Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Continuing Saga of the 90's CCNP Lucifuge Bricks

Back in late 2014,  I finally started to appreciate the taste of traditionally stored teas. Since most of the tea I bought in 2005/6 was newborn sheng to match my tastes of the time,  I was forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel on suspect aged stuffs off ebay. To catch you up on this particular strand:

Furry brick on left, dry on right
Prolog: I overcome my gag reflex on that basement trad stored taste and scramble to find more aged stuffs.
Chapter 1: I buy a 90s CNNP Lucifuge brick that arrives rather furry.
Chapter 2: The vendor sends me a drier brick from the top of the pile(along with another bonus brick) claiming the furry brick probably was stored close to the floor.
Chapter 3I'm stoked to have stumbled on this storage experiment, drink both and find the furrier brick more interesting. I store both unwrapped bricks next to each other in hopes the taste giving mold will rub off.

So we continue this story 3 years later on this fine Sunday and brew up both bricks.  The furry brick(left) still has white mold over the surface and is not a bad brew with a slight cooling menthol taste. It's nothing I would serve guests but decent enough for a taste now and then again; definitely this brew is leaps more interesting than hongcha and definitely more powerful.  I was jittery and jumpy for hours.

The outer surface of the dry brick is clean without any sign of white mold. However when I peel off a few outer leaves, the interior stems show some whitish mold.  These bricks are relatively loosely compressed which may have helped.   The dry brick still tastes a little harsher,  thinner, more bitter than it's furry counterpart.  Probably the dry brick won't be able catch up to the furry brick especially in the suboptimal environs of Berkeley.  I guess I will give them another go in 2020 but I don't have high expectations.  At this point- I'm happy if any of it is mildly drinkable. I didn't have any dried anchovy or squid which I think would be good accompaniment to such basement sheng.

Footnote: Downing trad stored stuff is an ability that one has to keep up like alcohol tolerance.  I fell down the shicang ladder drinking nothing but hongchas as of late.  I don't expect to make "drink more shicang teas" a 2018 new year resolution but I do need a better scheme to rotate through my inventory.