Maeda-en Sen-cha Reserve

From local Asian grocery store: $14 for 85 g

This was a fairly muted sencha with nothing really that great about but nothing bad either. I would have liked some more vegetal/grassy notes which were for the most part absent.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Yong De Blue Label" Ripe Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $15 for 357 g cake

This is very similar to the 2011 Ye Zhuang Shuang Li "Red Label Yuan Xiang Bu Lang" I recently had. In its current form it not good with overpowering swamp/fish aromas. Maybe after a few years it will mellow out a bit, but it is still relatively new. (If anyone knows where to get the nice storage boxes for puerh in the pictures I would like to get some more for convenient storage)

2011 Ye Zhuang Shuang Li "Red Label Yuan Xiang Bu Lang"

From Yunnan Sourcing $15 for 357 g cake

This one calls for a wash and trashing of the water to get some of the funk off of it. After that it is somewhat alright although some unpleasant stuff still hangs around. I'd be surprised if this improves much over time. It feels like this could use another year or so to air out the stuff that the first wash gets rid of. Nothing to special or noteworthy about this.

2011 Xiaguan FT "Mushroom Tuo" Raw Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $14.5 for 250 g mushroom

This is a surprisingly nice find. It ranks high on my list with a decent amount of camphor. This raw has a very medicinal feel to it. So far I have tended to brew this fast and light.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Chen Xiang" Aged Raw Pu-erh of Wu Liang Mountain

From Yunnan Sourcing $29 for 400 g

 This is one of the top few the best smelling raw pu I have had. It is of course camphor rich, which is my favorite. The body was lacking, being fairly simple and not leaving me wanting to drink to much. This is unfortunate since it smells so great, maybe the soup will mellow out after a few years, but I wouldn't bet on it.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Qiu Yun" Wild Arbor Raw Pu-erh tea of Yi Wu mountain

From Yunnan Sourcing $17 for 250 g

This tea is a really nice production by Yunnan Sourcing. This is what I think of as a great example of a raw puerh, especially for someone new. Its not so much that it is a great tea as it is that it is one of he most solid representations of raw puerh I have had. It was much more forgiving when brewing than many raw pu-erhs. Also not overly complex where I feel like there's something I should be appreciating but am not. For a beer analogy I think of this teas as the Pabst Blue Ribbon or Budweiser of raw puerh, and I mean that not in a derogatory way, quite the opposite. In my opinion, in the current market of raw puerh that seems to be dominated with rare but more expensive greats and flooded with fairly bad examples it is nice to have this bedrock around.

5 Year Aged "Menghai Golden Pu-erh" of Bu-Lang Mountain

From Yunnan Sourcing $7 for 50 g

I'm not sure what exactly to make of this one. It has citrus aromas, mostly orange, that I do not really like. It is also really malty which makes for a strange combination. Interesting and worth a try, but not much more than that. On a good note it avoids the unpleasant flaws that most cooked pu has, but seemingly at the expense of developing the strange malty/orange combination.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Autumn Yi Wu Purple Tea" Raw Pu-Erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $19 for a 250 g cake

 Interesting tea. It is young, but has aromas of an tea that is several years older that this is. The body is very smooth as well, nothing complex, but something that is nice to have when I am in the mood for a simple tea. Sort of like the 'steak and potatoes' for puerh, it works well for day to day drinking. Definitely worth getting a cake or two, especially at this price.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Lao Cha Tou Brick" Ripe Pu-erh tea brick

From Yunnan Sourcing $12 for a 250 g brick

I really wanted to like this one. The texture of the brick is much nicer than most making it easy to break chunks off. The tea was a perfectly decent ripe. However, this is where I draw the line for treasures found in tea. Drinking puerh I have come accustomed to finding the occasional treasure in the tea and find it mildly entertaining picking around it. One of the most common treasured is hair, I'm sure anyone who has had the pleasure of going through a couple their own cake/brick or whatever compressed tea  is at hand has found a hair or two. This tea had the most hair I have ever seen in compressed tea. It was to the point that I just dismantled the brick after carefully harvesting enough for a couple of sessions. I would have gladly paid a a higher price for a less hairy version. I consider myself fairly tolerant with things like this but the rest of this brick is unfortunately going in the trash. It really is too bad to see this go, since it was decent tea.

