Tasting an Old Vacuum Sealed Puerh and Famous Puerh in the West: Teamasters 2003 Spring Wild Raw Yiwu

Reason for Fame:  This was the first introduction to wild tea for Western puerh drinkers.  I remember the initial buzz around this tea in the mid 2000s.  Stephane of Teamasters Blog submitted this very tea in a tasting competition with other online puerh drinkers and it won.  The interesting thing is that samples of this tea are still available from Teamasters and that he has extensively documented the aging of this tea on his blog throughout the years. 

When organizing some of my aged tea I stumbled upon an old vacuum sealed sample of this that Stephane sent me in 2008 (when it was presumably vacuum sealed after 5 years of Taiwanese storage).  You can see from the package above that it still is completely vacuum air tight.  I remember that I wanted to sample some other wild teas together for comparison and education at that time but I had not acquired so many as they were harder to come by back then.  So, I saved this sample for a few months.  As time went on, I never ended up doing that extensive sampling of wild tea samples and this one somehow got lost among all my aged tea, probably in moving.

Vacuum sealed puerh is a bit of a controversial issue with Hojo first publishing this type of unconventional storage in English on hisblog many years ago .  The really interesting thing about this vacuum sealed sample is that you can compare it to the well documented progression of aging on Stephane’s blogin 2011, in 2013 (with retrospection), and in 2018.  Although, it should be noted that an old sample cannot represent an old full cake, having a look at this sample might give us a bit of insight into vacuum storage…

The dry leaf smells like oat straw, distant strawberries, creamy sweetness and dry sandy dirt.

First infusion has a dry woody and straw onset and mid-profile.  The sweet soft strawberry and barely muted cream tastes appear in the aftertaste before disappearing.  A long dry menthol taste develops then recedes.  A dry clean crisp distinct creamy sweetness returns for the minutes later aftertaste and swells up in the mouth.  The mouthfeel is slight stickiness.

The second infusion starts off woody and straw then develops a slightly sandy mouthfeel.  Then arrives the cooling menthol then a barely fruity taste.  The minutes later aftertaste is of nice talc and strawberries in the distance.  The mouthfeel here is sandy and barly sticky.  A relaxing qi starts to build up.

The third infusion starts off woody and straw then goes into a subtle sour fruity wood note almost vegetal like tomato.  The menthol is there then a long creamy sweetness.  The minutes long wild tea aftertaste with this tea is nice.  The mouthfeel is interesting with empty feelings, a slight dry roof of the mouth and sandy with more of a stickiness on the tip.  The throat feel like it is deep but not overly stimulated- nice for a wild tea.  The qi is a relaxing type, oh yes the head floats with this qi.  In the body it is felt more in the center, still subtly rough on the Stomach.

The fourth infusion starts with an empty, juicy taste with soft woody layers underneath.  The profile is now balanced between sweet and woody base here.  The long menthol aftertaste is beset by the climax of creamy minutes long almost strawberry sweetness.

The fifth infusion has a woody almost incense initial taste and base taste to it.  The minutes long aftertaste is really nice creamy, talc, sweet, barely fruit. The mouthfeel is interesting still sticky, sandy, dry roof.

The sixth infusion starts with incense wood, this infusion is less sweet and the mouthfeel is the highlight now with woody tastes, barely fruit nuances and creamy sweet long tastes.  There is a creamy sweet talc fruit taste throughout.  Qi still slightly rough on stomach, six infusions in, it is more obvious now. 

The seventh infusion has a nice dense mouthfeel and soft opening throatfeeling.  There are notes of distant pinapples and tomato and a soapy, talic taste.  The aftertaste is long supported by the throat feeling.

The eighth infusion has a dry autumn coppery leaf base taste the mouthfeeling is nice and stimulating.  The base taste is more empty now with no sweetness to counterbalance the tastes.  The aftertaste is also more dry wood, less menthol and creamy sweetness.  Even the minitues long taste is more creamy woody menthol.

The ninth infusion is mellow again.  A soft woody, dry leaves base taste with an almost metallic taste, methol, and creamy sweetness minutes later.  The initial taste has flattened out considerably.  The mouthfeel is stimulating and throat feel open at a deeper level.

The tenth infusion has a stronger menthol returning taste the sweetness is almost honey like now.  The dry wood profile is throughout.  The minutes long aftertaste is creamy, sweet, and almost metallic.

The eleventh infusion I add 10 seconds to the flash infusion and a metallic flat dry wood taste is the result with a mainly menthol aftertaste.

