The Youngest Sixteen Year Old I've Ever Met....

Majority of you who guessed the age of this sheng put it in the 2003-2007 range but the mysterious Squaretooth knew something that others didn't.  Squaretooth put a direct arrow on 1998 which is the vendor advertised age for this CNNP 7542.  Even if this cake was reverse-aging in the Gobi since 1998, I would put this cake no older than 2006.   My house is extra dry storage so my cakes which have been with me since 2005 provide a reasonable comparison.  I went through my entire collection and found a twin from 2006. Most of my 2006 cakes look much much darker than the 7542 but this little Jingmai Ancient Forest was a close match.

Actually in better light,  even the Jingmai is a tad more aged than this 7542 but I don't have any sheng past 2006 to compare since my sheng buying stopped 7 years ago. This little mini-beeng should age relatively faster than my full size 2006 beengs but it is unexpectedly the least aged.  This confirms my suspicion that silver tips will slow down aging.     My 2003 Feng Hua Xue Yue Xiaguans which also has a generous inclusion of buds look younger than some of my non-budded 2005 Xiaguans which  share that world famous Xiaguan iron compression which also slows down aging.  Xiaguan leaves are compressed so tight even a North Korean agent would not be able to hide in it.

This tea tastes pleasant but is nothing special.  Boring CNNP's from mid decade are hardly news to anyone.  It's gets a bit sweetish- not surprising when you see a good smattering of furry silver tips. Would I buy this tea after tasting it for $68? No I wouldn't.  There are definitely more interesting newer wild teas in this price range.

Why pay tuition of $68 on a cake that I already knew was a fake?   I bought a full cake so I could share it with others and have an overwhelming consensus that this is definitively not a 1998.  I'm doing a full vendor evaluation and have bought a wide range from budget tea to the most expensive offering. I still like this vendor despite this cake clearly not delivering. Why am I so nice all of the sudden? What happened to my ball-busting style that I used to good effect on Verdant Tea?  I could have posted an incendiary "Vendor X is Selling Fakes".  I'll have to explain why I'm holding off in another post after I finish the entire order.

In the world of pu-erh, your biggest risk is overpaying whether it's a fantastic cake, mediocre cake or a regretful sub-par cake.  It's best not to have overpaid but it's better to have overpaid for a fantastic cake than anything less.  Quality of tea is a separate issue from authenticity.  The risk for fakes increases when you start paying for older or more expensive teas.  You could have paid big bucks for an authentic premium cake or an authentic aged cake and it could turn out to be just "meh".  If the tea doesn't deliver perceived value, does it matter that it was real if you purchased the cake strictly for your drinking pleasure?

Vendors can often be fooled by their middlemen and I have to think more about how to approach this case.    Fakes don't have to end unhappily. I have another fake I got on ebay long ago- the 2002 Menghai Wild Tree which is one of the most interesting shengs in my collection and cost me ~$20.  If this 7542 had been a little more lively and interesting, I would let all of this pass. But it is not dear reader so keep tuned or let me know what you think I should do.

Guess the Age of this Sheng

 I bought this cake fully knowing it was younger than advertised or even an imposter.  Fake cakes don't bother me as long as tea itself is good.

But even I was unprepared for how green it looked. But in the meanwhile,  feel free to put forth your best guess based on hue alone.

I brewed it up this morning and taste is unmistakeably young. Now my belly is groaning and I kick myself.

I'll wait by the end of the day to post the supposed age.

Sutra Pot

This lovely bell-shaped pot holds sutra inscriptions on both sides which infuses any tea brewed within it with magical powers of meditation.   This beauty came from Hong Kong sourced by a very nice guy Kam who runs the funalliance but who is now on the teachat wall of shame.  He really had some wacky vintage pots back in the day.

Although I did not heed the old advice about not buying a teapot without seeing it pour, this pot nonetheless turned out to possess the most perfect dripless pour. As is the eventual sad fate of all my teapots, it suffered the indignity of a cracked spout.   I have given up buying anything truly special and have come to treat teapots as consumables.

If I were to have one super power on this earth, it would be the ability to heal cracks. I could mend the Liberty Bell with a wave of my hand.  There would be no shortage of people lined outside my door waiting days with broken hearts or a broken nose that can't be set right.  Maybe the state of California would hire me to take care of both Hayward faults. That would be a big job.  My services would be in high demand and I would have no time to upkeep my teablog even though my teapots would be  perfect and ready to serve.

Chinese Ingenuity

This pithy example of Chinese inventiveness was snapped by my friend D who had the pleasure of seeing the daily marvels and curiosities in various corners of China last month. (I woefully did not send him on any tea errands if you were wondering.)  How do they open a tea pot with a knobless lid? Maybe the curved pin on the bottom left is the answer.

I am enormously backed up on blog entries even though I've been diligent all last week. I have my roasting experiments to report on, a madeira vs shu analysis along with finding the best shu pairing for wild boar salami.  I also have a lovely Korean mountain mugwort tea to introduce.  But this pales all in comparison to my weekend discovery. News!  News! I have concrete proof that I can trust Berkeley aging compared against the 90's DingXing.  The game is back on!  

