Two Puerh Peacocks from ’07

These two puerh peacocks couldn’t be more different from one another.  The ’07 Bada is complex, minerally, medicinal, sweet, and floral.  The ’07 Peacock is pure Zen, thick and wheatie with almost no taste.

Both brew to a rich golden hue.  The leaves of Peacock are considerably larger.  It also has more froth than the Bada, but to call it frothy would be an overstatement.  Astride a slight sweetness is a pinch of bitterness, quite similar to Sweet-n-low.  Overall, it possesses a character similar to a roasted barley tea, only thicker and sweeter.

The Bada is in company with some older spring teas in the Junky’s collection, such as the ’05 Peacock Puerh, LM, ’06 Gold Ribbon Tuo, XG and the ’05 Yiwu, YPH.  However, the Bada’s taste is altogether more complex.  There’s some mild camphor and sweet cinnamon notes.  The aged floral huigan is noteworthy and lingers.  You can smell the cinnamon too.

Pushing the Bada in later infusions only makes the brew thicker.  It never bottoms out, as signified by a bitter-metalic taste. The spice notes gain prominence the further one advances in the session.

Puerh Cashed Leaves:
Left: Peacock; Right: Bada

It is not possible to say that one production stands head-and-shoulders over the other.  They’re not comparable, because they fall into different classes.  The Peacock is in the Zen class.  As far as some similar Zhongcha productions, like the Blue Mark, it is even better tasting and a superior value, a diamond in the rough.  The Bada falls into a category that I might most associate with the ’08 Gift Puerh, from Xiaguan, at least as far as some of the mineral notes are concerned, but as noted above old flowers and spice figures prominently.  It is quite in a class of it’s own.

Puerh Cake Take: Jade Mark and Pots

My last two sessions with the ’14 Jade Mark raw puerh cake were rather disappointing.  Brewing it in the spring-tea pot mutes its fruity appeal and the elusion rate is too slow for such young mostly autumn material.

’14 Jade Mark photo Aug ’16

Today I got nine spectacularly fruity and sweet infusions, from 4.5g in my little red zisha.  Water temperature ranged from 212 to 195.  As I extended the brewing time, my water temp lowered.  Ten second infusions at 200.  Simply delicious.

Elusion is the rate of pour.  Different pots obviously drain at different rates.  This difference will greatly affect final results, particularly affecting the sweetness/astringency ratio.  I hadn’t really settled which pot was best for what until quite recently.

  • My black zisha pot is for spring tea, old or young.  Slow pour rate.
  • There’s goofy green clay pot that isn’t green inside gifted to me.  I use it for XG productions, smoky and sometimes spicy productions, like some Liming and Xinghai productions.  Medium pour rate.

    Bell Pepper Pot with the ’01 GM Puerh

  •  Eggplant-shaped red zisha.  Fast pour rate.  Referenced above.  Young raw high quality productions.
  • Glazed teapot for Dragon Pearls.  Fast pour rate.
  • Big red clay gifted to me for autumn teas of any age.  Medium fast pour rate.

    “Big” red clay, 170ml

  • My mineral pot, a pot I hated till I found the type I believe it performs with best.  Slow pour rate.

Pour rate is a big deal.  Whenever you cannot affect the quality of taste and astringency through parameters like pour rate and temperature, then chances are good the the raw material itself is of questionable quality for drinking purposes.  These can be repurposed for topical application.

I cannot over emphasize how impressive I found the Jade Mark.  Whatever tweaks I made in storage and brewing proved consistent with the earlier deeply satisfying sessions.

 

A Fuzzy Enigma: ’07 Beijing Olympics

’07 Beijing Olympics Neifei

The ’07 Beijing Olympics puerh cake is a fuzzy enigma.  I can’t put my finger on the recipe.  I guess it’s most similar to the Blue Mark, but the leaves are more broken.  It is certainly every bit as genteel as the Blue Mark.  There’s also a similar waxiness.

4th 10s Infusion After Eight Hours

The aftertaste is very fruity and somewhat astringent.  There’s no detectable bitterness.  Maybe you can tell from the pic that the ’07 Beijing Olympics is pressed super tight.  The lightness of the brew is a mark of how slowing it opens up.

Infusion 7, still 10s

One writer described it as cottony.  Seems about right.  Here’s a shot from 28 months ago:

Here it is two years later:

Transformation has been steady as she goes.  The broth seems to be getting clearer.  At the same time the hue is brassier than before.  The aroma is noticeably fruity.  The fruitiness is apparent in the huigan, otherwise the liquor is mildly sweet with some hints of petrol in the early infusions.  It’s a real Zen production.

Smooth as Glass: ’07 Thick Zen, CNNP

9th Infusion

The ’07 Thick Zen is smooth as glass.  At room temperature, very subtle camphor notes are detectable.  Overall, however, Zen is an apt description of this middle-aged puerh.  Juicy Zen: feint fruitiness, wheat, and a gentle old taste without any hint of any off odors or stale storage.  It smells a bit like a horse stable dry.  Wet more like lightly roasted barley, what they call “ku-qiao.”

The qi of the Thick Zen is very much in the stomach.  It really stimulates the appetite pre-meal and post-meal produces a warming ball of heat in the stomach.  Over all the qi is quite relaxing and seems quite a bit stronger in terms of these effects after eating than before a meal.

12th infusion 3 minutes

Even pushed it exhibits neither bitterness nor excessive astringency.  Part of it has to do with being very moderately pressed even for a CNNP ’07 production.  The photo doesn’t do it justice in terms of just how transformed this here’s a shot of the cashed leaves anyway.

To the naked eye the cashed leaves look much redder.  Anyhoot, the transformation is coming along nicely.