Tag Archives: tulin

Visiting Grenouille and Aging

Posted on by Yang-chu
27 Jul

Visiting Grenouille and Aging tackles two subjects: the first is an update on the ’06 Grenouille, and the second compares Grenouille to the considerably younger ’16 Bulang Shengtai, Jindafu.  Let’s begin

Grenouille’s Developments

Grenouille hails from Wuliang Mt, in Simao.  The most famous of Simao mountains by far is Jingmai.  Wuliang Mt could well be the second most famous.  The terroir profiles of the two are distinctive. Where Jingmai are know for their florals, often described as orchid, Wuliang can be minerally or peppery.  The pepper profile is extremely common among Simaos that do not bear the appellation Jingmai.  These often hail from Jinggu.  There is also Ailao Mt possessing a pepper note.  Simao is synonymous with Lancang, cf Lincang, and Puer City.  Jingmai, Wuliang, Jinggu, and Ailao are the commonly recognized names of the productions associated with Simao.

There will be a quiz so pay attention.

Grenouille typifies the Simao essence.  Where Jingmai should sing in a high register, other Simao brood.  There’s nothing pitchy.  Rather, there’s a complex melange of medium to dark notes, notes that are difficult to identify beyond Simao itself.  Think of an attar of oud, vetiver, and vanilla, the hand of a fiendish perfumer.   This is not your mother’s Menghai.  It takes some sessions to get one’s head around what the terroir communicates.  Similar offerings in the the Collection include Buddha Impressions and Auspicious Dragon, both from Jinggu and the Cherry Blossom, also from Wuliang.

Grenouille came into the Puerh Junky’s possession in early ’19.  Up to that point, it had been conservatively dry stored, perhaps a bit warm.  Such conditions can give rise to a baby powder cum old church lady perfume quality that appeals to many drinkers.  The transition has been from subtle to insufferable to settled, where it is now this Jul 2022.  There’s a touch of bitter and an even smaller bit of sour.  Quite sophisticated it is.

By “settled,” the Puerh Junky means to convey something about that layer of baby powder.  At the insufferable stage, it is the prevailing note constituting an intensely sweet attar.  This is where increased humidity of LA conditions heighten the top layer of expression.  At the settled stage, that trait percolates into the overall character of the tea.  This indicates transformation beyond the top layer where the deeper layers have also had a chance to cook.

Aging: Grenouille vs Bulang Shengtai

Grenouille is from ’06 and Bulang Shengtai is from ’16.  Ten year difference.  I’ve been storing the latter since ’17 and the former, as mentioned above, since ’19.

Grenouille 2022 Foto

Shot two:

Bulang Shengtai 2022 Foto

Here’s another:

Bulang Shengtai 2017 Foto

Let’s let the pictures speak for themselves.  It’s clear that Grenouille is darker, but the question is whether it appears ten years darker.  The answer lies in understanding the relative nature of aging.  Obvious, right?  Still, it’s good to have a side-by-side gander to determine just how difficult it is to tell the age of a production by the leaves themselves.

The darker the leaves the older the tea.  Again obvious.  The darkness of the leaves relative the production date indicates storage conditions.  The difference is apparent in clearly humid versus dry stored productions.  However, there is a good deal of gray, especially among mainland offerings, so the colour provides an additional indicator of just how dry relative what’s being tasted.  This provides some clues regarding what to expect given one’s own storage conditions and transformation prospects for the production itself.   Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I snapped a shot of Grenouille‘s cashed leaves when first acquired.

 

 

 

Visiting Tulin’s Puerh Tuo

Posted on by Yang-chu
18 Dec

Visiting Tulin’s Puerh Tuo finds the Puerh Junky faced with the arduous task of drinking more tea.  Tulin is essentially Xiaguan factory #2.  The person who runs their show is descended from the XG lineage.  If one doesn’t know XG, then the reference is pretty much lost.  The gist is that XG takes their tuo seriously and by extension so should Tulin.