The twelfth infusion I add 15 seconds to the flash and get a woody taste, a muddled taste, almost metallic with long menthol finish.

The thirteenth infusion I go back to a flash infusion and it brings back the sweet creamy base taste of almost strawberry in this wild tea which I enjoy. 

The fourteeth is flash infused again and again as solid as ever a very enjoyable very sweet creamy strawberry taste over a nice soft stimulating mouthfeel.  This infusion has a nice mild wood to balance things out undernieth.

I flash infuse this tea for many many more infusions and highly enjoy its sweet, creamy, talc, tastes in a full mouth and deep throatfeeling.  The finish is consitantly menthol and the minutes long taste remains sweet.  “How many infusions am I on now?” 21, 22?  This is great tea, nice relaxing but offers a gentle concentration and care free feeling to my day.

Insight on Vacuum Sealed Puerh.  I was somewhat surprised by this puerh sample because even though I knew it wouldn’t have suffocated to death, I was expecting it to not be as vibrant and delicious.  The one negative was that the body Qi wasn’t sufficiently warming enough so it still felt a little cooling and rough in the stomach.  I think if it would have had another 2 or 3 years of Taiwanese storage before being sealed it would have turned the corner and the Qi would remain somewhat warming.  Currently, its Qi feeling felt a bit unnatural in a subtle sort of way.  I believe a 2018 Taiwanese sample would feel much warmer.  If a puerh is sufficiently bitter or rough on the digestion when young, I believe it needs humidity (and warmth) for its Qi to warm.

The vibrancy of the high notes which form the base of this tea and have great stamina even in late infusions- was a surprise to me.  I believe that the 2018 would have fermented some of these notes away by now and or at least deepened them.  I wonder what has happened to these notes in Stephane’s Taiwanese storage?  Maybe the result is better?

From experience I think a drier stored wild tea seems to do better, for my preference at least. Wild tea is all about the light sweet tastes, mouthfeel, and Qi and I think the vacuum storage did pretty good over the last 10 years.

The sampling of this 10 year vacuum stored sample confirms what I have previous stated about storage: puerh is resilient and can endure many aging conditions even extreme aging conditions and still taste amazing.  Of course it didn’t show signs of browning and deep fermentation, but many qualities that remain are excellent.  If you have a puerh that is quality, complex, enjoyable and drinkable while young, it will probably be enjoyable many years later but the reverse is no guarantee.  Sometimes the risk is worth the payoff.

I guess a comparison with Stephane’s current storage is in order…

Peace

Storage Issues: “Shelf Fatigue”

Recently, James of TeaDB published an excellent article on storage comparisons.  He compared 3 of the same Yang Qing Hao cakes from different storage conditions.  One of his findings is something that is already well understood among puerh drinkers.  It’s something I refer to as “shelf fatigue”.

“Shelf Fatigue” refers to a cake that decreases in quality as it sits on the shelf waiting to be consumed, usually alone in a sealed plastic Ziploc/ Mylar bag or in the open air out of its regular storage conditions.  Many people will have some other more intricate storage system for larger qualities of puerh that is not always super easy or convenient to access but that keeps the puerh much better.  So for convenience, they bring a few cakes of puerh out of this deeper storage into a more accessible drinking storage set up close to their tea table.  The most common are in a tea caddy, ziplock/ mylar, or open shelf storage.

Of course, one way to prevent this in the first place is to limit how long your drinker puerh is exposed to shelf storage.   You can do this two ways.  The first way is to have less cakes available to drink at once.  For me I don’t like this option because I feel that “variety is the spice of life” and I commonly have 5 or 6 cakes going at once.  The second method is to just take smaller portions of puerh from the deeper storage.  This has its downside as well as it as it takes more time and energy to access my deeper stored puerh and it is pretty inconvenient for me.  Also, it exposes the deeper stored puerh to the natural climate on a more frequent basis which is not the purpose of most storage setups.

I have found that tea caddies are the best way to prevent shelf fatigue in puerh.  I remember trying experiments from teamasters in Korea using Korean ceramics comparing shelf, ceramic tea caddy (see some beauties here and here), and Ziplock bags.  The tea caddy was the clear winner in that climate and I believe it would also be a possible good solution in Western climates.  I think it’s also a beautiful esthetic that adds to the tea drinking experience.  The clay reconnects the qi of the leaf to the earth once again… So harmonious... Wilson also is a fan of the tea caddy for this purpose .

