In May this year I have bought a brick of the 2005 Wild Tree Dehong puerh
from YunnanSourcing. To start with, it had a wonderful, strong and sweet,
almost peach-like scent and taste and lots of chi. I was looking forward to
enjoy many more hours in the company of this wonderful tea, I have even
ordered one more brick for further aging. But to my disappointment, the
taste and smell of this tea have rapidly disappeared after only a few
months. Today, after half of a year, there is only a faint reminder left of
the original strong taste and scent, and in the same time there is no sign
of further ripening.
Has anyone of you experienced something similar with this tea? I believe I
am storing this tea properly, in a small cupboard in my living room where
the temperature is constantly around 20 and 23 degrees C, with a humidity
normal for my part of the world (Northern Europe). Besides that, my other
puerhs which are stored together with the Dehong brick are not showing the
same signs of deteriorating.
Thanks for any input,
Gyorgy

Which tea do you mean?

This one ?:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/2005-Wild-Tre...QQcmdZViewItem

If so, then I have same which I can try and see if it has turned to
blandness (I hope not). Just want to check before I start cutting into
things.

Kat

Yes, this is the one.

Thanks,
Gyorgy

Kat wrote:

> Which tea do you mean?
>
> This one ?:
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com.au/2005-Wild-Tre...QQcmdZViewItem
>
> If so, then I have same which I can try and see if it has turned to
> blandness (I hope not). Just want to check before I start cutting into
> things.
>
> Kat
>

Gyorgy

my 2 bricks of this tea have been stored in tissue paper (because they are
essentially loose bricks without proper wrapping) in a cardboard box with my
other raw pu-erh bricks.

The tea does not seem to have lost all its flavour to me. The brew still
has the clarity noted in the eBay listing and is a bright golden yellow with
a nice aroma when brewed. I would say it has a medium strength Chi, but
like yourself I can't say I've noticed any ripening of this tea. It has no
bitterness, but all its flavour seems concentrated in the first cup and in
the first sips of subsequent cups. Oddly enough, as the tea gets cooler as
you work your way to the bottom of the cup (cups 2 & 3 - only had 3 cups so
far) the flavour seems to dissipate and is not as strong as when you started
drinking the cup.

I'm inclined to think that is a "drink now" tea rather than one suitable for
long term storage. I've had similar sorts of things happen with loose
pu-erh as far as taste loss is concerned, but I had hoped not run across the
same thing again in cakes and bricks. Goes to show what a gamble pu-reh tea
purchases can be doesn't it when you don't have a lot of experience?

Kat

[Gyorgy]
>In May this year I have bought a brick of the 2005 Wild Tree Dehong puerh
>from YunnanSourcing. To start with, it had a wonderful, strong and sweet,
>almost peach-like scent and taste and lots of chi.
<snip>
>Today, after half of a year, there is only a faint reminder left of
>the original strong taste and scent, and in the same time there is no sign
>of further ripening.

This post caught my eye as I have about 10 bricks of this tea in my
stash. http://tinyurl.com/yfxreb So I brewed some up, half in a
panic, to see what was going on.

I did notice a change in the teas character. The tea wasn't weaker,
but it wasn't as floral either. It had notes of brine, grain and/or
bamboo, and astringency with hints of sweetness in the finish. I did
not get as many steeps as I seem to remember though. What temp water
are using? I used a full boil on this one, where on harsher greens I
often use lower temps.


Whether or not you would consider this a "ripening" is in the eye of
the beholder, but it did seem to be an evolution at the least.

Your storage conditions seem fine, although periods of higher humidity
would probably help encourage the development of your stash. Tea
ripens better in Guangzhou than in Kunming, the main reason being the
higher humidity.

[Kat]
>I'm inclined to think that is a "drink now" tea rather than one suitable for
>long term storage.

You may indeed be right but that's the thing with these new "purple
leaf" varietals, nobody really knows how well they will age. Beware of
anyone who claims otherwise as these varietals are simply too new for
anyone to "really know". They haven't existed long enough for someone
to have actually tasted a 20-30 year old specimen.