The May 2019 acquisition of the ’06 Silver Pekoe is showing the first signs of root beerification.  The taste is still predominantly sandalwood and dish detergent.  The material from this production is excellent but dry storage will greatly impact its expression and you can’t get root beer from dry-stored puerh.  Thick and intense.  Only time will tell if this second batch root beers it up more intensely.

Tippy Tuo has been the most popular among the three Tulin tuo offerings.  The latest batch is surprisingly well stored, if a bit dry.  The broth brews rusty orange, with flavours of peat, attic newspaper, and some old flowers.  The flower note comes through in the huigan, in the event you notice it given its unbearable astringency.  It’s super drying, though cheeky as well, which will induce the salivary glands in some.  It’s a tad throaty but the sensation is mostly with the cheeks and throat.

Tippy Tuo 2021

In contrast to the two above, the AMT comes from chopped leaves.  It’s definitely sweeter than the Tippy Tuo and less thick than the Silver Pekoe.  The floral huigan is its most outstanding attribute which seems to be from remarkably consistent storage.  Over that time, the mushroom taste seems to have been replaced with newspaper.  The astringency characterizing this production has waned slightly but not sufficiently to make me a huge fan.

AMT Tulin 2021

Boris and Natasha love the Tulin tuo productions.  If you don’t catch the reference, it’s because confounded moose and skvirrel talk much lies to Puerh Junky about astringency.  Often Xiaguan references might be associated with smoke.  These Tulin tuo haven’t any hint of smoke.  Among the handful of XG tuo your Junkyness has sampled, the Tippy Tuo at one point approximated XG’s Gold Ribbon but now it and AMT more closely some pedestrian MKRS offerings, while the Silver Pekoe compares favourably with Grenouille from Simao region. All of these Tulin are from Wuliang.

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.

Visiting Silver Pekoe Tuo

Posted on by Yang-chu
15 Jun

Visiting Silver Pekoe Tuo is in reference to an ’06 Tulin raw tuo.  I first purchased a number of these in ’14 and then they reappeared around ’18 at around 3X the price and completely different storage conditions.  I’ll designate the first purchasing date as FP and the one in ’18 as LP.  They’re both the same ’06 production.

For starters FP was much more humidly stored.  Camphor aroma emanated from its pores.  In the early days sometimes the camphor taste was more obvious than others.  There was noticeable bitterness and there was a distinctive orange juice finish.  It went over a rocky path till reaching root beer perfection.

The LP is, how shall you say, fuzzy.  The aroma is something akin to laundry powder or drier sheets, that fresh perfume scent common among soaps.  Maybe that’s lavender.  Sometimes it blends in with a vanilla, as with the sold out Vanilla Palace.   It’s definitely a perfume which could classify as floral but the notes are much deeper.  It’s the difference between striking a sound on wine glass or upon a hide or a gut string.  LP is like the erhu, the stringed instrument that sounds like a stringed instrument imitating an oboe or a duck.

People complain there aren’t enough pictures, so that’s an erhu.  There’s a pervasive sentiment that pictures of ducks are humourous.  I beg to differ.

The taste of the LP is three words: bubble gum tobacco.  It would be four words if I added an “and.”  I’ve learned long ago to not overleaf this production, so I went with five grams in my slow-pouring 150ml zisha for florals.  It’s noticeably thick and dense, an intense wave of the perfume lady at church before your mind grabs hold of the bubble gum and tobacco.

I cannot recall any smokiness or tobacco from the FP.  There isn’t any smokiness in the aroma that I can detect through the church lady perfume in the LP, though it could be perceived as incense or potpourri depending on how much you like that smell.  This is the smoke that some productions take on as they age and what makes them classed as tobacco. These tend to be tastier in fall.

