mix thoroughly, thoroughly mix- on blends

1 adar 5781 

i was very inspired and pleased by MarshalN’s post about blends. it hits on some of the main points on why it is hard to be a serious tea nerd in amerika. besides not having access to a certain portion of physical tea, we have limited access to the scaffolding of tea culture. part of the desire to age puer in the west is for enthusiastic hobbyists, but also because it is hard to affordably access fully aged puer in the west, so we might as well do it ourselves. 

 

in China, aging is done by tea makers and tea sellers. besides aging puer cakes (bricks, maocha, etc), tea shops would have their own signature blends for their customers. a little bit from this cake here, a little bit of maocha there. some young sheng, some old sheng, and some ripe mixed in to balance it out. these blends were unique to each shop and very affordable. this sounds like something i would love especially as someone who loves cooking, experimenting, and creating.

 

in that same blog post, MarshalN offers the idea of people making their own blends. from reading elsewhere online, it appears there are some in the west who do this, but it is mostly just mixing debris from finished cakes or leftovers from samples. this still sounds great to me and is something i really want to do. i already do this with my weed. if there is a strain i bought that im not into and none of my friends are interested in trading at the moment, i will mix and match it with other strains i have around that i know i like. sometimes it turns out really great and some times it comes out good enough and im just trying to work through this weed im not that into.

 

right now, i have some puer samples im not that into and want to try blending/mixing them to see how it turns out. i mixed together my Tienxi 2017 ‘LBZ’ and and two samples i got form Puerh Shop: 2003 CNNP High Mountain and 2007 Mengku Big Tree. i did not write about the 2007 Mengku because it wasn’t anything special. these puers all have a smoky, earthy, mushroominess that will hopefully work well together. all these have pretty energizing qi (even though the qi of the 2003 CNNP wasn’t my jam). verdict: meh. taste was good, thanks to the Tienxi LBZ, but the qi of the CNNP still isnt for me. 

 

next combo i tried: YS 2007 Bonan and 1998 7542. still has too much mineral taste (maybe storing my Bonan with the PS samples made it a bit minerally) but the qi was good.

this time i tried blending in some shou puer to mellow things out. i tried the 98 7542, a tippy menghai shou, and the CNNP 2003. still dont like the 2003 CNNP qi, but this result was good. this maed a pretty decent 'daily drinker' caliber puer. next i will try the 98 7542, the menghai shou, and the YS Bonan or the Tienxi LBZ. 

previously, i mentioned why shou puers are growing on me and i find using them as part of blends to be a big bonus. it mutes flavors and bitterness from my meh-teas and can help spread costs as an affordable filler.

 

this is gonna be a fun project. 

here's some more pictures of the pretty snow, with a dog!