaste.  Thrown in are tobacco notes and tropical fruit.  Imagine a pack of sugar-free juicy fruit soaked some kind of dry oak-aged whiskey.

Here’s the kicker. . .

All these flavors despite the evidently light colour.  Above is more than the 8th infusion.  Even as it fades with long infusions better than four minutes, it never stops being very sweet and fruity.

This is a hugely underrated puerh production.

 

 

Another Zhongcha Peacock Puerh

Posted on by Yang-chu
23 Jul

There are two excellent Peacock productions from ’07 Zhongcha, otherwise the Kunming Tea Factory #1.  Today I had the one that reminds me of a perfected Xia Guan offering that I’ve never quite had.

This production isn’t for sale; just thought I’d share that today three people other than myself all remarked positively.  It’s damn good.  Sweet and minerally.  Clean stones and camphor, with a mellowness of age.  It’s too damn tasty to be Zen, yet it possesses that Zhongcha Zen.

One perspective was that it was floral.  She admitted to lacking the vocabulary for tea.  She also noted that it had tastes that she most associated with white tea, but was surprised by what she  thought were black tea characteristics later.  Astringency.  One day I shall write a treatise.

It might be classed as a medicinal root beer.  It is herbal without being the least bit herbaceous.  Its certitude expresses with each infusion, revealing a darker liquor from decent storage.

Let’s get to the serious matter, however.  The wrapper…

 

Zhongcha’s ’07 Peacock Bada

 

If you can’t dig this wrapper, then I can’t help you.  Then again, maybe I can…

 

Anyway, I mentioned that this is like the Xia Guan that never was. This brings us to the ’09 Gift Puerh. Much bosser in cover…

The Gift Box is an enticing Xia Guang production that has morphed from a peppermint pitch to mid-note medicinal camphor.  Both the Bada and the Gift Box are sticky sweet.  Very not Zen.  But in the Gift Box there is a slight thread of dank.  It’s at such a subtle level that the dank lover won’t notice it, but the dank hater will eventually detect.  This one kinda snuck up on me to my indignance.  That seems to be a trait among this production because it was evident to a putrid level in the ’10 Small Gift Box, which I tortured till it became a most root beer manufacture. . . sans the dank.

Dank is not necessarily humid.  There is a measure of humidity in the Bada, evident in the smell, what one patient noted in the taste.  Minerals suggest good humidity.  It also suggests a level of liveliness in the leaves, in addition to how they’ve been cared for.  These all rank highly here.

I happened upon a vendor of a Blue Mark engaged in a bit of puffery but nonetheless a good price, so I gambled.  It’s ridiculous how powerful the qi is on that one, light years better than any Blue Mark I’ve had.  Vanilla, mostly.  There’s vanilla in the Bada as well.  The Bada is delicious but the qi of the “Blue Mark” blows it outta da water.  You just never know.

Cheers folks.

 

 

’11 Rich-n-Mellow Puerh: Cherry-Vanilla Coke

Posted on by Yang-chu
19 Jul

The ’11 Rich-n-Mellow Puerh lays to rest the assertion that age doesn’t factor into ripe puerhs.

You can smell the minerals and cherries in the lid of the clay pot.  It still stinks out of the wrapper.  I got this because the wrapper was sufficiently curious.  Dry in the pot, there’s the light smell of cherries along with something that I can’t place: the sea, old coffee, feet?  As it cools, different notes become apparent while others fade.  The target moves so quickly that one is afforded no measure of certainty, though such mysteriousness grows upon this sniffer with each sniff.

Cashed Leaves

Rich-n-Mellow’s minerality is present in the aroma of the broth too.  The cherry taste, also in the broth, fades to vanilla.  In the rinse, gorgeous I might add, there’s a bit of sourness, along with incense and talc in the huigan.  Immensely interesting.  The huigan with this puerh potion is real.  The fading of the liquor down the throat is followed by a sweet and dynamic coating that stimulates saliva.

By the third infusion, it becomes apparent that this ripe puerh cake isn’t exactly “ready.”  Oh yes, by then the sweetness, the cherries-fading-to-vanilla, and the Coke fizz on the tongue and throat are all there, but it’s not the taste.  It’s the clarity or the lack thereof to be precise.  This should clear up in a few years.  I’m moving the remainder of this cake to more intense conditions to see if it can get there in 18 mths or so.  Otherwise, a rough guess is that it’ll be there in three years.

Rich-n-Mellow 6th Infusion

The Rich-n-Mellow is surprisingly tasty, seemingly perfect for summer.  It’s qi is warming in the belly and tingly in the upper shoulders and back.  This Kunming Tea Factory offering differs from the standard bearing 7581 formula in its lightness, cherry-vanilla, and Coke fizz.  It’s taken all of eight years and four here in Los Angeles for it to take on a character befitting its name.  I down to my last cake and will probably retire it by months (Jul ’19) end because restocking this is impossible and it’s turning out to be a hidden treasure.

Developments with 2012 ’07 Material Puerh

Posted on by Yang-chu
09 Jun

The ’12 ’07 Material is a study in the aging process.  This production is still about five years away from what I’d consider to be in the zone of excellent tasting.  Though this puerh cake is comprised of material from ’07, it more resembles its year of production.  Let me relate some of my most recent findings below.

First, the high camphor notes have not faded.  They may have even increased.  Camphor is evident in the liquor, lending to a medicinal quality.  The aftertaste is not just cooling; it’s frigid.

Second is richness.  Previous sessions only lent themselves to about two rich infusions.  Now it is about four.

