This 1999-2003 Mr Chen’s JaiJi Green Ink sample came free with the purchase of the 1999 Mr Chen Daye ZhengShan MTF Special Order.  I didn’t go to the site so blind to the price and description and tried it after a session of the ZhongShan MTF Special Order… Dry leaves have a dry woody dirt faint taste. Rinsed leaves have a creamy sweet odour. First infusion has a sweet watery onset there is a return of sweet woody slight warm spice. Sweet, simple, watery and clean in this first infusion. Second infusion has a sweet watery simple woody watery sweet taste.  Slight woody incense and ..read more

  Paolo was excited about this find and offered it to those who bought into the Tea Hunter package at a reduced price.  I had sampled through the previous dry stored aged puerh offered by Mr. Chen that were released over a year ago (here and here).  I enjoyed them all but yet not enough to cake.  This 1999 Mr Chen’s Daye ZhongShan MTF Special Order is at a level above the others. Over a year now Puerh.uk has been releasing some 8582 recipe versions from Mr Chen’s dry storage.  Like Mr Chen I’m a big fan of the aged 8582 so I hope to sample them at some point…. D ..read more

This is the second part (first part was the 2017) of the 2017/2011 Jin Dayi comparison sample set from Liquid Proust that goes for approx $57.00…. This 2011 Jin (Gold) Dayi is quite famous and expensive but it really blew my mind.  They still have a few of these sets left and I recommend it to try this one…  Dry leaves are a faint plum smoke hay. Rinsed leaf has a subtle smoke and tobacco and faint banana odour. First infusion is smooth oily lubricating mouthwatering feeling with a subtle smoke and creamy custard banana nuance.  Creamy oily mouthfeel.  Taste stays in the ..read more

This sample comes from a comparison testing sample set from Liquid Proust which goes for approx $57.00 for the 2017/2011 Dayi Jin Sample set.  I sampled the quite amazing 2011 the following day in the next post.  Dry leaves have a very tobacco wet smoke tobbacco odour.   Rinsed leaf is superisingly sweet amongst strong wet dark cherry tobacco notes. First infusion has a watery Smokey metallic mild chalky sweetness.  Nice sweet returning taste almost melon that builds in the aftertaste with some salivating.  Feel it in the chest. A bit of acidity left behind in th ..read more

  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 abo ..read more

 I got to thinking about the early Autumn Gushu productions produced in the earlier Gushu era by the big Taiwanese Boutique producers.  Before 2005 they didn’t market Autumal puerh.  These were also the very early days of the Gushu movement.  And with the puerh demand increasing and the bubble ready to pop there was all of a sudden a bunch of Botique puerh producers quite interested in good Autumal material. So, as a result we start to see these high quality Yiwu Autumal Gushu productions around this time. I tried my first back then which was a blind sampling of a fresh im ..read more

This free sample came complimentary from my last purchase from Puerh.uk.  It’s not yet listed on either Puerh.uk site or the ChenYuan Hao site yet.  A bit different than the other 2023 ChenYuan Hao I sampled a few months ago as it is in a dragonball shape not sample from cake, and it is a blend.  You can’t help but wonder if this has any resemblance to the famous 2005 Chen Yuan Hao Shanzhong Chuanqi when it was fresh off the press?  Dry leaf smells mildly woody pungent sweet. 30 second rinse the rinsed leaves smell really spicy and pungent with a really sweet mouthwater ..read more

  As stated in the comments here, this puerh is sort of historical in the West.  Like many puerh that have become popularized in Western puerh lore, it had an early fresh off the press release from Houde.  I remember when it was first released and the stir that it created with the early online puerh community.  As I stated in the comments of an introductory post on this puerh,  it’s historical in the West because you get all these super famous puerh people/ bloggers trying to decipher something that no one really has much experience with- Phil Sheng, Vlad, Tho ..read more

   This 2014 ChengShun Hao/ Zizai XiGui (approx $390.00 for 250g cake or $156.00/g) was one of the three cakes offered exclusively for those who bought into Puerh.uk TCE2 Hunter Package the days before Black Friday.  I still can’t believe I did that!  There was another 2014 ChengShun Hao / ZiZai which I was less interested in and did not purchase a cake it was a 400g ManZhuan Gushu for approx $310.00 or $0.78/g.  Paolo mentioned that the processing is maybe similar to Tea Urchin cakes on these ChengShun Hao/ ZiZai .  All three cakes were favourably stored by ..read more

  To me that TeasWeLike has seemed to release its Malaysian puerh in different waves.  The first wave within their first year was the release of their three Malaysian dry storage cakes.  The 2006 Rustic Zhongcha, a favourite of mine, is doing better than most of my cakes in my horrible Canadian dry storage (see recent notes here in comparison with the 2004 Red Label).  Then there is the 2003 Zhongcha 7532- which unbelievably I have not tried yet because it always seems to be either sold out or I have other pressing interests haha… I promise you a review when I track ..read more