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I have been curious about pu erh paste for quite a while now. It seemed like it would be bad, but hey, I’ve drank bug shit tea, so why not. It was actually interesting and not bad. The way I did it was to dissolve one tiny piece in about 50 ml of water, let it sit for a minute, stir it up, drink, then repeat since the little chunk dissolves slowly. But you can probably just let the whole thing dissolve in a larger amount of water and wait. One tiny piece can easily make 6 oz of tea.

It basically ends up tasting like a decent grandpa style shu drink. It was way smoother than I was expecting. Very easy to drink, and of course convenient. It’s akin to a high quality instant coffee – not as good as the real thing, but pretty good overall.

The doctor is in! I wonder where Dr. Puer got his or her degree? This is a nice smooth easy drinking shu. It kind of tastes like Dayi and Xiaguan had a baby, and it was mellower than its parents. Some subtle smoke, changing states of dark flavors, smooth and very clear, not very complex. It is on the lighter side. If you haven’t tried the Doc, this would be a good one to start with.

This was a good tea, though not my personal style. If you like Xiaguan ripes, I think you would really enjoy this one. It has a Smokey backdrop which I think people describe as camphor. The soup is really clear, which is unusual for a young ripe in my experience. It held up well and lasted a long time. This is old school ripe pu erh.

Trying this tea again after 3 years of aging. It is really good. Still bitter in a good way, though maybe a bit less so. It is tasty. No stomach ache this time around. Sorry, but I just bought the last 2 cakes! There are still some 100g samples available.

This just barely passed the bar for a Dayi ripe. This is one of my favorite recipes, but this particular year fell flat. It’s hard to find the right Dayi ripe flavor sometimes!

I applaud the use of high quality material for shu. This tea has a soft flavor profile, perhaps like one might expect from a yiwu pu erh. It was perfectly fine, but I found it lacking in character, depth, and complexity. A little too subtle for my tastes.

Though I am a Dayi Ripe lover, I hadn’t tried a V93 until today! I just ordered a tong of the 2010 version from King Tea Mall since it has been reviewed so well. Then I was going through my stash this weekend, and lo and behold, I found a 2008 tuo! It was probably acquired from Mandala or Yunnan Sourcing several years ago. So I was excited to try it. However, I was disappointed. I might just have a bad tuo, but it tastes very astringent and lacks good flavor, and maybe has a bad aftertaste as well. Has anyone had this happen, where a very well-reviewed tea tastes off? I assume this happens sometimes, particularly in large batch factory teas. I know it has happened to me in the past (even though I have good storage, I use a closet pumidor). I am still looking forward to trying the 2010 tuo, hopefully it will better represent this recipe.

Yum, killer Dayi ripe with lots of caffeine.