Puehr Noob
Okay I was going to start a new thread too.. but I figure what the heck.
I really liked the Verdant 2015 Sheng Xiang..something brick sample that was part of their 5/$5. It was very mushroomy and I liked it. Are mushroomy pu-erhs uncommon? Is the mushroom profile a sheng only thing or does it pop up in shou too? I think I saw maybe 1 or 2 pu-erhs on YS that mentioned a mushroom flavor out of the scads that they seem to have. So I would love to get any recs.. Looking for a daily pu-erh so on the cheaper side? Loose would be preferred, but if not then smaller sized cakes/tuochas.
It can come across in shou as well. Just depends on what you are drinking. Sheng does have a bit wider taste profile though.
@mrmopar – thanks for letting me know! Last night I went through YS US sheng/shou to see what I could find. Now my cart has 19 things… oy! haha! gotta bring that puppy down a little more. Of course it’s not all mushroom, there’s a whole bunch of.. oh that just sounds interesting.
@LP no, but it’s not necessary, thanks for asking! I’m excited for the olympics to get a broad selection to learn from.
Right now my body/tastebuds seem to be craving “mushroom”. And searching for mushroom flavored pu brings up mushroom shaped pu info. I’ve tried about 7 pu – 2 sheng, 5 shou… and to my noob tastebuds they all sorta taste the same, which is very different from the Verdant stuff. And I know that it’s suggested to contact the vendors, but that feels sooo… bothersome? I’d rather be informal and bug folks who like to read forums hehe! Anyhow, I’m guessing mushroom notes are not common or maybe not popular in general. Yup, that’s me wanting the weird. ;)
I did the same with chai tea. I tried a bunch of chai’s because I had this NEED to find the right flavor profile to have in my cabinet.
This thread is a shining example to why Steepster is such a valuable resource for the tea community. I feel like I’m just coming out of the “newbie” stage myself and this place is largely responsible. It really feeds into my “research everything to death” state of mind. I am glad you posted and found so many kind and generous responses.
“Research everything to death”. I totally relate. ;) People have been so lovely on here! So refreshing :)
“research everything to death” state will be the death of me – I’ve been online non stop, 20-30 tabs open in the browser from following links to blogs to vendors to articles to forums. The cat’s hungry. The bills haven’t been paid. The boss is calling on the phone. The snow hasn’t been shoveled. And I haven’t even tried the damn stuff yet…
I gotta shut the brain off and just start drinking!
A tea friend gave me the advice once that it might work best to buy something reasonable but not expensive, one cake, and drink a lot of that one version to get a feel for the tea, to work out brewing, and to use as a baseline. He didn’t say to not drink other samples or versions, just that drinking mostly one at first could be helpful. I did that, two years ago now, and tried others, I just never got as far into pu’ers as oolongs and various other types after then.
Even early on it might be helpful to read up on storage issues, because even if you have a only a half-dozen types in relatively small amounts it could be possible to ruin it if you get storage completely wrong. In general there seems to not be so much to worry about; too humid would be a problem, but it isn’t too humid almost everywhere, and storing it near things that give off a strong smell is a problem, a musty basement might make it taste like a musty basement, but that seems kind of obvious.
Another tea friend made an unusual comment about pu’er, that the worst thing that could happen to you is finding one that you like. That’s up for debate, of course, but it does seem to work to keep in mind that personal preference and weighing all the other factors, including cost, depend on one’s own judgment, at best informed by consensus lifted directly from a discussion forum. It’s fine to use others’ opinions as input, especially when they have more experience and can point in helpful directions, just best to take it for what it’s worth.
In regards to your top advice: Do you think this would work for shou and sheng? I’m actually interested in how it would play out; thinking of maybe doing that with heicha (which I HATE)
@john-in-siam wrote: "A tea friend gave me the advice once that it might work best to buy something reasonable but not expensive, one cake, and drink a lot of that one version to get a feel for the tea, to work out brewing, and to use as a baseline. "
Interesting…I was just reading this article in the same vein:
http://www.marshaln.com/2012/07/tea-learning/
“…There is also knowledge that you can gain from drinking the same tea over and over again that you cannot from sampling. This may involve the tea changing on you – a traditionally stored puerh gradually losing its storage taste, for example. Or, it can just be that you start noticing nuances that were there, but were not necessarily obvious the first few times you try it. Or perhaps you experiment with different parameters, water, ware, etc. and notice that it performs differently under different circumstances. This type of knowledge is not possible if you only have 25g of a tea. It can really only come with drinking 200, 300, or even 1000g of the same tea….”
I think maybe some samples up front to at least get a lay of the land, so to speak. And then, phase 2, on to a cake to get really up close and personal for a while. Best of both approaches?
Storage is something I’m still trying to figure out. I imagine for a while (phase 1) they will be smaller samples…so do I keep them open to the air? Both ripe and raw? And do both ripe and raw need to “air out” for a while before enjoying?
The Three Tenet’s of pu’er http://www.twodogteablog.com/2014/08/05/how-to-buy-puer-tea-3-tenets/ regarding your latter statement of finding one you like.
I hope this method starts off with.. “Finding a cake you like” before trying it… because otherwise this just sounds like torture! * grins *
@LP Why drink something you hate when there is so much tea in the world? Life is way to short! ;)
Also, what is this "qi " y’all speak of? Is it a heart racing caffeine thing? I hate that feeling :(
aka tea drunk. Pretty much a over caffeined feeling plus relaxing effect of tea into a weird feeling. It hits some people for some teas and different for other people if it all. There’s stuff I said has high qi that makes me maniac but others it puts them to sleep or meditative. I only get it with puer and some oolongs, others get it from greens.
I get different feelings from different shengs. It depends on the tea , the age of the tea, and how I am feeling at the moment. I have had clarity of thinking and one time I had creative thinking. Other times it’s just the feeling of energy with calm. The first time I had a good quality sheng I felt like I had taken one of those little pills from the movie “limitless”. My thoughts at the time were " I knew what I had to do and I did it".
This is my first post on steepter. I was just about to start a noob puehr thread, too! I think that makes 4 of us now.
From what I was reading, I think that I’m going to try out the raw sampler and the ripe sampler from w2t. Drink them one at a time as was suggested above to get a feel for each individual one over the course of a few days.
A few questions… I see the terms sheng and shou. Does sheng = raw and shou = ripe? What’s the difference in how they are made? And when something says aged, does that just mean something over a year, or something different than that?
Thanks for all the great information above folks!
Sheng = raw, unfermented. Shou = ripe, fermented. (Sometimes sellers use the term fermented instead of raw/ripe).
After that, it’s a long answer. How about this article that covers differences, taste profiles and appreciation http://www.banateacompany.com/pages/mastery.html
Awesome, thanks! Looks like I have a good deal of reading to do. I love it!
I found the Green Miracle and the 2013 Wu Liang Ye Sheng
Going to hook you both up :) @RoriRants @10 Thousand Things
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