However, there are many practical considerations which prevents me from using this type of everyday/accessible storage.  First, is a space consideration, those caddies do take up a lot of surface space (x6) which I don’t have in my modest living space.  Second, is a price consideration, as these caddies can be a bit pricey.  The third consideration is that I keep the puerh on the cake and pry it off just before consuming it.  Others like to break up a whole cake or portion of a puerh cake for consumption, the caddy would be maybe better fit for them.  In the desolate climate I age puerh in nowadays, I am more uncertain about the benefits of a tea caddy.  This is the reason why I don’t own a large enough one to store puerh.  Some people in very very humid and warm climates might find open shelf storage adequate but most in the west will find this to be the worst for shelf fatigue.

I choose to go the route of the Ziplock/ Mylar bag.  This method works for the above reasons also because the sealed storage of the Ziplock works along with theory that sealed storage is superior.  However, shelf fatigue in this type of drinker storage is common as evidence by James’ findings.  I postulate that shelf fatigue of puerh is due to two possible factors. 

The first possible theory of shelf fatigue is that, with repeated opening and closing of the Ziplock/ Mylar, the puerh cake eventually loses moisture and dries out.  The dried out puerh tastes less dynamic compared to the more humidly stored puerh.  To remedy this, I have experimented with just wiping the plastic ziplock with a moist cloth or paper towel.  This seems to help a bit but I find it not as effective as using the steam from the kettle to add warm moisture to the bag.  I have experimented with actually holding the paper wrapped cakes over the steam at a distance as well, this works alright because really it is just the paper wrapping that gets hit with the steam but I have settled with steaming the bag instead these days.  I have been doing this for a few years now and think it is the most effective way of maintaining the puerh when in shelf storage.

I usually put my hand a few feet above the steam of the kettle so that the steam is not scalding and will not melt the plastic but is just warm.  Then I tip the bag on its side and let the steam collect in the Ziplock.  It will fog up the plastic. Then I press out the air and seal up the zipper seal on the bag.  Use caution here people, and air on the side of safety else you will get a steam burn or melt the plastic.  This technique adds both humidity and a touch of heat and doesn’t add any plastic smells if the steam is cool enough.

The second possible theory of shelf fatigue is that, as a puerh cake is consumed in a bag and the bing gets smaller and smaller, more surface area is exposed to air and less to other puerh.  The idea is that puerh tastes better when aged with other puerh.  To remedy this I suppose you could put the puerh in increasingly smaller Ziplock bags.  I tired that but didn’t notice as much difference in maintaining the puerh and it was a little annoying to me to have all these little baggies around.  What I do, and seems to work much better, is that when my puerh cake is about 1/3 to 1/4 consumed, I throw it in with a bunch of other puerh that are about 1/3 or more consumed.

I wonder if you have ever experienced shelf fatigue and I wonder what you do to remedy this storage issue? I hope these little tips help you in consuming better tasting puerh.  After all, what is the point of all the storage fuss if you end up consuming less optional puerh in the end?

Peace

Storage Issues: Maintaining Optimal Aging of a Humidly Stored Semi Aged Sheng Puerh

I think, one of the biggest challenges to storing puerh in the West is this: How can we advance the aging of a semi-aged more humidly stored sheng?

I have noticed, through personal experience and through the shared information of others, that it is quite difficult to effectively and optimally advance the aging of more humidly stored sheng puerh.  All efforts I’ve tried and heard about by Westerners seem to only preserve or only slowly advance the aging of humid stored cakes that came from Malaysia, Guangdong, Taiwan, or Hong Kong.  None can seem to effectively continue on the trajectory of aging the cake in this manner and little funny things seem to happen to my cakes that, although not rendering them undrinkable, make them not as good as the cakes that I re-order from the same source years later.  I’m sure many of you have had this same issue whether or not you’d like to admit it.  This is kind of the elephant in the room for people who buy more puerh than they drink.

This has been an issue of mine since coming back to purchasing puerh a year or so ago because I have focused on mainly acquiring semi-aged/ aged puerh.  It is the more humidly stored stuff that seems to be more readily available and more popular and trendy and cheaper in the West these days.  There are many reasons for this that I should dedicate a whole post to but I think part of the popularity is because it emulates a type of aging that we cannot produce ourselves yet, in most locations in the West.  It is human nature to want what we cannot easily acquire.  But once we acquire it, then what?

