Spring Ripe Puerh Taste Off III

Spring Ripe Puerh Taste Off III presents us with another four contenders chosen at random.  Needless to say, all stables are bristling with excitement to see just how the judges with regard their students.  Side-by-side battles provide the best contrast for assaying the performance of ripe puerh.  It provides a context for not only determining whether a student is better but also precisely why.  Of course, tastes vary but comparison provides deeper insight into the creator’s execution.  Let’s proceed. . .

Ripe Puerh Taste Off Day III

  • ’07 Boss Square, GPE (Wang Xia)
    Resolute aroma in warmed dry pot, camphor, vanilla, sweet, spectacular clarity, present aftertaste.
  • ’06 Peacock Country, Liming
    Sweetness, light bitter backend, light camphor more bold at cooler temp, wood, incense, slight sour, long aftertaste, red hots, blue cheese, light astringency.  Gorgeous.
  • ’06 BZ Peacock King, LME
    Aromatic in warmed dry pot, heavy essence, roast, camphor, drying, very strong qi, woody, oud.
  • ’10 Sweet Richness, Yangpinhao
    Petrichor, coco, vanilla, minerals, rich aroma, very sweet initially, smooth reaching throat, fast-arriving qi insanely aggressive, baby powder, dash of sour huigan.

Ripe Puerh Taste Off Day III featured some very heavy hitters.  The biggest surprise was definitely Liming’s Peacock Country, part of the Ripe Sampler Group 1.  It was acquired from a Henan seller and has taken better than two years to round into form.  There’s still some astringency deeper into the session suggesting about two more years of storage before becoming a high-ranking sumo.  Having it side-by-side among some award-winning productions shed deeper insights into just how good it is.

Sweet Richness is also no slouch.  Baby powder is a taste appearing at about 10 years in some higher quality ripes.  It’s so chock full of “stuff” that its oils have bled through to the wrapper.  Still, compared to its competitors, there’s an obvious immaturity.  Given the qi it’s all ready paralysing drinkers with, it’s frightening to imagine the future.  This brings us to the last two. . .

Both the Boss Square and the BZ Peacock King are excellent productions.  Tasting samples for the day are placed on the table and revisited toward the end of the day.  This ultimately tipped the scales in BZ Peacock King’s favour.  Experimentation has revealed that many productions respond remarkably well to sitting out for a few days.  During the current Taste Off, none of the ripes have sat out before the event, but a brewed cup sitting out over the course of the day may actually shed light into which productions would benefit most from sitting out.  What was found in the cup of the BZPK corroborates findings from having it out for about three days.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Junky

Crouching Tiger Hidden Junky finds our hero cum villain engaged in a bit of an autumn reverie.  The occasion is Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, a ’19 production comprised of Guogan material.  Guogan is the Mandarin name for a Burmese border town known for high quality material that can be acquired at rat-killing prices compared to Yunnan side of the border.  Crouching Tiger is a Chinese idiom here meaning “diamond in the rough.”

Our censors have informed that the polite crowd now refers to “Burma” as “Myanmar.”  No one says French Indo-China, Siam, or Rhodesia anymore either. For the record, it’s also now called “Myanmar Shave.”   Anyway, we see that the peevish Puerh Junky is far into his session with Crouching Tiger.  He remarks to the narrator that the autumn weather suits the musky, cologne character.  We zoom in:

“This isn’t one of those piercing perfume productions.  The oils have real earth tones to them, making it one of those appealing unisex type scents not a “church lady” horror. There’s a nice ensemble of vetiver, vanilla, a touch of black pepper, possibly cumin and definitely oak.  The ferment adds a cantaloupe finish that is far better in autumn than summer to this Junky’s palate.  Ferment is to be expected for a production of nearly five year (autumn ’23) and moderate density.  Whether the new processing style exhibits such a characteristic is an open question.”

Mister Junky, that’s all very interesting but when do we get to the kung-fu, some flying kicks, a romantic interest or something?

“I think you’re talking about the movie and not the tea.”

