Drinking up that 20 year old budget beeng...

Recently, I've been brewing up small chunks of a random 2005 6 FTM for kicks. The only reason I brew such dregs of my collection is because somehow it's the only easily accessible beeng in a tightly packed closet. For probably about ~$3 for the entire beeng, it's decent enough and I'll save my analysis for the end.

I was going to take a classic photo of puerh in a gaiwan but I thought why not let those new fangled AI image generators show you something more interesting.  I've been laboring all morning to get my beefy GPU to cough up images of a balrog having tea with Sauron at the foot of Mount Doom. 

What AI thinks when "Sauron drinking Chinese tea with a Balrog"

The AI doesn't quite get it and the best I could do is summon vague copies of Sauron with some tea paraphernalia.  Critics might say my prompts are not refined enough or my sampling inputs need adjustment but it's not quite time yet for AI to conjure up the subtleties of true tea enjoyment in a dark fantasy setting. Nonetheless these images are infinitely superior to what I myself could draw from scratch.

AI rendition of Sauron's tea party

I give up forcing the dark lord to enjoy tea and now contemplate this brew, the '05 6FTM Yinji Yibang of the green wrapper.   I was foolish enough not to gird my stomach with a proper pork lunch and sheng even aged two decades on still gives me that familiar stomach ache. Let's be real, it tastes more like an 8 year old, if that.  I may simply wait another few decades.

While home aging in Berkeley overall has yielded expectedly subpar results(nothing new to report here), hoarding early has at least saved me a lot of money in this dreadful age of inflation. I was in line at the grocery store where the grandma in front of me paid $10 for 4 organic onions.  I guess inflation is the true evil of not only this world but of other realms. Inflation must have been pretty crazy at the end of the Hobbit with Smaug's hoard of gold flooding Middle Earth. 

AI does not quite get "Sauron enjoying tea"

Some answers in case you are curious:

• Yes the Rings of Power is an atrocity that can never be forgiven. Everybody knows the real romance is between Sauron and Celebrimbor.
• I am using Stable Diffusion open source 1.4 version with Trinart model
• No I will not buy a RTX 4090, just on principal.

Brick from Middle Earth - What would Frodo Drink?

I set myself to fold 4 loads of laundry tonight before my husband comes back from levitation class.  But you know who would rather be steeped in tea doings.  After MarshalN revealed that my 25yo mystery brick had been roasted multiple times,  the DIY in me wants to give it a go.  I realize the problem with experimenting with my current collection is that the price of failure is too high since I bought most of my stuff 6-7 years ago. Even the cheapest 2004 sheng brick which I bought for $2.50 is now mysteriously selling for $40.

No matter, I just need cheap raw material. I'm willing to spend 10 bucks on a science project.  I need some disposable shu bricks and to learn the secret to a good roast. I went to Oakland Chinatown and got a 3 dollar barnyard shu that I'm going to wetstore for a year and then roast.  Should roasting should be done in an oven, fry pan, or a popcorn popper which is the preferred home roaster for coffee hounds?  I'm going to try over the weekend pan roasting a little loose pu-erh and flaked brick samples to start.

In the meanwhile, I opened this brick up for a tasting. You could see from the neifei that this was the shu of choice for dwarves of Moria- what else would they drink after a hard day's work mining mithril?  When I take 4 brews of it, it's a muddy earthy pondy unpleasant shu - definitely meant for the orcs of Mordor- they probably put a lump of it in their leather water bag.

Let me entertain my hobbit loving friends and others on what teas Middle Earthlings would drink:

• Smaug - no drinking, just hoarding all the vintage puerh of Middle Earth (Song Pin Hao, Tongchang Hao, Puqing Hao) which was simply in decrepit condition due to the dampness and awful dragon aroma
• Gandalf - aged sheng from Smaug's lair after using his wizardry to remove mold and said offensive dragon aroma.
• Bilbo Baggins -plain black tea before his "adventure".   After his return, keemun, yancha, and aged sheng which he split with Gandalf .  
• Frodo - Golden Yunnan. Really prefers uncomplicated mellow brews after the whole ring incident. He really never could get into pu-erh so he gave Bilbo's stash of aged sheng away to Sam before leaving Middle Earth with the Elves. 
• Hobbits - just plain black tea, don't go in for that foreigner brew.
• Dwarves - Elder dwarves go for wet stored sheng, particularly pure Lao Banzhang which make beards grow woolier.  Younger elves go for the punchy new born sheng- all wild tree of course!
• Aragorn - aged sheng only after reclaiming throne of Gondor. Just new Wild De Hong sheng during his days as a ranger.
• Faramir- Aged sheng for special occasions after Gandalf introduces him to pu-erh. He's working off that tong of stone-pressed Yiwu young sheng that's a bit too fragrant for aging.
• Elves of Rivendell - Oolong (floral Dong Dings of course!)
• Elves of Lothlorien - Silver Needles
• Saruman -  First generation De Hong Pao after he turned to the dark side. No need to ask. 
• Riders of Rohan - Wet stored shu!  Barnyard earth flavors are prized by the Horse Lords of the Mark.
• Ents - don't drink tea, kind of gross if you think about it...
• Sauron - tough one...

(For those who are not Tolkien fans, this Middle Earth has nothing to do with the Middle Kingdom- 中国.)