Now the Puerh Junky doesn’t go around listening to such stuff, unless pining over a previous incarnation.  In honest assessment, the LP is a Fruit Monster on steroids.  The material overall is fantastic.  That said, knowing what it was makes me hate it.  I can appreciate the LP for what it is but only to a certain extent, sorta like the Sean Connery people with James Bond.

Le Yinhao Originale

To be fair, the FP was stored four years before arriving, and the LP has been sitting in the very same deep storage for better than two years at least.  My sample notes are from items in the batting lineup.  These are stored these are stored for convenient access.  Humidity and temp are less concentrated.  It’s reasonable to conclude that the deep stored LP are considerably different from the one in the lineup.

Alas dear readers, to share a comparison sampler, if you will, would be an achievement of positive no significance beyond demonstrating the ginormous differences that storage expresses upon the same production.  There is some FP stash but as part of the collection, it indisposed.  Aye, between cataloging and tweaking storage of an ever-growing puerh junkstrosity, an item or two has known to get misplaced.

 

Puerh Rating: Cherry Blossom

Posted on by Yang-chu
04 Oct

The Puerh Junky Rating System (PJRS) takes on the Cherry Blossom.  The Puerh Junky is tasting the ’12 version of a Tulin production that also ran in ’14.  Tulin is most renowned for a few tuo they’ve made.  Their taste bears resemblances to Xiaguan in terms of smoke and husk.  Much of their excellent qi material hails from Wuliang Mt.

After three rounds the results were as follows:

  • Aroma        13
  • Clarity        10
  • Sweetness 15
  • Viscosity     15
  • Astringency 15
  • Huigan        14
  • Qi                10

Reflections

Sweet Honey in the Rock

Shock.  I know that the Cherry Blossom is very good.  I didn’t know it was this good.  Let’s briefly note its perfect score in three categories: sweetness, viscosity, and astringency.  It’s astoundingly sweet and thick and as it wanes the astringency only provides balance to all that thickness and sugar.  It is NOT zero astringency by any remote stretch but the astringency is perfect for this production.

Here’s where I usually talk about flaws.  It’s clarity is challenged initially, but is perfect by the third infusion.  The Qi score actually reflects a balanced qi experience, not overwhelming.  I could have drunk more without feeling I would have done myself damage.

Conclusions

At the writing of this post on 3 Oct 2020 the Cherry Blossom has rated higher than any other tea– by seven points.  It rates better than the Gold and Jade Fill the Hall at 82, but that was in the early stage of testing the PJRS and hadn’t fully worked out the astringency scoring.  The point is that in terms of all seven criteria, the Puerh Junky is completely in the dark how a production will rate.

This is a tobacco class production but the tastes are much more varied and interesting.  The caption above Sweet Honey in the Rock captures it, but you have to throw in the smoke, cherries, and their blossoms.  Puerh Rating: Cherry Blossom

94/105, A

Puerh Rating: AMT

Posted on by Yang-chu
20 Sep

The Puerh Junky Rating System (PJRS) takes on the ’07 AMT, TL 100g tuo.  In my puerh junkocity, “one Tulin rating deserves another.”  The Acutal Mushroom Taste (hence AMT) tuo has been on hand since at the latest early ’16.  In contrast to the other two tuo from Tulin offered, it stands out for the absence of floral notes.  Though its notes are lower in the range, it has shown nothing of the transformative capacity of the White Tips.

After three rounds the total was as follows:

  • Aroma          10
  • Clarity            8
  • Sweetness     7
  • Viscosity         9
  • Astringency   11
  • Huigan          11
  • Qi                    7

Reflections

The words I wrote were “bitter, vegetal, floral.”  I clearly hated this experience.  It performs well in terms of viscosity and astringency, and there is no single category in which it doesn’t perform solidly.  Hence, it is a very well rounded everyday drinker. But I didn’t taste any mushroom.

