teakkurim

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 b...

  4 tevet 5781   this is the young puer my coworker bought at Uwajimaya. he gave me some to take home and im finally ready to try it. i added some moisture to the bag it was in and had it stored where im keeping my aged sheng so it now has taken on an aged smell. i am not mad about this because i like aged tea but it will be curious to see how it tastes now.   just from that small time with the aged puers, its taste has changed. even its leaves have darkened. its smell still carries that smokiness but it is now more like a hickory smoke and smells like good barbeque, including thick, sweet, and sour barbecue sauce that has been cooked on in the smoker.   the taste also has left behind a lot of the young flowery, fruity, sweetness. it is mellow with a hint of smoke, tobacco, and wood. there is some bitterness that coats the roof of the mouth, but it is not over powering. the mouth feel is pretty thin, the taste doesn’t have a lot of complexity, and the flav...

 23 kislev 5871 i have a few coworkers who are also into tea. i am a bit more o.d. than they are believe it or not. i talk to them about the teas im drinking and we keke about tea and rom coms and make puns. it’s a good time. i am very excited to pour tea for them when this pandemic is over (i really miss pouring tea for people). one coworker of mine told me about two puers he bought recently. they are both bings. i was intrigued. he said he had got one from teasource.com and he’d be happy to give me a sample. the next day, he brought in a little corner he had broken off to share with me.   hm, it smells like shou, which makes sense because i assume if your are a non-ultra-tea-nerd drinking a dark puer, theyre most likely to have access to shou. i brew some up fake gong fu style using a large tea-ball strainer and a small coffee cup to do flash steeps with the kettle in the back of the warehouse.    it tasted like bad shou. it had that bland fishy taste and was just ...