PJ Goes From Peacock to Crow

PJ Goes From Peacock to Crow has to do with the much-discussed “new processing” of puerh.  “New processing” makes puerh “ready” for drinking much earlier than customary.  “Ready” means sweet.  Old school processed offerings are not instantly sweet.  In fact, a decade generally tends to be the benchmark for beginning to check in on the development of a conservatively processed and stored offering.  Newly processed productions can be sweet the instant they hit the consumer market.  Instantly sweet puerh enjoys broad appeal among the plug-and-play generation of tea drinkers.

Purists will say that this new processing is not puerh.  It’s anyone’s guess how these avant-garde offerings will transform, a question of next to no importance for a plug-and-play tea drinker but central in the mind of the puerh collector.  It’s worth noting that casting the differences as night and day between the two processing approaches mischaracterizes a technique involving creativity and skill.  For certain, fast sugar expression comes at a cost to potential transformative complexity, but the same can be said of heavily stored puerhs where the heat and humidity burn away puerh’s underlying character in favour of putrefaction and dankness.

Since there there are no hard and fast standards for defining puerh beyond coming from Yunnan Province, tea makers are free to innovate or preserve tradition as they see fit.  For puerh purists, the presence of green tea notes is an unacceptable breach of that which defines puerh.  For others, who mainly drink very young productions from Western-facing vendors there is little frame of reference in the first place and often an inability to discern either.  Oh well.  The Puerh Junky doesn’t drink so many post-’14 productions, as even old school factories have joined the fray of new processing.  However, sometimes the quest of the old-school factories to remain relevant gets interesting as it serves as a study to see how makers straddle the line between tradition and innovation.

Zhongcha’s Dance

Zhongcha’s dance with innovation and tradition is worth visiting.  On one end of the spectrum is the Jade Mark, acquired in ’17.  The idea of it being newly processed never crossed my mind; the thought was that it hailed from Lincang, particularly the Bangdong, Bingdao area where there’s a reputation for stellar young tea.  Up until that time, there’d been no run ins with sencha grade productions, so the sweetness was largely chalked up for terroir or pickings later in the season.  Evidently, parts of Lincang have been executing the “new” shaqing for quite some time, so one doesn’t necessarily preclude the other.

In its nine years as of ’23, Jade Mark has continued to hold its own as a perfect example of either Lincang or “new processing” done very well and the reviews have always been unequivocally positive.  As a recipe production, Zhongcha is not saying what it is.  Be that as it may, as a a “gateway” puerh, Jade Mark is hard to beat, though its transformation potential remains entirely unknown. . . or nonexistent.  Perhaps over the years it’s gotten sweeter, perhaps even more bitter, expressing more of true Bulang character than in its youth.  It’s hard to say.

At the other end of the spectrum lies the Bulang Peacock from the same year.  It started much more in the vein of a traditionally processed creation before manifesting an expression found in productions at least five years older.  Vanilla and spice notes are rarely found in puerhs under eight and if they are then either the processing or storage has been ramped up.  As of May ’23, BP appears to be moving on from its spicy and vanilla expression to something more camphorated.  There are phases where it’s got a Lemony Snickets vibe going on, a Ricola taste with the vanilla only coming at the very front end.  In contrast to the Jade Mark which has shown little change, Bulang Peacock is a constantly moving target.  Such change is consistent with traditional processing, though everything seems to be happening at a quicker pace.  The vanilla and spice still express depending on just how fast one goes from one infusion to the next and there’s some serious Bulang bitterness too.  It’s captivating.

Xinghai Sweet Chariot?

During the Xinghai buying focus of 2022, Puerh Junky picked up a couple from ’15 and ’16 presumed to be newly processed.  The ’16 Golden Peacock is the second Xinghai acquisition from that year.  Here’s where the crow eating comes in because even though the grouchy junky (GJ) in me wants to hate on these insta-sweets, there’s no denying that Mme Zhang is very good, most capable at manipulating processing parameters in a way that gives the plug-and-play playa exactly what they want while not compromising the integrity of the material itself.