2005 Xiaguan "Xiao Fa Tuo" Ripe Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $17 for a 100 g tuo

This was all around mediocre. It surprisingly still has some slight fishy smell to it. I finished it, but was content with that.

 

2011 Yunnan Sourcing "Man Tang Hong Gong Ting" Ripe Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $25 for a 357 g cake

The description on the Yunnan sourcing page is spot on for this one. It has a nice body to the tea, but there is still some of the fishy aromas to this one. At $25 a cake it might be worth getting a few to forget about for a few years, but in its current form it is not that great. It seems like this one has potential though.

2011 Yunnan Sourcing "Ai Lao Mountain" Wild Arbor Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $32 for a 400 g cake

This was a free sample from Yunnan Sourcing, thanks for the sample. This did not really have much, reminds me of this except a little more plain. It is not something that I will get more of.

2011 Yunnan Sourcing "Nan Po Zhai" Ancient Arbor Raw Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $82 for a 400 g cake.

Sample was provided gratis from Yunnan Sourcing, Thanks! This was what I don't like in young raw puerh. Very green and tannin loaded, complex without anything that I really like. I won't be keeping this around.

2009 Yunnan Sourcing "Yi Wu Da Qiu Feng" Pu-erh tea

From Yunnan Sourcing $57 for a 357 g cake.

This is a great raw puerh. It reminds me of  this tea I have from J-tea at a fraction of the cost. To be honest it is one of the first raw puerhs that I have really liked from Yunnan Sourcing. It seems really well balanced with some of my favorite camphor notes and complex enough to keep me interested in what is going on. For being so young it has a surprisingly dark extract. I will be trying several of the remaining samples I have in the coming days. I will defiantly have one or two cakes of this in my cabinet soon. Kudos for this one Yunnan Sourcing, keep em coming.

Xinghai Tea Factory Gold Brick Cooked Pu-erh

From Lang's Tea Co. $25 per 250 g box.
Lang's Tea Co.
429 Stockton St.
San Francisco, CA
415-391-2228
429langtea@gmail.com


This is a really nice everyday puerh to get going in the morning. Nothing special about it, but its a solid ripe pu that is very approachable. I would get more to have in the morning rotation of pu if I run into it again.

Bonavita 1-Liter Variable Temperature Digital Electric Gooseneck Kettle

From Amazon.com $90

This thing is amazing. This is my new favorite kettle. I have gotten used to the Pino Digital Kettle Pro (see this) and the heating up of water sounding like a jet taking off. The Bonavita is very quiet, something I now can appreciate after owning the Pino for several years. The pore from the gooseneck spout is laminar and aesthetically pleasing. The one thing I would have liked is a slightly larger capacity as my normal morning sessions typically use a little over 1 L, the larger option that is available does not have the gooseneck spout. I highly recommend this to anyone thinking of getting an electric kettle.

(I am leaving the hazy white cover on to protect the electronics)

Bird Tongue Green Tea

From Lang's Tea Co. approximately $180 per 450 g.
Lang's Tea Co.
429 Stockton St.
San Francisco, CA
415-391-2228
www.langstea.com (not there now see below)
429langtea@gmail.com


This was a teashop I stopped by on my trip to southern California. This was a nice stop since it was the only shop that I found that felt reasonably welcoming. The other shops I found were just kept telling you how healthy tea is for you and that their tea is the best... I get it theyre trying to make a living, but after I tell you that I already like tea and don't care about all of the health benefits please stop telling me all the superpowers I am going to get from drinking your tea. With that said we had a nice session with Lang. This was the green that I had not tried, we had the lower cost one and I bought the more expensive one. I got the more expensive stuff since it looked like good leaf. Lesson learned yet again, try before you buy. I now how have a reasonable amount of mediocre green tea. It smells shockingly similar to asparagus when brewed. Its an alright green tea, but a reasonalbe amount will probably be used a a lab tea. Lab teas are the ones I take to work to drink, which is likely the height of my senses being dulled since I am in a synthetic organic lab. Therefore lab tea is tea that is alright but nothing that I want to save and appreciate. Lang was very nice and told me that the shop has been there for about a year and a website is in the works. Theres a couple of more teas from Langs I got that I will post about soon.

Edit: Brew at 60 C, it is much better than 80 C. It is still not the best, but good.