Moldy Tea, Part II

Well, I didn't die from the moldy tea (at least not yet).

I know this is a point that's been emphasized by others such as MarshalN, but one truly cannot underestimate the importance of airing out/awakening a tea, even if it's not a wet-stored mess. I aired out the broken up moldy cake, and let it chill out for a while in a partially opened paper bag. I tasted it last Saturday, and although you can still taste some of the wetness, it's relatively smooth with slight sharpness. Pretty tasty as a daily drinker kind of tea.

Now, the importance of airing out tea isn't just limited to moldy teas, however. I bought some samples a while ago, and one of the samples was a 2001 Changtai Yi Chang Hao Yiwu. When I first tasted the tea, the tea tasted okay but a certain musty scent led to a negative impression of the tea. I wanted to get a second opinion from resident pu-erh expert BearsBearsBears before dismissing the tea completely. I left the sample bag open for a while (two weeks I believe), slightly curious to see if the mustiness was something that could be "aired out."

It tasted very differently than I remembered

Granted, it could have been a difference in water (we actually used my pot for that tea), but even so...the mustiness was gone. It's difficult for me to assign words to the flavors/aroma that I taste, but it was good. It's mellowing out, but there's still some of that sharpness which you would expect from something this young. The tea body was good, and there was a nice aftertaste. It was also at a good level of maturity for its age. Definitely something I will order cakes of, assuming other samples don't impress me as much.

Unexpected

Whenever I came across it on the tea forums I thought, "Nonsense! This will never happen to me! I live in the desert for goodness sake!"

This morning, when wrapping some cakes in tissue paper (I'm keeping the actual wrappers separate in case they rip) I discovered some mold on a recently acquired 1995 Grand Yellow Label! Blueish-white in color, it was scattered across the inner side. I quickly checked through the rest of my cakes and was assured. I'm thinking the mold might have been the result of the cake's already wetter-storage, combined with my fairly wet storage conditions. I've brushed off all the visible mold and I've set the cake aside in a "quarantine" area to be monitored for the next few weeks, even months. I wonder at what point would it be safe to put it back into storage/consume it

Photos for those who may have comments. I've brushed off most of the visible mold, but some of it may be seen if you open the photos in a new window.

I tell myself that mold is not that big of a deal...and cakes from the 50s to 90s were probably stored very badly/casually, in far more humid conditions than my own.

*Breathing* Yes...it's no big deal...


*Shudders*


*EDIT*

I think what I might do at this point, or at least in a few days after some observation, is break up the cake and somehow that will alleviate the mold problem. Than treat it like cheap wet-stored loose leaf. I'm kind of afraid that although the surface mold may be gone, it still might be hiding out on the inner parts of the cake.

NYC Show-Off

The long-awaited recap of my Boston/NYC trip:

I had the pleasure of visiting The Gallery in the comfort of Michael and Winnie's cozy home. It was like walking into my ideal tea room, surrounded by containers full of tea and tea ware galore. Michael, Winnie, and Dae were all gracious hosts, and although I felt out of place in terms of tea experience, I felt very welcomed. Michael was feeling a bit under the weather, so he was mostly in the background. I had gotten the impression from what few photos I've seen of him on their store's website and Dae's Journal that he was a very serious/stoic person. I was surprised with how taken he was with the knock-off iPhone my mother got me in China.I tried three teas, their bi-annual Oriental Beauty, the Golden Buddha, and a Dong Ding. All were excellent, but what captured my attention most was the Oriental Beauty. It was unlike any other Oriental Beauty I have had before. What swill Oriental Beauty have I been drinking all my life! Whereas many Oriental Beauty I've had before are generally simple and straightforward, this one was supremely complex.

It was like opening up an antique wooden drawer filled with Indian spices. Thick in the mouth feel, it lingered in my mouth for what seemed like an eternity. I had prepared to completely write off Oriental Beauty, but this was definitely a game changer. I'm not ready/qualified to say that it was the best; however, it was definitely very good.


I also bought an 80s 125 ml Zi Ni pot for juvenile/adolescent sheng. The "secondary" seal on the bottom was a bit amusing...it recommends this pot for puerh. Makes the process of dedicating this pot much easier. I also bought their smallest gaiwan, an acquisition that has been delayed for too long.


I didn't visit any other tea shops in NYC, but I did visit some vintage/antique Japanese shops, Seasons International in SOHO and Things Japanese in the Upper East Side. Although they both carried mainly Japanese tea ware, there were plenty of vintage cups to satisfy a student of Chinese tea drinking. They both had an interesting selection of tetsubin, which I sadly had neither the space nor budget for.


I bought a few vintage Japanese plates for my gaiwan brewing set-up, and I also bought a 30s Japanese sake cup which I plan on using for puerh. I like rounder cups for pu-erh, and I think that an old(er) tea deserves an old cup. However, the most surprising discovery was an early 20th century gaiwan, hidden in the corner behind all the cups. It was even on sale, which made it even more irresistible. I don't really have a need for more gaiwan, but I was mostly interested in seeing how tea tastes differently in a vintage vs. contemporary piece.

It was nice to visit my friends back East, and it was even nicer to have the opportunity to score so much nice tea ware. It's unfortunate though, that because of these purchases my tea budget is shot to hell for the next month or so. Luckily I'm in a good place tea-wise. I have all my tea bases covered, I have enough pots for the teas I drink regularly, and I have a pretty nice tea set-up now. I'm playing around with a few samples from Sampan, and I'll be ordering some samples from Nada, to fill out my pu-erh collection for some slightly older stuff.