The following day I had three very solid rounds from AMT and tasted the mushroom.  Interesting.  My reaction from a day earlier contradicts the introduction regarding lack of floral taste.  I generally do not associate the AMT with being floral.  Obviously, tastes change by the day affected by diet, climate, and context.  That’s why several sessions afford a much more accurate assessment than just one or two.

Conclusions

The PJRS surprises me.  By weighing the seven variables evenly, productions with a better all around performance will score higher relative much “better” puerh productions.  Such is the case for the AMT.  “Better” might be something purely subjective, so the rating scale helps to strip away subjective preferences around taste to simply see how the tea performs in terms of attributes that have some objective basis.

The AMT is a low risk, high reward introduction to semi-aged, semi-humid raw puerh tea.  Some have found its “qi-appeal” much higher than myself.  Puerh Rating RMT:

73/105, B

Puerh Rating: Silver Pekoe

Posted on by Yang-chu
18 Sep

The Puerh Junky Rating System (PJRS) takes on the 06 Silver Pekoe Tuo.   The Silver Pekoe is one of the most ferocious of the Puerh Junky offerings.  It also happens to be one of the oldest.  It is a Tulin TF production, which carries a solid reputation for their puerh tuos.

After three rounds the total was as follows:

  • Aroma          12
  • Clarity           11
  • Sweetness     8
  • Viscosity         7
  • Astringency   10
  • Huigan          14
  • Qi                  10

Reflections

2020 Shot of the ’19 Purchase

Ferocious describes the Silver Pekoe, even after 14 years.  Needless to say, if you like a big bite in the mouth, then this is the tuo for you.  In terms of qi, it is also no slouch.  Now a matter of disclosure. . .

I originally purchased the SP in 2015.  At the time, it struck me as “interesting” but with a pronounced orange-juice finish that make me feel there was something wrong with the storage.  It always struck me as dynamic and sometimes the aroma was plain wicked, so I sampled it frequently, while stashing the store away in the container with extra heat and humidity to get the sour out.  The end result was nothing short of spectacular. . . after 3.5 yrs.

In 2019 I was able to source it again.  There is a considerable difference between the ’19 and ’15 that can only be attributed to differences in storage.  The most alarming difference to my sensibility is the degree of bitterness that can be detected in the ’19.  I find it a major put-off.  Second, the ’19 tastes much more petrolly and feels hotter.  This also the taste of dry wood, like in a wood shop or the taste of tequilas and whiskeys.

The outstanding huigan  of the ’19 stored is brashly floral, present instantaneously and demanding of your attention.  The ’15 stored is damp moist forest, expressing cooling and commingling alchemy.  There’s no wood or fire, just mint and roots.

Conclusions

The differences in storage are stunning, sufficient for me not recognize the same production.  It’s not just a muting of notes that occurs with the variance of conditions, so the process cannot be analogized to Davis’ use of the muffler tin or plastic when creating a mood.  This is because Davis will still hit all the notes, but storage determines largely where in the range tastes will develop.  Nothing has made this more apparently clear than the ’06 White Tips.

Whether subsequent heat and humidity deepen the range remains to be seen.  The ’19 version was reviewed and is presently the item offered.  The Puerh Junky Rating: Silver Pekoe

72/105, B

Heavy Handed On Cherry Blossom

Posted on by Yang-chu
30 May

Heavy Handed on Cherry Blossom is all on account of my sister, who likes her raw puerh with a kick.  I added an extra gram to my normal six for my trusty eggplant pot, 150ml.  The tea crumbles from the cake indecorously but gives off tremendously inviting aroma even dry.

The first and second infusions are the best, the most intensely spicy and numbing.  The aftertaste is sugary cinnamon like Red Hots, also big qi.  But that all wears off by the 4th infusion into a fairly tame experience.

The intensity of the first few infusions is frankly nothing short of spectacular.  It reminded me of a recent acquisition that I found to be among Tulin’s best of what is already very good.