Third is from floral to fruity.  There were some intensely tropical fruity notes on day two of the sample visited.  I mean intense like the 11 Fruit Monster without the smoke.  This is a surprising development, as tutti-frutti is not a taste I’ve encountered in KMTF productions.   Usually the fruit taste is of stone fruit, but this one has a musky, tropical vibe.

Overall, the ’07 Material presents a different type of young from most that are too rough for drinking.  This isn’t rough, and the high-pitched camphor notes have certainly not waned and may be becoming even more pronounced.  However, time has shown that there is much depth and richness to be expressed.  I’m at a stage now where “I get it” to the extent that I don’t feel it necessary to revisit this at the earliest a year from now.

Jade Mark Puerh Turns Five

Posted on by Yang-chu
02 Jun

The ’14 Jade Mark by the Kunming Tea Factory (KMTF) turns five this year.  Feeling a bit singed by a few delicious young productions that have been “oolong” processed that fade with age, I started to have my suspicions about the Jade Mark.

This is my second tasting of the year.  I can’t recall when the other was, but my suspicions grew even greater, even though KMTF is not likely to deviate from their traditional production methods, particularly the established recipes.  Still one can never be certain.

Scenic View with Neipiao

Another shot.

Jade Mark Closeup

Of course the weather is a huge factor in how a fine tea will perform.  Weather seems to be the culprit as the Jade Mark is concerned.  This morning’s session was in no way divergent from my initial impressions a few years back.

Infusion #1 10 seconds

High fruit aroma, zero bitterness, sweet, with a buzz of puerions at the edges of the tongue.  It’s the presence of the buzz, in no way diminished, that I’m happy about most, because that’s what fades in the oolong processed productions.

’14 Jade Mark Infusion #4

Altogether I went eight infusions and could have gone another two.  Yeah, the astringency builds but the sweetness remains.  It seems that it might actually be sweeter in the later infusions than comparable infusions from a few years early.

The oolong processed puerhs have their own charm, but if they can’t be aged then I feel that they cannot really be viewed in a traditional light.  Part of the fun of the puerh endeavor is monitoring the transformation.  I cannot possibly get through a cake, even 200g, in a year or two given the amount of sampling and monitoring I do.  A little transparency on part of the seller might be nice in this regard, since the working assumption with puerh is aging.  To some extent, not stating so strikes me as pawning fakes, more fake than the actual puerhs produced using traditional methods.  In any case, the ’14 Jade Mark is a traditional production that at five hasn’t faded.  My apprehensions seem have been more related to a hibernation that occurred during the colder drying months.  Whew!

Wax to Sandalwood: KMTF’s Beijing Olympics in 2019

Posted on by Yang-chu
31 May

This morning I had a fascinating session with the ’07 Beijing Olympics by KMTF, the overlooked factory among the “big three.”  I was in Beijing in the early ’90s when China first made an Olympic bid, so I wanted to capture a bit of this moment actualized in ’08.  What better way than a commemorative puerh cake, not counting the t-shirt my buddy gifted me?

I’ve had the ’07 Beijing Olympics since ’14,  having drunk only one cake episodically amidst the rest in the stash.  Other postings on Beijing Olympics have noted just how compressed this production is.  I had to use my chisel to wrest a couple chunks from the area comprising the hole weighing 8.2g, about two grams more than what I usually use in my newly anointed “Tasting Gaiwan.”

Dry in the warm wan, its incense aroma evoked the ’10 Tiger Tuo of two years ago.  Breaking with all convention, I brewed the first cup for about 5m in water initially at 208.  It was in no way excessive.  The same sandalwood aroma was evident in the taste.  Enigmatic.  The next three rounds were brewed similarly with the colour of the liquor generally lighter than infusions in clay given about half the infusion time.  Whether attributable to the being part of the cake core or the gaiwan, I cannot attest.

Altogether, I cashed out after 14 infusions of varying times and sharing with a 10:30 patient and an 8:00pm wife.  This cake has always captivated me (and probably always will).  Though I haven’t found it to be the best tasting ever, I’ve always found it to be one of the most intriguing.  Now that there’s this sandalwood, I’m positively stoked.  The ’10 Tiger Tuo mellowed through a number of stages but from the ferocious end of the spectrum.  Conversely, Beijing Olympics is quintessentially KMTF.  They don’t do “kick-yer-arse” taste.  I’ve tasted KMTF productions from the turn of the century that however old they tasted did not venture beyond Zen. Therefore, the presence of sandalwood notes suggests that it might transform into the dark richness that the best brash or Zen productions fade into.

Cashed leaves

Deeper infusions of the Beijing Olympics (5 < ) were fruity and minerally Zen.  I also detected back notes of talcum powder with tinges of ash, not in any smoky sense.  Talcum powder is a recurrent trait of KMTF and YPH craftsmanship.  There is sweetness, and the astringency is not noteworthy.  It is their characteristic Lincang/Menghai combo, with the ratio strongly in favour of Lincang.  What I don’t get is how this cake hasn’t appreciated compared to similar productions.

The Beijing Olympics puerh cake, mercilessly chopped and even more oppressively compressed, probably was not conceived as a political metaphor.  Besides, some of the best productions I’ve had have been unsightly or super compact.  I think we all know good productions when we know them.  Then there are those we endeavor to get our heads around within the capsule of storage temperature and age.  Now I’m stupid curious.

In the past year, I’ve had the fortune to taste both young Blue and Red Marks from the turn of the century.  None of ’em make me go wow like the Tulin productions seven year’s younger.  I’ve been waiting for some of the Zen ones in the collection to turn root beer on me.  This hasn’t hit that mark but I’ve good reason to believe that it will given these sandalwood notes.