Dry leaves seem bigger than the 1998 Menghai Tea Factory 8582 Houde cake and more what I expect from 8582 leaf grade recipe. It smells of dry woody odours - has more of that Tea Urchin storage odour than anything.  This 1998 Zhongcha 8582 goes for $265.00 for 357g cake (or $0.74/g) at Tea Urchin.  I purchased this sample a few years ago and intended to sample them with the other two Zhongcha offerings at Tea Urchin the 2004 Zhongcha Lotus Aroma and the 2001 Zhongcha Ba Zhong but wasn’t able to.   I just sampled this one recently… Rinsed leaves have a sweet woody leaf faint map ..read more

*** These tasting notes were from 2021/2022… According to the Tea Urchin’s site, this was stored in Taiwan until 2014 when it was purchased and stored with Tea Urchin’s tea in Shanghai for the remainder of its life.  Pretty close to 1/2 Taiwanese storage and 1/2 Shanghai.  Belle and Eugene guess it has some Bulang leaves in the mix and the description makes it sound a bit old school, smoky, and rustic.  This 2001 Zhongcha “Ba Zhong” 357g cake goes for $265.00 or $0.74/g. Dry leaves smell of smoke with a fair bit of creamy sweet odours and faint wood. &nb ..read more

*Just a note that these tasting notes are from 2021/2022….This one was naturally Malaysian stored for 10 years before being put in drier cooler Shanghai storage since 2014.  Apparently, this will be a fragrant one… This 2004 Zhongcha “Lotus Aroma” 357g cakes goes for $198.00 or $0.55/g at Tea Urchin. Dry leaves smell of very sweet, very floral aroma without much aged smell at all. First infusion has a really sweet bread and cherry plum odour from the wet leaves.  There is a fruit cake and powdery chalky floral like taste upfront with some fallen leaf aspect but quite sweet ..read more

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