All of that being said, after only a year and a half I still don't
think the jury is in. It is not unusual for a puerh to behave
unpredictably during its adolescent years. I have seen teas start
smooth, get harsh and bitter, then get smooth again over a period of
10 years or so. I don't recall any cakes going from strong to weak to
strong though.
___________
Mike Petro
http://www.pu-erh.net
Celebrating 3 years of sharing

> Mike Petro
> http://www.pu-erh.net
> Celebrating 3 years of sharing

three years! wow. congratulations mike! and thanks for all you do to
educate and enlighten the tea world. it's an inspiration to us all.

corax

---
http://chadao.blogspot.com

"corax" > writes:

> > Mike Petro
> > http://www.pu-erh.net
> > Celebrating 3 years of sharing
>
> three years! wow. congratulations mike! and thanks for all you do to
> educate and enlighten the tea world. it's an inspiration to us all.

True. Also, it points me in the direction of pleasure, and it helps
me avoid some disastrous uses of my time and money. Thanks, Mike!

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Dear Kat and Mike,

Thank you both for your time and efforts to check this tea for me!

Mike Petro wrote:

> I did notice a change in the teas character. The tea wasn't weaker,
> but it wasn't as floral either. It had notes of brine, grain and/or
> bamboo, and astringency with hints of sweetness in the finish. I did
> not get as many steeps as I seem to remember though. What temp water
> are using? I used a full boil on this one, where on harsher greens I
> often use lower temps.

I used to brew this tea with water of about 80 degrees C, but after reading
your post I decided to give it one more try with fully boiling water, and it
did help a bit. I did a series of eight steeps and my results corresponds
very closely to yours. This time there were some more floral notes in the
taste, but still much less than half a year ago. No floral notes at all in
the finish (there were lots half a year ago), only astringency. Already
after the third steep the taste was getting flat and I began to taste the
water through the tea, while I remember getting at least eight very
enjoyable steeps from this tea half a year ago. The most remarkable
pecularity of this tea was, which now is completely gone and which I am
missing most, that some while - about 5-10 minutes - after sipping the last
cup of it, a very pronounced sweet taste of peach used to develop slowly on
my palate, which could be staying for up to half an hour!

> Whether or not you would consider this a "ripening" is in the eye of
> the beholder, but it did seem to be an evolution at the least.

Exactly. But such a rapid weakening of taste and the loss of everything I
liked in this tea I would not call "ripening", especially as the loss of the
old flavors are not replaced by new different ones. But as you say, after
such a short time we can not really know in which direction this tea will
develop, so I still keep the hope (and the tea :-)). Besides that, it is
reassuring to hear that others have similar experiences with it, and that
the changes are not due to poor storing conditions.

Thanks again,
Gyorgy

PS.: To make things even more complicated, I have broken up my other brick
of this tea which I ordered three months after the first one, just to see if
it has suffered the same fate. This one had a very week grainy taste, no
floral notes at all, and a HUGE astringency! It was actually more astringent
than any other puerhs I have ever tried. After three steepings I gave it up
as I found the astringency nauseating. Compering to the first one, it was
like a completely different tea.

> PS.: To make things even more complicated, I have broken up my other brick
> of this tea which I ordered three months after the first one, just to see
> if it has suffered the same fate. This one had a very week grainy taste,
> no floral notes at all, and a HUGE astringency! It was actually more
> astringent than any other puerhs I have ever tried. After three steepings
> I gave it up as I found the astringency nauseating. Compering to the first
> one, it was like a completely different tea.


I have to say that you comments on how astringent this tea is caught me by
surprise. So far I haven't had any astringency at all in the cups I've
brewed of the tea. I broke up one of my bricks of this tea on the weekend
(well as much as I could anyway - it was a HARD brick! and didn't do my
hands any good at all) and decided to drink a few more cups.

One thing I did notice was that the newly broken up brick seemed more floral
in taste that than the pieces I had broken off around the edges for my
previous tasting. Also, I brewed the second lots in my Yixing teapot, where
my previous brew had been in my glass infusion cup, and I didn't notice the
dramatic taste loss at the bottom of the cup I'd seen in the glass cup,
though you still only get about 4 cups of tasty tea if you are lucky out of
the leaves.

My guess is that the "fresher" tea from closer to the centre of the brick
retained more of its "new" taste. It'll be interesting to see what happens
to the broken - up tea over the next few months as I work my way through it
(its in a ceramic tea container now).

