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More Streetshop88! On my last order, I asked my wife to choose a tea based on how she felt about looking at it. Sort of an ESP kind of thing. This is the one she chose. I ordered a cake knowing nothing about it. It turned out to be a pretty good tea. It is very light in flavor, but quite smooth. The cake is really nice, it has a pretty wrapper which uses very thick high quality paper. I like that. The leaf quality is very good, big leaves. The soup is medium brown, no fermentation flavor. There is not much complexity, but it feels nice and my wife likes it. If you’re looking for a light safe non earthy ripe pu erh to try, I think this is a good one. Anyone know what company this is from the picture?

I bought a sample of this tea with low expectations: a ripe cake that purports to be both organic and from LaoManE? I had my doubts. But I thought I’d give it a shot, I’m the curious type and I couldn’t resist. As for being organic, who knows. Probably not, as we all suspect the organic label on Chinese tea is often not for real, and in fact, I don’t see the word organic on the picture of the label. But as for being from LaoManE, it very well may be. The tea is interesting, and quite bitter. The kind of bitterness you would expect from a LaoManE tea. And it is interesting to taste this level of bitterness in a ripe pu erh. I wonder whether the bitterness will age out, or if it should already have been aged out since the tea has been fermented into a ripe? Underneath the bitterness is a smoothness, if that makes sense, and a hint of that plum flavor and earthiness, though these other flavors are hard to detect because of all the bitterness. It is hurting my stomach like a young sheng. I may buy a cake of this just to see what happens to it. Maybe I’ll stick the rest of this sample into the Pu-erh Traveling Tea Box for this round to see how others like it. You can, of course, buy a reasonably priced sample from Streetshop88 like I did.

This is a very nice tea. It is not very acidic even though it is young. The flavor is pleasant, with a light pollen flavor underlying a standard solid sheng taste with medium body. It was a very hearty brew, yielding a number of flavorful infusions, all a light bronze color. I’d say it is an excellent buy given that it is currently $28 for a 400g cake. Samples are available.

I decided to buy a sample of this tea from Streetshop88, in part because it is a ‘gold award’ winner. I wonder what gold award it won? Maybe it is smack talk. But Streetshop was kind enough to offer a sample for sale at my request. It wasn’t that great, but definitely pretty good. Maybe I’d give it a bronze award. Smooth, medium fermentation. Good flavor and nice broth.

This tea is really yummy. I think we have Allan to thank for discovering it. Very smooth, great flavor, deep and rich. Some fermentation funk permeates all steepings, but I suspect it will fade and this tea will turn out top notch. I’m going to get a tong, the cakes are only 100g and reasonably priced.

This is a pretty good ripe, medium fermentation. Nice flavor, fruit on the first couple of steepings, then just a mellow fairly smooth flavor. The leaves are really nice, very large and intact. Looks like nice materials were used.

I decided to buy a cake of this based on the positive reviews by DigniTea and TeaDb. I don’t regret it, but some of you might since I got one of the last cakes, Finepuer is now sold out of it. It is a beauty. Nice golden color, very hearty and thick, very little bitterness. Floral and sweet, bit not overly so. I think this will continue to get better with age, I am glad I have one for the collection.

What a great bargain from Yunnan Sourcing. I bought this knowing nothing about it, except that it is “gong tin” heavy, and I usually like a solid gong ting (meaning tribute grade, I think). Being only $14, I added this to a recent order. It is quite good. Dark but not musty, fairly smooth with some bitterness. Early steeps were sweet and jammy. I wish that had held on longer, it was a perfect example of sweet fruit in a ripe tea. Later steeps were still very good, with more subtle fruity notes. This tea has a very high quality to price ratio. Only available on the YS China site, though they have some not so costly shopping options these days.

I think some of you sheng heads might really enjoy this tea from Life in Teacup. It is a nicely aged 2008, and brews up a dark orange thick soup. It’s got a little smoke, some fruit, and slight mushroom tones. A little astringency rounds out the flavor nicely. Definitely worth a sample, it’s $70 a cake at present, which seems like a very fair price given the quality.