But alas for tonight- I am still working on my day job on an international virtualization rollout.

2006 Lucky 7581

I waited all Saturday for what hasn't happened since 2007- the arrival of a box chock full of pu-erh. My husband has mentioned that I am not a person who needs more tea, but I am not deterred by such logical statements of practicality.  Most readers of this blog probably have spouses or significant others who may have uttered such unheeded sentiments. Not everyone is lucky to have a wife like Hobbes who will fully indulge his mania even procuring boatload of beengs when traveling alone in China.

So let us see if my eight years of learning reflect any wisdom in my actions now or I am still that foolish seventy year-old man letting twenty something gold diggers take my heart and wallet again and again. You can decide for yourself which tired trout about Chinese belief in cycles versus the Western faith in linear progression applies here.

I actually woke up 6:30a.m. this morning trying to determine which of the shus to try first despite having bugged out my eyes until 1 a.m. trying to buy yet more tea.  Let us start with our first selection- the 2006 Lucky 7581 from Kunming Tea Factory composed of leaves from 1998.  According to the exuberant vendor, this "legendary" brick whose recipe represents the "crown jewel of pu-erh" is "one of the best shus" he has ever tasted.   I'm afraid I wasn't immune to such blatant overtures although I knew first hand such vendor descriptions can sometimes lead to a disappointing overpriced end.  I wanted to give this recommended U.S. vendor a try because in the end, vendors who press their own cakes and have somewhat reasonable prices on most things are a benefit overall to the tea drinking community here in the U.S.    But if this box ends badly, this may be the last time I bother ordering from any U.S. based vendor.  

Back to the 7581- by the virtue of having survived these last seven years in dusty warehouses, the vendor's stack of bricks have been uplifted to a more public internet existence than they could have possibly imagined while composting in giant heaps on the factory floor back in 1998.
After 15 years of various middle-men exchanges, this particular brick and it's siblings have been given a new life in America by a certain "Uncle Jim".  This here brick on the right finally was adopted into a hedonistic pork loving Berkeley home.  (I definitely see some comic strip potential here... Second digression-before China became a leader in baby export, it was none other than South Korea who held this dubious ranking.) 

Despite all the hype and potential for fakes with 7581s,  I'll just take this tea for what it is and my first encounter is positive.   Initially I was struck by light delicacy of this tea somewhat similar to the Golden Needle White Lotus.  Even with the pot half full of leaves, this brick brews up thinner than expected.  It's the lingering aftertaste that I am always chasing and I have a faint but noticeable sweet tail of this tea on my tongue and finally a little tickle on the throat while I write this entry. The brews started with wood roast coffee notes- a strange match for such an airy brew, tending towards caramel throughout the 6+ infusions.  When sniffing the leaves between brews, burnt sugar scent is overwhelming and heady.  I would venture to say this appears to be the real thing or it's good enough that I am happy to be fooled so then it's down to the matter of the pricing.

According to a baidu blog,  the Kunming Factory supposedly produced 30 tons of this 7581(my math says 120,000 bricks) with 20 tons for export differentiated by a yellow wrapper while the white wrapper represents the domestic batch.  (All from google translator with search terms "昆明茶厂 7581 2006" ). Product \  It really is amazing to me that something originally so cheap and mass produced can turn out to taste this interesting. Despite marketing and production of "premium" bricks in the last few years, bricks tend to represent the low end of pressed tea market comprised mostly chopped up low grade leaves.  At a going price tag of $33 for 250g, this 7581 is a moderately expensive shu and I'm not rushing to snap up rest of the vendor's stock.   I already have a closet full of gratuitously smooth and pleasant ripe beengs from 2000-2006 and this brick tastes just different and complex enough that I'm satisfied.   A taobao check reveals the same thing is going for $8-10 if indeed they are the real thing.  Somehow I do not feel ripped off at all.  Ever since the 900% mark up on Verdant Tea, everything else looks reasonable in comparison.  I'll just call this the "Duckler Effect" from now on.

(July 11th update- I brewed this up a couple more times and I definitely would not buy this tea again or recommend it to anyone. It's too expensive for what it is.)

This not a tea I would normally subject to a bacon breakfast but I had brewed up half a gallon for kicks.  I enjoy myself enormously with buckwheat coconut flour pancakes, a fried egg laid yesterday from my favorite clucker Bonkers accompanied by generous pieces of bacon.  When I sip the rest of it cold, it's mostly a pleasant ride and only once I did get an unpleasant bitter hint in the aftertaste.  Otherwise, this 7581 is definitely a more interesting shu than my 2006 Menghai cakes proving again that aging does matter even in world of shus. But how much you are willing to pay for the privilege is up to your wallet and youth.  Seven years ago when I was glugging young sheng, paying top dollar for an aged shu seemed to me a waste of perfectly good money.  Even paying more than $25 for a ripe beeng seemed excessive back then.  Now I'm willing to settle and pay more for interesting shus even if they are an echo of the real thing - a true aged sheng.