metushalach- age is only a number

1 adar 5781 

im gonna be doing a few posts today because i am snowed in and might as well. one of the reasons i moved out to the PNW was to get away from the snow and cold, but here it is. i cant go anywhere and it's too cold for me to romp around much. but it does look very pretty especially on the property im on so i will be drinking lots of tea, eating soup/stew and reading a lot. on to the teas.

after drinking my puerhshop samples, i am starting to learn how much difference storage makes. these teas were all dry stored and then dry-er stored in the US in the PS warehouse (kept at room temp but at 45% RH). all 7 of PS teas i drank had a mineral/clay-like aftertaste that came out around steep 4 and held on til the end. i am guessing had to do with the storage. each vendor imparts their own particular storage taste, just like each house has its own unique odor…

 

i also learned about how my body feels about teas that are only slightly aged. a lot of these PS teas are 10-15+ years old, but they do not taste like it. okay, they don’t taste like it fine, but that’s not all. part of aging puer is for certain physiological benefits (ie: healthy microbes, the evolution of the qi, etc). after drinking these younger feeling teas, especially if doing so a few days in a row, it started to mess with my stomach. i had to limit myself to only trying one of these younger feeling teas a week. this includes the 2006 Yiwu i really enjoyed. this surprised me, ive heard of puers 3-7 years old as 'gut busters' so i was not expecting this kind of feeling from a tea that was 10+ years old. this is where the magic of aging/fermentation/time/conditions come in. a tea aged 7 years in warm and humid conditions will be worlds different than a 7 year old tea kept in natural/dry storage.

 

on the bright side, this is a clear sign of teas that i should and should not drink. besides keeping kosher, i also keep ‘millennial kosher’ (ie: i don’t eat gluten, dairy, soy, corn, etc etc). i am used to the sad reality of knowing there are certain things i cant have even if i enjoy them. i can only have so much young sheng and that’s just the way it is for now. 

something else that has happened is that i have gained a new appreciation for shou puer. before, i shrugged it off as inferior puer. the qi wasnt the same, the depth and complexity wasnt the same, the magic and mystery werent the same. but after a few days of young sheng on my body i started to crave some shou puer. it was nice. it felt good on my stomach, it was warm and comforting, and the biggest bonus, it is very affordable. shou is also a great work tea for me. it is cheap, it does well western style, and it isnt picky with its brewing. i am curious to try some shou from PS because the storage shouldnt affect it as much and ive heard decent things about their shou (and its cheap and they have a lot of samples). another plus i am finding is using shou for mellowing out blends. but that will be the next post.

here's some snow.