New into pu-erh - looking for an advice
Hello,
Im just starting my journey and i need someone more experienced to give me an advice from where to begin with.
If you would choose 1 single online shop and 4 cakes (2x different shou and 2x different sheng) – which would it be?
Thank you for all advices :)
Hello and welcome to the puerh rabbit hole!
I would ask what your budget is what your taste preferences might be.
What has been your puerh experience so far?
I would very strongly suggest getting many samples rather than 4 cakes. This was the advice I was given but didn’t heed. If you get whole cakes then you might want to play it safe and you’ll be limited to just those four. If you get samples you can get a range of price tiers, regions, ages and producers. You pay more per gram but when you later buy cakes, it will be a decision informed by your own taste preference.
I think the vendor would have to be Yunnan Sourcing.
I will second the samples as well. I would try a bunch of good vendors and do some tastings as some have storage differences. If you are close to someone swaps can be a way to sample as well.
Welcome to the rabbit hole…….
Hey Rob, thanks for that – and yea, thats what im doing also (base on my own preferences and sampling ill supply myself)- and thats the one side of the story, second one is filling up boxes with cakes :) and i want to have something to start building up my private collection.
My budget is not great i guess – 200-300$ each month on tea itself and my previous experiences are rather short, my sister bough me one 20yo cake while she was visiting China (i think it was riped one, but i have no idea who produced it) – and it was just awesome, other than that some easier to buy (and cheaper) polish market pu-erhs (way lower quality when i compare them to the cake i used to have).
First, your location will somewhat determine the shops you’ll use for learning purposes and regular orders.
There’s very few full cakes I would suggest to anyone outside of sampling five different puerh 3x each with a sample size so you can figure out the taste profile of those puerh and then report back for others to help guide you.
If you want to try some samples, I’m a sheng guy so my shou knowledge is bleh, here’s a comment I posted on Reddit recently about daily drinker shengs on a budget which are essential the teas that I would rebuy or drink throughout the week as a regular drink.
“[–]LiquidProustTeas 14 points 4 days ago
Alright, easy enough : ) So I’ll approach this by linking what I have and will rebuy since I find them to be teas I’ve becoming quite acquainted with over many sessions.
I always have one of these on hand at all times: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2014-spring-dehong-ye-sheng-white-wrapper-mini-pu-erh-tea-cake-1 A little astringency still, but every few months it changes just a tad and I can tell because I’ve been drinking it over a year now. Solid tea for a great price and a future worth experiencing.
I tend to always have a spring Bang Dong on hands as well because I like to have a lighter tea with vegetable notes that have floral hints: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2010-yunnan-sourcing-bang-dong-village-raw-wild-arbor-pu-erh-tea-cake-of-mengku a little pricey, but if you want something with a bit more punch (up front bitterness due to age) you can always grab a 2015/2016 spring Bang Dong which I find both to be great as well.
A secret weapon right now would be : https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2002-hai-lang-hao-ai-lao-shan-mini-cake-raw-pu-erh-tea Little said about this guy, but I assure you it’s a solid buy! https://steepster.com/teas/yunnan-sourcing/30391-2002-hai-lang-hao-ai-lao-shan-mini-cake
If you want something with a bit more punch, the Wild Pig Pool teas have been quite enjoyable. I’ve gone through two cakes at this point and shared quite a bit as well since I find them to have a bit more viscosity that leads to a thick liquid that is really enjoyable: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2015-yunnan-sourcing-ye-zhu-tang-wild-arbor-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake
Let me know if you want a good smokey suggestion as well, but if you’re placing a YS order I highly suggest adding some of these: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/hi-tech-raw-pu-erh-tea-dragon-ball-rolled-puer”
Again, samples will be your best friend for the meantime. There will be plenty of people helping you out as you leave tasting notes or report back : )
Samples for the most part but I think you should pick up 1 cake of a sheng and shu to have something you can go back to and taste against to get the feel of how it tastes during different seasons and how it evolves year to year. You should get a digital thermometer with a hygrometer. Don’t cheap out but don’t go overboard.
Okay for shou if you are going with YS which I highly recommend, green Miracle and Year of the horse. Except for one ripe I got from Toby these are by far the best ripes ive ever had.
After that get some samples of an aged raw as well a young raw, and maybe aged ripe. They all taste so completely different that its hard to even describe.
The 2007 CNNP 8891 from Yunnan Sourcing is a great buy. It has had great storage and the ten years of age on it have really turned it into something very nice. It is very affordable, and will show you what age does to raw puerh – notes of dried dark fruit, sweet tobacco, leather. All very, very tasty.
Like everyone has said, I would recommend just getting a sample, but this tea is very approachable.
Sorry, I forgot to give a recommendation. Also word of advice, once you open the bag and try the tea, the first session will be good, but then the remainder of the sample closes up and although it’s hard, you should really wait 3 to 6 months before trying the rest of the sample to allow the tea to settle and open up. Something about the shipping..the altitude changes, heat,or my humidity or something else. Really closes up the tea. What I do when I get my samples is cut off the tops of the “bag” and have them sitting in my pumidor so they can acclimate. I also suggest getting some green tea and other stuff to hold you over.
Does anybody else have the same experience?
Try anything on YS, if you don’t have a taste base then just make sure you go by region and pick up a variety and see what is northern floral, or a southern honey..
Check out Teadb.org (https://teadb.org/puerh-regional-primer/)and Meileaf on youtube.