For me, then I have to weigh acquiring a more humidly stored semi-aged or aged puerh in quantity at a lower price but knowing it will not taste better than tea that has had continuous storage at the source vs buying only what I’ll drink immediately and paying more down the road but knowing that the cake will taste better.  The caveat here is that we have no way of knowing if a certain production will sell out, become unavailable, not be available in that exact storage or sky-rocket in value to the point that it would have been worth it to just store it in the West rather than pay the exorbitant current costs.

The most promising answer to this problem so far is this experiment by Marco of Late Steeps where he takes 2 identical, newly shipped puerh cakes that were stored in more humid Taiwan storage for their first 9 years and puts them into storage of different temperatures (low temp vs high temp) for one year then tests them.  His results for the cooler stored cake sound a lot like some of the issues I have after acquiring a more humidly stored cake.

It’s a good thing I ordered 4 of these hot boxes from Marco when he first announced his experiment publically (hahaha..) because I am putting them to use with some of the everyday drinker, more humidly stored puerh I have purchased over the last year or so. 

To me, it seems like the only solution to this problem so far... so I’m going with it…

Peace

Storage Issues: Cheap Hygrometers

It’s a good idea to spend a bit of money on these things if you really want to know about humidity.

Peace

Pumidor Puerh Storage VS Sealing/ Shrink Wrapped Puerh Storage

Did you know that there is a real debate within western puerh circles about what is considered the most optimal home storage for puerh? (here and here).  This debate is especially relevant because unless you live somewhere that is warm and/ or humid chances are you will not be optimally aging your puerh naturally in the open air, such as on a shelf in your home or in a cupboard.  I suppose there are endless ways you can store puerh but, in America at least, the pumidor (puerh humidor) seems to be the most popular these days.  Have you ever wondered why?

I think the first I heard of the pumidor was around 2009.  I believe it was a reaction by some of the early puerh drinkers to previous advice from those storing puerh in very different climates in Southern China which even recommended putting the puerh in a cardboard box in a place with good airflow.  They gradually found out that this advice was not optimal for the mainly stronger factory puerh that they had accumulated in the drier and cooler climate in the West.

In this 2012 post titled “Ideas of Tea Storage” by Marshal’N, most of the discussion is around the pumidor.  In the comment section, Bev, is discussing considerations in building an optimal pumidor which she later posts in detail about on her blog in the following years.  What I find most interesting is the almost complete lack of discussion of sealing/Ziploc bagging/ shrink wrapping storage from this time and earlier on English blogs/ forums.  I think this lack of discussion, challenge, and vocal opposition to the pumidor during this time lead a lot of people automatically going this route especially those who started drinking puerh at this time (around 5 or so years ago).

What I find most interesting is that puerh storage using shrink wrapping was a common thing in many parts of Asia at this time and years before.  There is an argument that says that people who live in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Malaysia don’t have a similar climate to Western climates so their option on shrink wrap does not carry the same weight or does not apply to storage of puerh in the West.  But what about other climates in China that are closer to ours in the West such as those in Northern China and Korea? What do they consider optimal storage for puerh in their much cooler and drier climates?

It was my personal observation that the more North you travel in China the more you see sealed puerh storage.  Surely, I must have come across numerous pumidors in those drier more northern climates?  Nope- not even a single pumidor.  Shocking, I know.  I guess those people in China know very little about optimal puerh storage… maybe they should take a note from those in America who know a lot more about storing puerh optimally?  Who knows, time will tell.  Maybe someone in America will design the perfect pumidor and market it to the people in China and make a killing?  Possibly.  I haven’t been to those parts of China in a while, maybe it just took them a few years to realize that their sealed storage is failing their puerh and they have all converted to pumidor?  I don’t know this.

What I do know is that Bev who is located in the Pacific Northwest and has one of my all-time favorite tea blogs, Listening to Leaves blog, did make a beautiful, and well thought out pumidor and famously documented it on her blog.  She also began to wrap all of her puerh cakes in Saran wrap (aka Cling Wrap, plastic wrap) and place them in her pumidor.  She tasted them and made notes on them and documented this.  She came to the conclusion that it was the wrapping, not the pumidor, which was most optimally aging her puerh.  In the end, despite her great effort, she abandon the pumidor for the wrapped approach.  It saddens me that she recently blocked her blog from public view.  She is someone whose pallet has developed a very high level of sophistication when it comes to puerh and she has amassed a very large collection of very fine aged cakes, I think.

