Saturday, March 2, 2024

Happy New Year of the Dragon!

 


Hi there readers and Happy Yew Year!!!  I hope this foray into this Year of the Dragon is as powerful for you as it is for me!

There have been lots of life changes for me this past year - all very good but which has made it difficult to evaluate and post on puerh.  I have gone very long stretches months of having no evaluation drinking. I still have no proper work gongfu and am ashamedly evaluating using flash steps in a thermos.  With that being said I had some great logical chunks of posts! 

 I posted a bunch of BaoHongYinJi reviews in March - I am happy about getting to know the brand.  Then I did a full review of complimentary samples of the 2023 Tea Encounter line up and most of the 2023 Chenyuan Hao which was really fun!  I also got some blind sampling in with some dragon balls from Puerist.  I am content with how I did and enjoy keeping up my skill- mainly it is super fun for me.

After a year or two of purchasing restraint I really let loose this past year and you can see some of that in my full cake posting in November and December last year. Lots of cakes from TeasWeLike and some from Puerh.uk as well. They are my two favourites!  There is more to come in that regard over the next month here. I just recently lost a bunch of unpublished notes on these but like I said they are cakes so I am just in the process of writing new notes.  

My home drinking has changed a bit.  I’m back onto smaller but still largish yixing pots!  My tea consumption is also down as a result which is always a plus for someone who consumes way too much puerh.  Still drinking good puerh though right now 2007 Zhi Xi Hao Diangu is in one pot and 2004 YangQing Hao Dingji Yesheng is in the other… life is good!  

Also just last week I started drinking tins Hoshino Yame matcha!  The weather has been really springlike or maybe just not that wintery at all with the La Niña this year.  I have been getting my matcha fix from Cultivate Tea in Vancouver they got Yame Honshino.  This Hoshino Seiju grade , second highest in their line, which I’ve been drinking is a real treat with nice texture with a clear fresh taste but not as smoke bitter or vegital or umami just clear sweet greens.  I can’t remember trying this one in the past.

In a homage to Hobbes of the Half-Dipper I finally got my first tea pet!  Back in the day I was never fond of them nor am I today… I wonder if that’s still a trend or how many people do that?  I was fond of one actually it was from amazing Korean female ceramicist Seung Jin Eh- these beautiful ceramic pagodas.  Never did buy one though… then one day one of my older kids comes home with a Grogu.  My youngest is showing interest in my tea set but she has a tendency for throwing things.  She is totally terrified of that little Grugu so as a test I put him on my tea table and sure enough he is little a cute little scarecrow…. Hahaha

Ok this Dragon Year is a time of big change so as I was going back to edit this post I realized that I need to do two things to make my tea experience better here and of course it’s not buying more tea…. Hahaha…. 

First thing is I need to improve my technology and change how I record notes so I don’t loose them like I have done a few times over the last two years!  If I can spend the money I do on tea then surely I can afford an upgrade.  I went out purchased something- it’s got a great macro feature so as an added bonus expect better photos too!

Second thing is I really got to set up my tea table at work… so I did… it’s not ideal and the table is up a bit higher than I like no drainage system set up yet but it feels good to use again after being in a box for 9 months.  Going forward my reviews will be at that table no more of that crazy thermos flash steepings for any of the puerh reviews going forward…

Peace

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