Friends & Aficionados,

If a collector were to purchase a set of the five Meng Hai Fact. Peacock beeng chas http://tinyurl.com/6qjfby and store them together in a stack, would the aromas and flavors, over the long run, bleed into each other and create five cakes that are indistinguishable, or would the cakes maintain their distinctive integrity when stored in close proximity?

Best,
~geraldo (suffused with Yancha, gulping Sencha)

Current Mood: contemplative

I learned of Generation Tea’s “1988 Xiaguan Tuocha Raw” http://tinyurl.com/2s2jdy here at this forum and bought one in October of 2007.  When it arrived, I tasted it and promptly bought another.  I felt then it represented one of the best available bargains for price to value in aged sheng.  Since then, the price has increased from $90 to $110.

 

The main attribute is the careful storage that the tuo cha exhibits both in the dry leaf and in the cup.  It’s clean and plummy.  I also notice that it’s generous, offering many infusions. In those regards, it’s the real deal: aged sheng.  If I were to criticize it, I might suggest that it could exhibit more complexity and inter-infusion evolution.  This is not to say it is without those attributes.  And truth be told, when I brew and drink it, I’m too pleased with it to critically analyze it.  It’s a soft, flowery, and mildly fruity dry-stored aged sheng, eminently likeable.

 

Seeing its picture just yesterday, a knowledgeable friend told me it’s not Jia Ji (as I’d supposed), but probably Yi Ji. I do not actually know which XG tuo this is. Due to varying aging environments, different tuo chas from that general vintage present different characteristics.  Therefore, I cannot say that one type of aged XG tuo is better than another type of aged XG tuo.  I adamantly believe that when we drink aged pu’er the predominate flavors and aromas arise mostly from the conditions in which it aged.  The vast differences between all of the 80’s 7542 cakes bear that out. If I’m alive in fifteen years to taste the tuos I’ve stored together, then I’ll be in a position to make a grand pronouncement comparing the relative merits of aged Te Ji, Jia Ji, Canger, Yu Shang, Yin Cang Yu Er, Bao Yan, Yi Ji, Nan Zhao, Jin Si, etc., etc., etc.  If my tuo chas turn out as fine as this tuo cha from Generation tea, I’ll be delighted.

 

MosoRob—I hope these comments address your own interests in this tuo.  I think you capture it really well: “[A] small following [. . .] really like its straightforward ‘tea’ taste. That's how I find it: straightforward, with less of the aromatics and exotics one looks for in XG's. I like it. But how do you find it, Grasshopper?”

 

If I were ten or even five years younger, I’d buy lots and lots of the new XG tuos.  80’s Jia Ji from Seb via Mike Petro was the first aged sheng I tasted, and my fondness for XG products will not abate.

 

Best to you all—

Grasshopper (drinking a mixed mélange of twelve-hour thermos-brewed  “spent” blended aged sheng leaves)

 

 

Friends: I've bought many nineties sheng samples and cakes--beengs, bricks, tuos, loose.  Often I had the odd, tiny pieces left from samples and cakes I decided to break or chip.  Began by saving leftover specks.  Later started to place a pinch of each decent nineties sample and cake into a covered sugar bowl.  Have been hoarding the tiny remnants--bits & crumbs--of nineties cakes for a few years.  Taken to drinking it lately, and it's very nice, very complex. A large flavor-choir running through arpeggios of tastes. The blend comprises probably forty sheng pu'ers from the nineties mixed up into a mellifluous convocation of adolescent leaves.  Fascinating beverage.  For those with the requisite patience and neurotic obsession to accumulate such a blend, I recommend it. Best to all, ~geraldo