W2t has a terrior pack
Banateaco.com is specific to XSB
As for a tea that you might not like or may (I don’t know) but I like it:
https://yunnansourcing.com/products/jing-gu-zi-cha-purple-pu-erh-tea-mini-cake
@liquidproust
try, I have found that my ‘14 mini white label it doesn’t have the complexity or length and is more peppery and this one is more complex amalgamation of asiatic flavors with a strong orange rind (bitter but good) in the back that lasts a while.
https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2015-yunnan-sourcing-dehong-ye-sheng-cha-wild-tree-purple-tea-cake
One other suggestion I make to people is consider White2tea or YS tea club, if you dont know what you want, leave it to the experts and just worry about paying and drinking till you have a few that you can point to and ask and say, okay I like this… now what tastes like this.
YS tea club tends to be very very steady reliable tea’s
White2tea is all over the place and tries to surprise people..
So YS is better if you want steady, and White2tea is better if you want a surprise every once in a while.
I would also recommend the monthly clubs and agree with Kens comments. However this won’t start “filling up boxes with cakes” as Tranides says. I totally get that urge! I revisited Green Miracle yesterday and it’s a good tea. Very clean and mellow and rounded I thought. I’m drinking Han Gu Di right now and I would recommended that too. It’s Gushu, Spring picked and it has a nice energy (so does Green Miracle actually) I’d say it’s a good start. It’s a big 400g cake so factor that in when considering price. The Green Miracle is 250g.
In also enjoying Haiwan ripes recently. They are very well priced and have a bit of rough edge that I like. I get bored of teas that are too smooth. Yunnan Sourcing has a 2014 7578 for $12. That’s a well priced cake for your box and you can compare rough and smooth. Rinse twice.
On to aged raw. This is where it gets pricey and I couldn’t really say what to get. You really should sample in this category. I’ve bought some cakes that I hate and I can’t really see myself drinking them. Maybe in 30 years time!
https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2015-yunnan-sourcing-green-miracle-wild-arbor-ripe-pu-erh-tea
https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2016-yunnan-sourcing-han-gu-di-old-arbor-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake
https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2014-haiwan-7578-recipe-ripe-pu-erh-tea-cake
Thank you guys a lot. Ive ordered some samples from YS, as well as some cakes just as a blind choice, plus ive gone trough thread and favourited all the suggestions u have made – i guess within 4 months im going to catch them all :) to have wide idea on what tastes how and then i can write some rewievs. My two blind-choice cakes came 3 days ago and i couldnt stop myself from trying them (just a tiny bit to get the glimpse of whats coming next :)
So i have tried:
Yesterday:
https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2003-xinghai-wild-elephant-valley-aged-ripe-pu-erh-tea-cake
Today:
https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2008-nan-jian-912-certified-organic-raw-pu-erh-tea-iron-cake
Oh my god :) i have so missed that taste. Ripe is kinda known to my taste, but raw is totaly new experience and both are awesome. It amazes me how many different flavours can blossom white tasting. And im so excited about future experiences :)
Tashi delek to everyone!
One more advice needed :). Ive recived few samples just today, and im looking into trying them BUT. What is the best practice to compare them and finding the most liked to last liked order? Trying everything during one day would not be good i guess (or maybe im wrong?), on another hand – too long periods between them can falsify memories of the taste. What would be the best idea to utilize 10 samples?
I would take notes either on paper or on here and score them based on your enjoyment. When comparing just two or three teas I think it’s best to try them all in one day, but trying to do ten would be way too much tea for one day for me. Just go at whatever pace feels natural and enjoyable. Try to make sure that you’re brewing all the sheng the same way and all the shou the same way (amount of tea, temp, and amount of water)
Of course the most important thing is to enjoy them. Don’t make it a chore or troublesome. Two or three a day would probably be the maximum I’d suggest. Do the raws together then the ripes. Sometimes a very good tea can linger in the mouth and make the next tea taste better than it might actually be. So leave a bit of a gap. Don’t have too much on an empty stomach, you may feel a bit uncomfortable. I would take notes. Brew to the same parameters in a neutral pot, i.e. probably want to use a glazed one as it will give more consistency and allow a more neutral comparison. I always weigh my tea and the “standard” ratio I encounter a lot (and use myself) is 1g to 15ml of water. So you will want to know the volume of your brewing vessel. About 100-150 ml is ideal for gong fu. Probably nearer 100ml if you are tasting a lot of tea per day. Rinse the tea first for about 5 seconds and leave it for a couple of minutes or longer to hydrate.
There is quite an interesting video recently from Mei Leaf on youtube about tasting tea. Might be worth a watch. And any teadb puerh video may be of interest.
But really, other than consistency in brewing, the rest of it is up to you.
Same brewing parameters as Rob said and don’t do a bunch in one day. Focus on one and note its attributes. I would also let them breathe a day or two before you drink them as they have been sealed up for shipping. One of the best tips I use is to wait about 10 minutes after the rinse. If you weigh the vessel with the tea in it before and after the rinse you can see how much water absorbs. Give it time to get into the compressed leaf and the brew is usually better.
When I get a bunch of samples which I want to compare, in order to decide which of them to buy more, I start with the cheapest one and move on, one tea a day, up to the costliest one. I brew all of them with the same parameters as other have suggested above. If I am still undecided after the first round, I repeat the whole thing, maybe with a different set of parameters – like clay instead of the standard ceramic/porcelain or extra/less tea leaves, etc.
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