Kat

KM wrote:

> I have to say that you comments on how astringent this tea is caught me by
> surprise. So far I haven't had any astringency at all in the cups I've
> brewed of the tea. I broke up one of my bricks of this tea on the weekend
> (well as much as I could anyway - it was a HARD brick! and didn't do my
> hands any good at all) and decided to drink a few more cups.
>
> One thing I did notice was that the newly broken up brick seemed more floral
> in taste that than the pieces I had broken off around the edges for my
> previous tasting. Also, I brewed the second lots in my Yixing teapot, where
> my previous brew had been in my glass infusion cup, and I didn't notice the
> dramatic taste loss at the bottom of the cup I'd seen in the glass cup,
> though you still only get about 4 cups of tasty tea if you are lucky out of
> the leaves.
>
> My guess is that the "fresher" tea from closer to the centre of the brick
> retained more of its "new" taste. It'll be interesting to see what happens
> to the broken - up tea over the next few months as I work my way through it
> (its in a ceramic tea container now).
>
> Kat

Reading all this... it makes me think that this tea is indeed not
suitable for aging. I mean, while a puerh will definitely lose
whatever character it has initially after a certain amount of aging, it
should still taste like tea -- some kind of tea. Astringency is not a
real problem. Bitterness is not a real problem. The most important
thing is that it still retains something -- anything. If it's starting
to taste less strong and more watery over time.... then it's probably
not good.

MarshalN
http://www.xanga.com/MarshalN

MarshalN wrote:

> The most important
> thing is that it still retains something -- anything. If it's starting
> to taste less strong and more watery over time.... then it's probably
> not good.

Exactly my thoughts.

Gyorgy

Kat wrote:

> I have to say that you comments on how astringent this tea is caught me by
> surprise. So far I haven't had any astringency at all in the cups I've
> brewed of the tea.

Interesting. Do you use full boiling water? On the other hand, my experience
with my two bricks shows that two seemingly identical bricks can make some
very different brews, so who knows, you might have a third subspecies of
this puerh, where the leaves give off much less astringency...

> I broke up one of my bricks of this tea on the weekend (well as much as I
> could anyway - it was a HARD brick! and didn't do my hands any good at
> all)

Interesting again: both of my bricks have a very loose texture, I can almost
break off pieces with my bare fingers. But don't you have an oyster knife or
a puerh knife?

Gyorgy

>
> Interesting. Do you use full boiling water? On the other hand, my
> experience with my two bricks shows that two seemingly identical bricks
> can make some very different brews, so who knows, you might have a third
> subspecies of this puerh, where the leaves give off much less
> astringency...
>

Yes, I do use boiling water. I'm pretty simple with how I make my teas. I
just boil the water, rinse the pu-erh on the first cup and then pour over
for the first drinking cup and keep going till the leaves run out of taste.
So far, this hasn't been an astringent tea for me at all. There seems to be
quite a bit of variety (and not all of it good) coming out of these bricks.
So far, I've been reasonably lucky with the one I've tried I think.


> Interesting again: both of my bricks have a very loose texture, I can
> almost break off pieces with my bare fingers. But don't you have an oyster
> knife or a puerh knife?
>

I do have a pu-erh knife and I had to grind away at this brick with it to
get it to break up at all- and I still have a chunk of it that hasn't broken
yet because it is so hard. I try to be careful with my pu-erh knife as I've
stabbed myself with it in the past on bricks (not nice at all) and if I use
any other sort of knife (which I do at times, like a butter knife for
instance) I still have the same don't-stab-yourself issues on a hard brick
like this.

I haven't tried breaking up my second brick of this tea yet. I have to try
and get through the first yet as there is quite a lot of tea in these
bricks.

Kat

I have a similar experience with this tea, got one brick, it was great
and got a second one several months later and second one didn't have the
same strength, recently tried it again and the first brick is loosing
its character too but not as much as the second one, still a very good
tea, didn't noticed any significant astringency either.

Have tried it on one on my friends and he hated it then, will try again
and he might like it now. Can't think of anything better than to keep it
in Ziploc bag to prevent from becoming just an average tea.

The moral of this story is that if you want to make a major tea purchase
try it on one of your friends preferably not a heavy tea drinker, you
will get completely different perspective on the tea, at least in my
case it helped me to restrict myself to only one additional brick.

