Puerh Junky Visits Dali Tuo is a deceptively titled journal entry because we find Puerh Junky festively clad sniffing at something in a most indecorous manner.  Aye, he’s at it again, this time confusing Bob Cratchit for Ichabod Crane.  The camera zooms in and there’s something about the dude’s eyes that are certifiably “not right.”  It’s the amulet, yeah the spellbinder he’s pawing and sniffing at that’s got him all in a lather.  No doubt some of it has to do with the incantations scribbled upon the wrapper of the thing, the thing he holds.  The thing they call “a tuo.”

Dun-dun-dun.

There’s the hint of smoke and fresh-pressed cotton clothing in the tuo.  Yes.  It gives off a distinct impression of tobacco, something they no doubt smoked upon the Pequod.  It’s got a warm air about it, dressed impeccably in a fine high-cotton wrapper despite being 15yrs old, in the Puerh Junky‘s clutches for three years, stowed away without the light of day in the PJL, what everyone knows to be the Puerh Junky Lair.

“Seems to have blackened up a bit, it does,” he mutters to himself.

Lid removed, big waft of band-aids in the lid, while berries bubble from the cup.  That’s the five min warm cup warm up.  Wood.  No smoke or sugar jump out.  Still warm, complex, a bit cranky, scruffy.  It all comes together in the aroma of the rinse, perhaps berry predominates but now there’s smoke again.  Or wood.

The taste of the rinse is obscenely delicious.  Super sweet, kerosene and berry.  Smooth.  Slick in fact.  It was a headless move to drink the rinse, but such are the perils of conjuring the spirit of Ichabod Crane.  Besides, it’s a long 15m from the opening to the official first infusion.  The aftertaste is super slick.  Three drinking vessels tried: cracked ice Longquan celedon, porcelain glazed zisha (inner glaze), and glass.  The celedon cup gives an alarmingly sanguine finish.  All the while the wood, kerosene, sweet fester in the aftertaste.  From glass there’s a wicker front, a bit more astringency, which is a bit of a surprise.  The porcelain, wood and spice.

It’s aged extremely well.  The band-aid smell from the first infusion is now oppressive in the cup.  Aroma in pitcher is lighter, more nuanced.  Taste of berries shifts to black pepper in the throat, then to kerosene and band-aids.  Band-aids and berry in the aftertaste, then strawberries.  There’s some elements of the vaunted Forever Love in there, smokier presumably is the Dali Tuo.  There’s a kind of echo of smoke.  The note will bend kerosene or smoke depending on perspective.  Storage still clearly fantastic.

The second infusion has the smoothness and viscosity standout.  It’s more wood and petrol in the taste.  Not as sweet.  Tasting more like it’s done being all fruoux, fruoux.  An image of these dogs sitting about a card table smoking cigars comes to mind.  The Puerh Junky tries to distract himself with nicer thoughts like of Ahab and the Pequod.  There’s a lemon note endeavoring to make itself known, and some vegetal bitterness has definitely made itself known, maybe something like dandelion.  Room temp the sweetness and berry prevail in the porcelain cup.

The Dali Tuo gets more and more serious with each passing year.  It’s in a darker more petrolly place presently.  Maybe a year or two before becoming even more strait berry hard to say.  Instagram fotos.