250g Tulin Raw

As the cake continues to develop, Cherry Blossom should likely provide longer interesting sessions.  The raw material from Wuliang Mt seems on part with the Tippy and noticeably better than the AMT or the 07 Tippy, a name I need to desperately change.

Cherry Blossom raw puerh cake is dreadfully tasty on a consistent basis.  The taste pops whether subjected to a light or heavy hand.

06 Tippy Tuo Puerh II

Posted on by Yang-chu
17 May

Exactly one year ago I received the 06 Tippy Tuo Puerh II.  Part two because it is the second order since April of ’15.  I presently have three storage variations of this production: 1) the original, 2) TTII, and 3) Bangkok stored 33 mth original.  I thought I’d introduce TTII by contrasting it with the original.

The Original can be reviewed here.  It’s important to note that this is a dynamic puerh.  It has gone through several phases, some of which were not so pleasant.  In particular, the early years in my possession sometimes produced sessions of considerable orange juice aftertaste.  Presumably, the TTI has already gone through this stage.  It has overall been dryer stored than the Original.  The original has been subjected to fairly high fluctuations in temperature and relatively high humidity since ’15.  One of the reasons was to cook that orange juice taste out.

Simultaneously, the Original expressed camphor menthol dank forest attributes and a punishing qi.  By contrast, TTI has no detectable camphor, not the minty kind anyway.  It is much softer with vanilla and baby power notes, thick perfumy , none of the aggression generally associated with it.  It has a personality generally expected from tippy material without any of the edges.

4th Infusion

The color of the liquor suggests a considerably younger production year than ’06.  The variability imparted by storage conditions essentially makes for an entirely different production.  Here is a considerably drier-stored phenomenon that may have played a role in the absence of sour and preservation of perfume.

The Original has entered a root beer phase.  Whether the TTII enters a root beer phase remains to be seen.  The Original always possessed a measure of astringency that gave it a real macho presence, while the TTII has a noticeably thick and round mouthfeel with an essence considerably more feminine.

 

Smoke, Sugar, and Stone: Puerh Vessels Cont.

Posted on by Yang-chu
07 Apr

Smoke, sugar, and stone, that’s the tastes I pick up drinking Cherry Blossom from my cracked-ice celedon cup.  The yellow clay cup gives a considerably rounder effect.  Welcome to puerh vessel comparison continued.  In this foray, we’re taking a closer look at ’12 Cherry Blossom puerh cake with the following cast of characters:

My new clay pot 150cc– the fanciest of my acquisitions so far.  I’m calling it UFO.

Next is this cup, probably my fav, in a shot taken barely over a year ago.


Finally there’s a yellow clay cup, for which I have neither picture nor recollection of how it entered my possession.

The religious reader of these most-episodic posts may be scratching his head, as only in my very last post I had established that productions younger than 10 years old are best in a gaiwan.  I’ve had Cherry Blossom in both even quite recently.  It is a unique raw that I can imagine enjoying any which way.

The UFO pot has a fast pour rate.  This is ideal for taking advantage of the clay chemistry while preventing over brewing.   In the initial infusions, the glazed cup imparts a bit more ashy bite at the end.  By the fifth infusion, the tea must soak for at least 10s and the difference between the two becomes less discernible.  It seems that the celedon cup begins to be just as round but with greater evidence of tobacco and smoke, though I could be making that up.  What I don’t feel I’m making us is how thicker and rounder the experience is with the clay cup.  At a lower temp, vanilla notes are more apparent from it.

From the seventh infusion, brewing time needed to be increased to about 30 s.  At this stage of its development, the Cherry Blossom name seems wholly fitting, as the cherry notes really gain steam especially in the aftertaste.  With longer brewing times at cool temps, some bitterness comes through but not bottoming out bitterness.

Somehow, I feel that the experience with the glazed cup is better because the notes come through purer than with clay.  The tea itself is impressive on many levels from  complexity of taste to durability to its salivation production.

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