The Golden Peacock is sweet without being too sweet.  There’s serious substance and depth that progressively unfolds with each infusion.  What starts out as being possibly frilly frivolity moves into a very self-assured production.  Bitterness fades quickly amidst omnipresent rock sugar sweetness and fruity note.  The Golden Peacock isn’t a rookie puerh.  It’s for those who like the boldness that Xinghai tends to offer, only at about ten years earlier than usual.  It’s got fresh green vibrance, but there is no sencha or chlorophyll taste.  Furthermore, there’s a noticeable fermentation aroma in the empty pitcher which promises that it will continue to transform.

Wrap-up

Aside from its controversy, new-school puerh processing exists along a continuum from traditional to borderline oolong and sencha.  Consequently, old-school factories have many options for how they imagine the outcomes for an expanding “puerh” market.  The case of Jade Mark demonstrates a puerh where potential for transformation plays a small role.  By contrast, the Bulang Peacock, from the same year, has changed quite a lot.  As of writing in May ’23, the Golden Peacock has changed relatively little.  The ferment-y aroma is indicative of fairly traditional processing, while the sweetness is new-school all the way.

 

 

 

Puerh Junky Occasions Forever Zen and Ox

Puerh Junky Occasions Forever Zen and Ox is a drive-by missive on two productions from ’09 and ’10 respectively.  We’re now in the spring of ’23 and the tea is beginning to waken from the winter hibernation.  Winter poses quite a challenge for many of the treasures, though it’s not possible to ascertain which.  One solid point of note emerging from winter is that the items receiving oppressive humidity over the warm months improve from the respite.  In fact, the cold gave these brutalized buggers a chance to dry out and brighten up. Such conditions did not apply to either of the abovementioned.  Puerh Junky’s general take is variance in storage is actually a good thing, but it does make for seasonally variablity productions  Thence, when a treasure is imbibed upon will elicit wildly varying results that may not necessarily reflect the intrinc charm.  The challenges of winter in short are a good thing, but must be appreciated within seasonal context.

Forever Zen

An order for the ’09 Forever Zen during the week of April 9th greeted the opportunity to pull a new cake from the Yiwu storage bin, one which is rarely opened.  Clear humidity had settled and panic set in.  Getting Goldilocks storage is the Puerh Junky’s raison detre.  As mentioned previously, the Forever Zen hailed from conservative storage, still quite young but likely to mature relatively quickly.  It’s been in LA better than two years now.  The idea behind the Yiwu storage is beyond just preventing the tea from drying out.  There needs to sufficient humidity to allow for transformation to continue, whereby sweetness and flavour will continue to evolve.  At the same time, the ole Junky doesn’t want humidity to settle into the flavour.

Initial impressions where that that humid aroma was undeniable.  Frantically, I tried the FZ and boy was it ever humid.  Fresh from storage, it was too humid.  Perhaps too hastily a total revamping of storage began, while leaving the lid of the Yiwu container off for a couple days.  The rearranging changed little, but it will necessitate more frequent visits to each container.  The greatest advantage of this approach will be that there will be next to no difference between samples and cakes.  This will come at the cost of sustained humidification.  C’est la vie.

This 16th April Forever Zen received a second visit.  A huge sigh of relief.  The vanilla shines through and the Manzhuan minerality emerges with subsequent infusions.  Sweetness is now deeper and the course of treatment appears rightly Los Angeles.  I regularly see the posts about storing in the States that are wholly perplexing, a kind of view that presumes that storing in Seattle is the same as Olympia, Phoenix, or Augusta.  I don’t get such takes.  There’s a vast difference between Oakland and SF.  What gives with conflating Omaha with Tampa?  Ho-hum.

Forever Zen is for those who know their Yiwu, specifically know their Manzhuan from their Yibang.  FZ is not the product of sheisty processing.  The sugars have emerged in a manner consistent with proper processing.  It’s getting sweeter.  The variegated color of the leaves reflects what appears to be layered transformation.  Uniform aging doesn’t altogether make sense, as the cake itself is layered.

Where the FZ will go is anyone’s guess.  Manzhuan typically do not turn to wood.  They just evolve to ever more aged expressions of Zen.  FZ is now is sweet vanilla with slight minerality.  There is an faint undertow of green, but which could only be detected when tasting side-by-side with the wet-stored Ox.

