I woke up this morning feeling tired and anxious, so I wanted to drink tea that would soothe me. I woke my body up with a couple of bowls of matcha, then turned to this tea I bought last year from Sunsing. As I understand it, wealthy puer afficionados will drink loose-leaf sheng on a daily basis because it has many of the wonderful characteristics of high-class aged sheng at a fraction of the cost. I paid $550HKD (about $70US) for 150 grams. By way of contrast, I paid $34US for two 400g beengs of yesterday's tea, so this is considerably more expensive. It's also considerably better! I placed between 4-5g in a glass gaiwan, rinsed once, and started with a series of eight flash infusions. Ah! This tea has a wonderfully warm earth-wood aroma and a full sweet aftertaste that I think is characteristic of the yiwu leaf. I wonder how much of the deep pleasure of the first mouthful was because this tea contrasts so profoundly with the matcha, which I brewed a little strong and hence carried some bitterness. Hmmm. I recall reading a blog by somebody (Hobbes?) about whipping up a batch matcha in some left over puer. That suddenly seems like great idea.
I let the tea rest for an hour or so, then began brewing again. As you can see from the picture, which shows the 9th & 11th brews, the tea begins to lose patience quite abruptly. It loses some of it fullness, too, but the clear sweetness remains well through subsequent brews. I can't say for sure how long it lasts, because I've stopped drinking it for the time being.
This a great tea for newbies (including me). I brewed some up last summer for one of my sister-in-laws, Roberta, who does not care for tea & thus was humoring me. I had my back turned when she took her first sip, but Margaret tells me that her face totally lit up. Here by the way is a photo of the brewing set up I used in our motel room in Joplin, MO.
But I don't think this is a great tea, largely because it doesn't change much from steep to steep. Still, I'm glad I have it. And I see that it's still listed on the
Sunsing website for $550HKD. That's something of a bargain!
Here's the cool little bag Sunsing shipped my order in last year. I've been using it to hold all my puer samples.
This is what the bag holds. You can tell who I'm ordering tea from! I'm chagrined to say that I haven't even tasted a lot of this stuff. Truth is, I don't much care for young sheng, so there it sits. But there are some older samples I should try, such as the 1980s Tong Xing from Grand Tea.
I woke up this morning feeling tired and anxious, so I wanted to drink tea that would soothe me. I woke my body up with a couple of bowls of matcha, then turned to this tea I bought last year from Sunsing. As I understand it, wealthy puer afficionados will drink loose-leaf sheng on a daily basis because it has many of the wonderful characteristics of high-class aged sheng at a fraction of the cost. I paid $550HKD (about $70US) for 150 grams. By way of contrast, I paid $34US for two 400g beengs of yesterday's tea, so this is considerably more expensive. It's also considerably better! I placed between 4-5g in a glass gaiwan, rinsed once, and started with a series of eight flash infusions. Ah! This tea has a wonderfully warm earth-wood aroma and a full sweet aftertaste that I think is characteristic of the yiwu leaf. I wonder how much of the deep pleasure of the first mouthful was because this tea contrasts so profoundly with the matcha, which I brewed a little strong and hence carried some bitterness. Hmmm. I recall reading a blog by somebody (Hobbes?) about whipping up a batch matcha in some left over puer. That suddenly seems like great idea.
I let the tea rest for an hour or so, then began brewing again. As you can see from the picture, which shows the 9th & 11th brews, the tea begins to lose patience quite abruptly. It loses some of it fullness, too, but the clear sweetness remains well through subsequent brews. I can't say for sure how long it lasts, because I've stopped drinking it for the time being.
This a great tea for newbies (including me). I brewed some up last summer for one of my sister-in-laws, Roberta, who does not care for tea & thus was humoring me. I had my back turned when she took her first sip, but Margaret tells me that her face totally lit up. Here by the way is a photo of the brewing set up I used in our motel room in Joplin, MO.
When I bought this tea from Yunnan Sourcing last spring, I was disappointed. The liquor was thin and sour--not the worst shu I had ever tasted, but far from the best. I pried off a layer of the beeng. broke it into smaller pieces & put it into a ceramic pot to age.
I brewed this informally, rinsing a piece of tea twice in a glass gaiwan with boiling tap water, & steeping it repeatedly for 10 or 15s. It has a lot of patience; I'm still getting a tasty brew after 12 steeps.
I like shu brewed English-style, so next time I try this tea I'll give it a long steep in a pot. It might benefit from better water, too, though I find my favorite shus taste good regardless of the water.