An Unintended Hiatus

I hate writing for the sake of keeping up appearances, but since I have misplaced my camera (probably at my friend's place in NYC), I can't show-off all the awesome tea pieces I got, as well as describing my journey to The Tea Gallery. Hopefully my friend will get back to me after her Valentine's Day trip, or I find my camera somewhere here. If not, I'm running my own tea storage teas, which may have some interesting results. Until next time, Happy Chinese New Years!

*NOTE*

Epic fail...my camera was in the backpack that I had checked countless times before. Only this time did I actually reach all the way down. Show-Off post will be coming shortly...

A Brilliant (?) Idea

I've been contemplating an idea, and I hope that I'm not being too ridiculous about it...but please bear with me dear readers

The Background

So I still have a good amount of young sheng samples just lying around. It's mostly stuff from my Yunnan Sourcing last year, and I've only tried these samples only once or twice, since it was pretty clear to me whether I liked them or not. Anyway, I have most of the samples (the ones I don't want to try again) mixed together in as a "house blend." It's sitting in a paper bag in my humidor, maybe aging, maybe not.

The Plan

So I've seen videos of how puerh is compressed, and I'm thinking maybe I can consolidate my samples into a "house blend" cake, which might actually make it more likely to age properly. In these videos they basically steam the maocha until it's soft enough for compression. Maybe I can do the same thing. I think one of the things I have to be careful of is making sure that it dries completely and there's no excessive moisture hanging around inside the cake. I'm also thinking about how exactly to compress it. I don't think there are rocks large enough in my backyard to serve this purpose, but maybe compress it using two boxes, one smaller than the other, and compressing it that way, kind of like those onigiri molds you see in the Japanese markets (see here). I've seen wooden ones (see here) which is more along the lines of what I might try to do. I'll also need to sew together a cotton bag to hold the maocha in after it's been steamed. Maybe I can give this more thought after I come back from my trip back east.

Comments? Has Maitre_Tea gone crazy, or is this the best way to "get rid" of bad samples.

Ripe and Raw

I don't drink a lot of shu, but I recalled that my house has a fair amount of wet-stored shu from Guangzhou/Hong Kong. It's mostly a "daily drinker" type tea for my mom, who brews up a huge batch and takes it to work w/her, or puts it in the fridge to drink it chilled. My uncle, living in Guangzhou, is my mom's supplier, so he doesn't skimp on giving her better stuff. Anyway, I figure at the very least I should try it and see what the fuss is all about. I don't really think much about shu, since I normally drink it during dim sum, so it's more of a beverage than a "tea" to me. Most of the weird wo dui/fishy off-flavors have mostly dissipated, and in some ways it tastes quite nice. I detect some woodiness and some "minty" notes.

I've heard a bit about drinkers mixing ripe and raw, so I decided to give it a try. I went 75% raw and 25% ripe. The sheng in question was a 2008 Xiaguan FT "Instant Sensation" whereas the shu was a early 00s (?) no-name cake (The nei fei is weird...need to post a pic of it sometime). I don't know if this is the "standard" ratio but I've seen this ratio mentioned in some places, and IIRC it's the ratio for the ripe/raw mixed bricks/cakes out there.

The taste is...interesting. It has the bite of a young sheng with some mellowness from the shu. It kinda makes the sheng taste older than it actually is in some ways. It's a bit weird and it'll probably take a few more sessions to see if this is something I could do. Maybe I should try experimenting with a 75% ripe to 25% raw ratio...

1999 Menghai 7542 (Sampan)

Come to think of it, I've had more examples of aged 7542 than any other aged pu-erh (which isn't saying much, given my inexperience with much aged pu-erh). Thinking about it, also I've never had the experience of tasting new 7542. I've had three examples thus far, two from 1993 and one from 1999. Granted, these may not be exact dates, especially if there's funny business going on, but they all came from reliable vendors. Nevertheless, they were all remarkable in their own way, and I thank my tea friends for the opportunity to sample things I would otherwise ignore because of price constraints.

So today I have on my plate the most unremarkable of these three, the 1999 7542. Of course, there are some redeeming factors but I'll get to that later. This particular sample was stored in Taiwan for most of its life, so it has all the classic signs of wet storage. I love the damp, wetness, and musty book of wet storage. I apologize for the lack of photos...the weather around these parts has been most uncooperative.

Even though I've mentioned before that my experience with aged pu-erh is minimal, I've actually tasted a good number of it when studying abroad. The tea shop I entertained would brew up some of her reserve collection for me. I don't recall any particular details regarding vintage, recipe, storage, etc. Thinking back to those days, the pu-erh I sampled was definitely wet-stored. They weren't entirely complex but they were interesting, with notes of camphor, woodiness, and Chinese medicine. My friends all showed disgust but I didn't care and I eagerly drank up their share.

Perhaps our tastes and tendencies in tea are reflected by our first impressions. This is true of me, as I am fond of that wet-storage flavor and aroma. I'm a bit torn on this sample, and I'm still debating if I like it or not. There's a bit too much wet-storage, and the tea itself is a bit monotone. There is a slight touch of sharpness coming from the tea's relative young age, which gives me hope that it can still develop. It's comforting to drink, and it leaves a pleasant sensation in my throat. The cha qi is calming, and it leaves my palms and upper back a bit sweaty, and a nice sensation develops in both my mind and chest.

Would I buy this tea? Depends, though if the tea could develop a fuller body and maintain its cha qi...I might be more inclined. I'll taste other samples first before making a decision.

On an unrelated note, the first signs of aging in my 7532! There's a slight bit of tea stains on the nei fei. Okay, so maybe there's been some funny business going on: I accidentally got some parts of the tea wet. I dried it and checked on it every day or so. Should be okay now, and who knows...maybe I actually helped it by giving it some good old HK storage treatment.