Wednesday, September 21, 2005

New Pu Erh tasting

I feel that receiving these many samples and sharing the notes is fun and interesting. I don't really mind the number and the variety. However, I sense that we lack a standard for the 'good', the high quality pu-erh. And I think that this is also what Adrian has in mind: to focus on a tasting of really good pu-er, see why and how good it is.

So I propose to send you two samples of the following teas:
- 2003 wild Yi Wu, raw, sun dried qizi bing cha. I bought 7+7 cakes (each 500 gr) through Teaparker (one set for me, on for my son). Retail price in Taiwan: around 1000 USD (the whole 7 pack! or approx. 28 USD per 100 grams). It's the only tea Teaparker sold us (except one larger sample of Bi lo chun). I don't have a good access to the source and am therefore not selling this tea. (But I do have a 2001 wild Yi Wu, which is cheaper, very good, but still not as superb as this one...) Danny already had the opportunity to taste it and found it 'beyond comparison' to the young pu-ers of his sampling (maybe he wants to tell you more about it?).

- 1990 wild Jiang Cheng brick (sun dried). (XXX USD for the 300 grams brick). This is a tea from my pu-er importer/wholesaler. Teaparker prepared a Power Point presentation/instructions to accompany this brick and also recommends it. I have written plenty about it in my blog.

For old pu-ers, the 'good' become quickly very expensive, so I choose this one to remain kind of reasonable. I hope that the fact I'm selling it will not lessen your interest in tasting it.
(Since Adrian has bought this brick, I propose to send him a sample of the same brick from 1988 to give him a peak at how it will evolve in 2 years.)

My secret hope is to trigger a kind of competition between us where we would try to impress each other with the best in our tea cellars, in search of pu-er excellence. But there is no obligation to reciprocate, of course.
This would also simplify the cost matter: the sender bears all costs.

What I need now is your mailing addresses, if you're interested. (Except for Adrian and Danny, who already gave them).

Who's in? (Reserved to the members of this blog who send me their mailing address by next Monday. Maximum 12)

2 comments:

Cindy W. said...

This sounds wonderful -- I'm in, and have emailed my address separately.

I have had the pleasure of receiving tea from Stephane before, including the mentioned 2001 Wild Yi Wu. Tasting notes (and photos) are on my blog, if anyone is interested. It's definitely a special tea, unlike any other puerhs I've tasted. I got the hints of corn, but there was also a musty floral flavor that reminded me of marigolds. :)

TeaMasters said...

Sorry Cindy, but these are not the same teas. The one for this tasting is from 2003, not 2001, and was made by a different producer. This 2003 is of even higher quality. However, there are similarities as both are wild grown YiWu cakes.