Personally, I remember watching Mr. Kim, a tea teacher/ teamaster in Korea wrapping up tongs of sheng puerh so many years ago.  I remember when I first saw him do this, it was perplexing to me at the time.  Why would you want to cover a beautiful traditional looking bamboo tong full of puerh cakes in natural paper in oh so unnatural plastic wrap?  This was especially unusual for a man who seemed to do everything the natural and traditional way.  I remember the conversation that followed…

I asked him if he was wrapping the puerh to protect it.  He said it was to both protect and age it.  He explained that Korea’s climate was to cold, dry and very different then South China and that he had to wrap it to preserve the biological environment of the puerh.  Sounded reasonable enough to me.  So I too wrapped my puerh tight without questioning things too much and that is how most of it stayed for years.

Then at some point when living in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada I unwrapped some of the puerh to see how it was doing.  I wondered if it would age better in a type of pumidor storage.  At the very least it would be much more accessible than the eyesore which is plastic wrapped puerh… And I could appreciate it more sensually by smelling it and savoring its beautiful fragrant aroma and viewing the beautiful packaged tongs and natural papers.  This brought me much happiness.

The pumidor set up I had was pretty basic.  I used a sealed chamber in the massive, built-in, hundred year old, natural cedar wood desk in the study and I added my puerh along with a few glass mason jars of water which I rotated.  I noticed that this puerh set up was still aging my puerh adequately but the cakes that remained wrapped in plastic wrap seemed to contain more aroma, essence, vibrancy, and depth of taste.  The pumidor cakes seemed more mellowed, more spaced out, softened.  So, I, just like Bev, concluded that wrapping my puerh would be more optimal storage.  Additionally, I was hearing stories of puerh molding out in other peoples’ pumidors.  I have never heard of puerh molding out in plastic wrap, have you?

But if you wrap your puerh you are going to completely kill off and suffocate your puerh!  You can only seal your puerh for a few months or years tops then you are pretty much just killing it off.  The suffocation argument does not hold weight, people who claim this obviously have no long term experience with this sort of storage.  Besides why would they have a long history of wrapping/ sealing puerh in some countries if it was detrimental?  This argument could also be reversed… Pumidor storage will completely wreck your puerh!  If it molds that’s a completely different story.  If it doesn’t mold out, its probably going to do alright in pumidor storage.  Puerh is resilient, it has more lives than cats.  I’m pretty sure that pumidor stored puerh is going to turn out just fine.

With this being said, I suppose, you could even make a case for the pumidor.  Its everyday accessibility is much better.  There is something so cruel about having something so beautiful and something you enjoy so much that is wrapped up in many meters of plastic wrap!  So ugly looking too… This is also rather inconvenient to wrap and then unwrap… so annoying.  However, it is also very exciting, a delayed gratification to unwrap a puerh that has been stored that way for months or years- like the excitement of opening a gift or opening a letter from a good friend.  The pumidor’s accessibility comes with the convenience and ease of looking, smelling, and checking and enjoying the sensual aspects of its aging- the esthetics of this is quite appealing.

The pumidor fridge is another thing… so American… almost like a beer fridge.  It kind of has this appeal I think… “Honey I’m just going down stairs to grab a bing from the fridge”.  It has this convenience factor built in.  But what if your collection outgrows your fridge?  Two puerh fridges and then moving these fridges from place to place, house to house… now it seems more inconvenient than convenient to me.  To me I would also be concerned of the exposure to foreign bacteria’s, molds, fungus in an old fridge even if thoroughly disinfected.  As mentioned in comments and previous posts, maintenance of the original mirco environment is a very important part in aging puerh and I feel wrapping it does the best job of this.

Another negative to wrapping storage is that it can’t add humidity that isn’t already in the cake before wrapping it.  But this can be remedied somewhat by other means like bringing the humidity up before wrapping.  Once wrapped it stays that way.  Pushing the wetness of storage is something that makes the pumidor appealing but I think because it can’t preserve the micro environment as good, it’s not worth the tradeoff.  Plus the risk of mold- not worth it.

Then there is the “time is money” argument.   Is a puerh that is tended to meticulously worth more than one that is wrapped and basically forgotten but tastes better? I don’t think so but maybe there are some out there that do.  Certainly, there is something to be said about someone who puts their own love, their own Qi, into their tea.  Can you feel the love?  Certainly loved puerh must taste better than neglected puerh?

In the end though, if you are aging puerh in an environment that is too cool or dry for the improved drinking experience then sealing your puerh with plastic wrap is the way to go.  If you value the peripheral esthetics surrounding the aging of puerh, the excitement of checking your puerh everyday, the convenience of accessing your puerh quickly and easily, and if you like thinking way too much about temperature, humidity, and mold then maybe pumidor storage is best for you.

Peace