1999 Shou from Royal Tea Bay taste?
Got a nice ripe sample from Liquid Proust of this tea and decided to try it. Never had a Shou older than the 2014 Ontario 1357 from Whispering Pines before. This 1999 Shou tastes VERY earthy. Like dirt and wet leaves. Is it supposed to taste like this? It’s not an unpleasant taste just one I’ve never tasted before. Any thoughts?
1999 Shou from Royal Tea Bay is most probably much more recent than 1999. Royal Tea Bay sells some questionable tea. This is probably but not definitely one of them. An actual tea from 1999 should not taste earthy at all, it should have completely cleared.
Well there ya go. I’ve steeped it in my yixing for different times and it tastes like wet dirt no matter how I do it. I guess that was a wasted session and a complete waste of water. It is pretty funky. The cake I got from Whisering Pines the 2014 Ontario, tastes nothing like this as it is sweet and has a very pleasant taste. This stuff is just not even close. I was wondering if the age caused it to taste like this. Glad to know that GOOD aged pu is supposed to be much better. Ugh. What a fucking waste. Lol.
As a general rule most older teas on EBay are actually fake in the sense that they are not as old as they are claimed to be. They are also usually too cheap to be that old. I have bought a couple of these teas on EBay. Sometimes they can be decent teas as long as you keep in mind they are not as old as claimed. They are usually very cheap, under $40 a cake. Real tea from that era usually goes for a lot more. I have a sample coming from Yunnan Sourcing of a 1996 shou. The full bing goes for something like $175. Any time a company offers to sell you a 1999 tea for $20 assume it is from more recent times. The particular tea you mention is no longer on Royal Tea Bay’s EBay site. Two sellers on EBay known for fakes are Royal Tea Bay and Fengyuan Teashop.
Well. Some shou IS earthy and it is supposed to taste earthy. Wet leaves and wet dirt don’t sound bad to me. I LOVE that WP Ontario but not all shou is gonna taste like that and maybe instead of considering that session a waste, you could look at it as a learning experience???
Try flash steeps… worked for me.
Generally when a tea is a bit rough, I don’t let it sit in water.
I would also say that very little in the way of shou will measure up to Whispering Pines. There are some teas out there just as good, but most are inferior to a Huron Gold Needle cake. One out there just as good in my opinion is the 2008 Song of Chi Tse from Berylleb King Tea on EBay. It sells for a reasonable price but probably costs more than your 1999 shou.
I agree that White2Tea’s ripe is generally quite good. The 1998 White Tuo is particularly good in my opinion. But it took me a couple of sessions to come to that opinion. Airing out the tea for six months seemed to help it dramatically.
I think 2008 Song of Chi Tse from Berylleb King Tea was included in that package that Liquid Proust sent to me. I remember seeing the word Berylleb on one of those packets on that bag. Ill have to check on that tomorrow.
I agree with Allan that the WP Huron is hard to beat. It is sweet, creamy and delicious and I’m gonna write a note on it later this evening.
Two others that I like a LOT are Mandala’s Year of the Dragon and Crimson Lotus’ 2012 Bulang Gushu “Ancient Tree” Shou – those are both very, very tasty and accessible.
i love this tea!
most teas that tasted this earthy were yucky but this one is very pleasent!
here is my review: http://steepster.com/teas/royal-tea-bay-co-ltd/68454-1999-golden-shou-puerh
is still very good too me. it does seem suspiciously earthy. but it tastes more like this tea :D http://yunnansourcing.com/en/china-native-products-imp-exp/2549-2002-cnnp-lucky-brand-y671-aged-ripe-pu-erh-tea-100-grams.html
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