Cashed leaves.

Ox, 6FTM

The Ox, 6FTM no longer possesses any of the humidity of its early storage conditions.  It’s actually moving into the heicha zone.  An apricot note, heretofore absent, is now front and center.  It’s a surprising development but a tribute to the masterful stages of storage.  A marked difference between heicha and puerh of a certain age is zing, a fizziness.  Heicha never zings, but zing is a trademark of puerh enjoyability.  The Ox is beyond its fizzy stage, particularly because it was previously wet stored.  It’s not flat and the qi is characteristic of the 6FTM Lunar Series of being remarkable, but it doesn’t zing.

None of the other Lunar Series have been humid stored.  It’s plausible that the Ox was a singular year of experimentation by the 6FTM.  All Ox versions purchaed have been humid, caveate being that the Tiger has never been sampled and those before the Year of the Rat have tended toward conservative storage.  Compression from year-to-year has varied in this series; the composition has remained the same.  By ’11 Rabbit, compression had morphed to qualitatively looser.

The pressing of the Ox is not a compressed as its predecessor, Rat.  Given its age and storage, Ox is now more rarefied. None of the humidity presents itself now.  It is clean and fruity, reflecting an offering about ten years older than its age of production.  All of the offerings of the 6FTM Lunar Series represent collectors’ items.  There’s maybe one more Ox left.

Wrap Up

The Forever Zen and the Ox represent two qualitative different puerh productions in terms of terror and in the eyes of the market.  Forever Zen is a Manzhuan, an Yiwu terroir probabably more Zen than an any other.  The condender is Mansa/Yiwu Zhenshan.  With Mansa the transformation is decidedly toward petrol, where Manzhuan maintains its Zen nature.  I have a late 90s Manzhuan that has only transformed into a chrystaline Zen, and this may be the long term for the FZ.

The Ox is a recipe comprised of material from three terroir, Fengqing, Simao, and Menghai.  It is now supercedes any of the other productions in terms of aging.  This has manifest as apricot.  The character is of an aged heicha.  The qi is uplifting and immediately present.  For serious quality aged puerh drinkers, it’s undoubtedly next level.

Both productions have great longevity.

 

Replicating Puerh Brewing Results

Replicating Puerh Brewing Results extends a conversation regarding Drury Lane at the end of June ’22.  In late Aug of the same year, Puerh Junky endeavored to replicate the splendid results.  The upshot?  Setting the brick out for a few days before brewing reproduced the desired results.

Although it would be nice to just grab from the stash and brew something up, each treasure has its own personality that will be greatly influenced by storage conditions and season.  Only you know your storage and climactic conditions.  Relating my own only demonstrates that there are no hard and fast rules and you’re only going to find what’s right for you through experimentation.

This time Drury Lane sat out for about three days before being brewed.  The results were superb.  It’s fair to say that any brewing without sitting out a few days would be a waste.  One caveat: so long as it remains in the same storage space, the fridge.

Since April ’22, the fridge has become a power-storage space.  Whereas previously, some humidifiers were placed here and there in the fridge, the current setup has a shelf where a tray of humidification resides.  It consists of a simple large plastic take-out food container with two florist sponges about an inch thick.  The tray is filled with water mixed with perhaps 1/8th, maybe less, of food-grade propylene glycol, used to discourage mold.  If I see mold growing on the sponges, then I add a more concentrated mixture.  I don’t just pour the pg into the tray.  It needs to be mixed.

Precision Humefaction

The tray sits uncovered because there is no risk of spillage and because it diffuses faster than if it were covered.  Most all the other storage containers have a similar setup but with lids that have numerous holes melted into them.  I heated a big screw with a kitchen torch to make them without cracking the plastic.  Two of the very big containers have one-gallon jugs cut to accommodate a big sponge and a good amount of water.  Both containers are accessed frequently and allow more airflow than the fridge, so this seemed to be the best way to get lotsa humidity into the containers.