Oleg


KM wrote:
>>PS.: To make things even more complicated, I have broken up my other brick
>>of this tea which I ordered three months after the first one, just to see
>>if it has suffered the same fate. This one had a very week grainy taste,
>>no floral notes at all, and a HUGE astringency! It was actually more
>>astringent than any other puerhs I have ever tried. After three steepings
>>I gave it up as I found the astringency nauseating. Compering to the first
>>one, it was like a completely different tea.
>
>
>
> I have to say that you comments on how astringent this tea is caught me by
> surprise. So far I haven't had any astringency at all in the cups I've
> brewed of the tea. I broke up one of my bricks of this tea on the weekend
> (well as much as I could anyway - it was a HARD brick! and didn't do my
> hands any good at all) and decided to drink a few more cups.
>
> One thing I did notice was that the newly broken up brick seemed more floral
> in taste that than the pieces I had broken off around the edges for my
> previous tasting. Also, I brewed the second lots in my Yixing teapot, where
> my previous brew had been in my glass infusion cup, and I didn't notice the
> dramatic taste loss at the bottom of the cup I'd seen in the glass cup,
> though you still only get about 4 cups of tasty tea if you are lucky out of
> the leaves.
>
> My guess is that the "fresher" tea from closer to the centre of the brick
> retained more of its "new" taste. It'll be interesting to see what happens
> to the broken - up tea over the next few months as I work my way through it
> (its in a ceramic tea container now).
>
> Kat
>
>

"Gyorgy Sajo" > wrote in message
...
> In May this year I have bought a brick of the 2005 Wild Tree Dehong puerh
> from YunnanSourcing. To start with, it had a wonderful, strong and sweet,
> almost peach-like scent and taste and lots of chi. I was looking forward
> to enjoy many more hours in the company of this wonderful tea, I have
> even ordered one more brick for further aging. But to my disappointment,
> the taste and smell of this tea have rapidly disappeared after only a few
> months. Today, after half of a year, there is only a faint reminder left
> of the original strong taste and scent, and in the same time there is no
> sign of further ripening.
> Has anyone of you experienced something similar with this tea? I believe I
> am storing this tea properly, in a small cupboard in my living room where
> the temperature is constantly around 20 and 23 degrees C, with a humidity
> normal for my part of the world (Northern Europe). Besides that, my other
> puerhs which are stored together with the Dehong brick are not showing the
> same signs of deteriorating.
> Thanks for any input,
> Gyorgy
>

Gyorgy, I bought a couple of these bricks too, just got them the other day.
I have to agree with the others, I was really disappointed (especially given
the price of the bricks) with this tea. My first taste was today, I used
boiling water in a yixing. The first steep was a normal 5-10 seconds, but
the second one I let go almost 30 because there was such a weak taste in the
first. It isn't astrigent at all for me, it isn't much of...anything
actually. It's got a faint (to me) medicinal or iodine-ish taste to it that
I don't care for. No camphor or floral or even nutty green taste. My brick
was fairly loose, I didn't need to pry hard, just went in from the side and
flaked off a bit from the top. The liquer is clear, that's fine, but if it
doesn't have much of a taste or character it doesn't make me want to drink
it now either, lol!

Usually for me a sheng can be hard to drink, bitter, astringent, whatever,
but there's still character that promises to develop. I don't know about
this puerh though, if there's not much there now is tehre hope taht there
will be much in the future? I tried to place whether I thought it hadn't
been "mulched" enough or whether I thought it was the original material that
might have been lacking. Anyone have thoughts on that? I thought maybe if it
was the mulching it might help to store it in a more humid environment.

Melinda

> "Gyorgy Sajo" wrote:
>> In May this year I have bought a brick of the 2005 Wild Tree Dehong
>> puerh ... to my disappointment, the taste and smell of this tea
>> have rapidly disappeared after only a few months. Today, after half
>> of a year, there is only a faint reminder left of the original
>> strong taste and scent, and in the same time there is no sign of
>> further ripening. Has anyone of you experienced something similar
>> with this tea?
>
> ... I have to agree with the others... Melinda

Me too, unfortunately. I really liked this brick when it came out, and
bought a couple. Drank it a number of times, most recently about half a
year ago, getting consistent good results.

Just tried it, found what you found. I first made a gaiwanful
(2.7g/40ml) of loose bits and dust. Then tried again with a freshly
flaked chunk, which may have been a little better (or not).

I've been warned that a lot of the good-young Pu-erhs don't age well,
especially the big old wild-leaf stuff. Also been told that many cakes
fade early but then generate new flavor as the years pass. Hope the
latter applies here; it's early days yet.

-DM

> I've been warned that a lot of the good-young Pu-erhs don't age well,
> especially the big old wild-leaf stuff. Also been told that many cakes
> fade early but then generate new flavor as the years pass. Hope the latter
> applies here; it's early days yet.
>

Maybe that is where some of the "watery" aged pu-erhs come from that I've
occasionally ran across. They taste ok, but only last a couple of cups - and
really aren't a patch on a good quality aged pu-erh that had obvious
strength to start with.

Kat