Dodger tape optional

One such container holds ripes.  The morning of Sept 2nd, ’22 occasioned its opening to sample Snake.  The blast of air upon opening promised good “juice-ification” for the treasures therein.  It’s been hot and humid these past few days.  This setup makes for power humidity, enlivening the ripes, making them richer and sweeter.  Right now it’s ultra primo storage, as the air flow and heat is much greater than the fridge.

Already, 2022 has been the Snake‘s best year, so checking in on it was simply to determine whether it would also require a few day’s airing given the difference in storage.  Findings?  No airing necessary.   The plastic container provides nearly ideal conditions with this humidifier during the hot season.

The most current stint of heat has been quite humid so the amount of water that the fridge has been drinking is actually less than June and July.  It could also be that the tea has reached a certain saturation level, but I’m guessing that it has more to do with ambient humidity.

In general, I’m not worried about mold.  It’s never been a problem and the returns are huge in terms of how happy it makes the puerh.  This applies to both raw and ripes.  From mid-Nov to the beginning of July, temperatures will normally only get into the 90s (27c?) maybe a total of 15 days.  September and October will be burners, but usually the humidity will be quite super low.  Perhaps this newly outfitted humidifiers will work with the dry heat to keep up a juicy cooking, but the main purpose is to prevent excessive drying.

Much could be said on these seasonal changes, but the focus here is on reproducing the same effects for an excellent ripe which had started to drop off from excessive dryness and didn’t impress after conditions had switched to greater humidity.  It turns out, the original charm blossomed after sitting out for a few days.  Visiting the Snake confirmed some of the weaknesses of storage in the fridge.  As an aside, it should be noted that there are other items stored in the fridge that don’t seem to need any airing.  Again, each production has its own personality, shaped by material, compression, and mysterious variables necessitating constant fiddling to bring out the best from each.  Don’t be afraid to experiment.  Puerh is super forgiving.

 

Big Leaf Sancha Puerh

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.

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

 

Puerh Rating: Bamboo Ripe

The Puerh Junky Rating System (PJRS) takes on 06 Bamboo Ripe.  The Bamboo Ripe is the only other humid-stored ripe puerh in the collection besides the Operation Macau.  The Bamboo is stored with a higher level of humidity.  Both express what I consider to be the absolute best that humid storage can offer without any of the distractions.

After three rounds the total was as follows:

  • Aroma          10
  • Clarity          15
  • Sweetness   14
  • Viscosity        9
  • Astringency 14
  • Huigan         14
  • Qi                 10

The 06 Bamboo Ripe is a serious production.  It is possible that the aroma could have rated a shade higher but there is no doubt that it is comparatively light in texture, particularly when warm.  It is clear that this was fully the intent of the tea master.

Brewing times for this ripe are longer, as the block formed within the bamboo doesn’t separate easily even after numerous infusions.  Counterintuitively, the same block crumbles easily with  the fingers.

So far it has brewed for a total of about six infusions over three days.  Each day the camphor and sweetness intensify along with the aroma.  It is glass smooth.  An extremely well executed puerh.

Total 86/105.  A 

Ripe Puerh Double Take

I’m indulging you in a Ripe Puerh Double Take.  These are the notes I wrote today for the Sweet Silt Puerh Brick.  I though it wasn’t listed.  It’s spooky how similar these notes resemble the initial listing.

Sweet Silt Puerh Brick is a 2015 commission by the Macau brand I follow for ripes.  This 250g brick is absent any wet-pile taste or aroma.  A ineffable sweetness is the overriding theme: perhaps dry sweet hay with the slightest dash of alphalpha.  Whereas some light fermentation styles come with a measure of tannins, Sweet Silt is round Zen without the hint of tannins.  No black tea cross over here.

In fact, Sweet Silt has no woodiness, no camphor, no thickness, no fruit, no forest, no earthiness, no humidity, just a hint of vanilla.  It yields few infusions with longer than normal infusion times.

May 2020

Silt refers to the mouthfeel and the baby powder essence characterizing this ripe puerh experience.  This effect is most evident in the aftertaste.  The brew’s nature resembles hojicha, with less roast, but with a sweet stem quality and no fermentation notes.

Sweet Silt can be brewed to oblivion and it maintains its crystal clarity.

Another Zhongcha Peacock Puerh

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.