2003 Changtai "Ji Nian / Memorial" Sheng / Raw Tuo

A nice aged puerh, but it just doesn’t do enough for me. I got this tea from my recent CLT order, and it just feels like there’s too many things missing in this tea to really give it a stamp of approval. Nice and rich aroma paired with a dark, thick and vibrant liquor, along with a decent texture and a nice finish & aftertaste. The flavour was a very prototypical aged puerh taste that was nice but didn’t offer much more than the average. Slatey texture that kept the tea different but still uninteresting, along with a okay-ish cha-qi and a relatively poor steep longevity. This tea lacked character and just really gave me a “average” vibe, albeit a decent and perfectly drinkable tea.

Yes, a nice tea, but it just doesn’t bring me to a place where I would want to buy this tea again.

An amazing example of what heavy storage can do to sheng puerh. I’m very averse to “dank” notes but brewing 8g in a 240ml nixing pot seems to mute these entirely. Thick and oily liquor, sweet, smooth, earthy, beetroot aromas. I would note beetroot in the flavors below but steepster sadly doesn’t have it yet. Later steeps reveal slight vanilla. Despite being smooth and easy to drink, this tea still seems a bit controversial; my mother hates it, she thinks it tastes dusty, while my friend loves it.

OK well… this is a weird tea. Remember, I’m new to different types of pu.

This tea is one of the best shous that I’ve ever drank except that its a sheng!! Here’s the story.

Glen also stated that aged sheng is supposed to taste like this, which sort of makes sense as the wodui fermentation process for shou is intended to make shou imitate aged sheng. However, I have yet to taste another aged sheng that comes close to the taste of this sheng. Hopefully the tuo tastes as good as the sample and I can find more aged sheng as good as this one.

I’ll add more comments on flavor when drink from the tuo.

First tasting of the day is 2003 Changtai sheng. I got this as part of the “what is pu’erh” set. I started by getting my little yixing pot and giving it a quick rinse. The rinse came back fairly clear with little dust. I decided to skip the second rinse and go right to the tasting.

The first infusion was about 10 seconds at just under 212, and I got a clear brown liquor with mild smokey and earthy flavors. I found this interesting as it felt about halfway between a raw and ripe.

The second infusion was a little darker and more intense. And that was a flash steep in and out of the yixing, basically using he pouring time as the steep. The flavor was very nice and smooth at this point. Taking on a slightly stronger earth and smoke flavor and giving up a little of the vegetal. It tasted more like a ripe at this point.

Third infusion I was a little surprised, the color, flavor and aroma stayed very similar to the second infusion instead of bursting into darker color like ripes do at this stage. It was again very pleasant smooth and easy to drink.

Fourth infusion was very similar to the third although I did a 15 second infusion this time to keep up those lovely flavors and aroma’s of the previous infusions. I was not disappointed.

I started adding 10 seconds to each infusion at this point and steeped the rest of this wonderful tea out till the end. And I got about 4 or so more infusions out of it. I was very impressed with how evenly this held up.

I highly recommend this tea, unfortunately as of this time, this tea and the sampler pack I ordered are sold out.

Got a 20 gram sample of this to try at teafest (which was awesome, btw) along with a few other things, although we didn’t linger too long to do tea tasting as Glen and Lamu already looked super busy with the large turn out, heh.

Opening up the bag to take a sniff comes out with a very strong dried hay scent, although not musty enough to quite take it into ‘barnyard’ territory. It definitely benefits from airing out for at least a week, though (having tried it both ways), as that strong hay storage flavor kind of dominates and threatens to overwhelm the tea if you try it fresh out of the bag.

Super compressed and a bit brittle, I gave up trying to break this up for the most part and just threw a roughly 1/3-ish sized piece into my gaiwan and did a long rinse. Steeped the first steep for a good 15 seconds at least and then let it steam open some more while I went to poke the wood stove fire.

Starts off as a very sweet and mild straw taste as it’s opening up, then brews up a lovely middling thickness of darker red-brown rust soup with hints of dried date and bamboo at the edges of the hay once it’s fully opened up. Persistent undercurrent of aged taste and aroma and a dark, damp earth/soil flavor, contrary to the energy of this tea which makes my forehead feel light and airy, like it might start floating off of my shoulders at anytime (in a pleasant way! :P). There is not much bitterness or astringency to this tea at all.

My SO really enjoyed this. I enjoyed it as well, but just based on the sample pieces, I don’t know if I’d want to wage battle with this tuo to drink it very often, haha. This was very suiting to a chilly Fall day next to a crackling fire, but I think I prefer something a little less straw and a little more punchy in my general day to day tea. My favorite part of this tea was the very relaxing yet happy energy that made my cares melt far far and away and slough off like water and ducks and something else, :).

Very nice, reminded me of an early morning in the deep forest.

Nice soup, sweet and earthy.

This is pretty much the second time I have had pu’erh, and it is being enjoyed immensely. This tastes like wet earth, like others have said, but maybe a bit vegetal too. I get the sweetness of this, and in later steeps the wet earth taste was less and the sweetness got a bit stronger.

Quick Note

I started drinking this earlier this afternoon, but wasn’t able to sit down and have a few cups before heading out to work. I just had my final cup for the evening (steep # 6), and I might get to the rest of it for the morning. As far as my week has been going, I need a solid tea to help me wake up tomorrow.

Anyway, this is good. I like the wet Earth aroma and flavor to this tea. Aged teas are mostly to my liking. They remind me of hiking and the outdoors; which, now that the late winter may be over, can happen. I must admit that the gym isn’t as appealing to me as being out in nature can be. This tea has a solid flavor, thick soup, and a not too overly drying mouthfeel. I might try to find a larger quantity of this tea so that I can enjoy it more often on days like today.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEMHk1Gg-8U/?taken-by=sgsanders1

Side Note: On the plus side, I’m nearly done planning the one man trip in August. I want to do something with a lot of exercise (Appalachian Trail?) , historical (Gettysburg? Williamsburg?), and fun. I thought I’d have my wife join, but she’ll have to work, and we won’t have the foster kids, yet. So, since my summer schedule is in, I have to take the time to go somewhere before vacationing becomes less frequent.

Side-Side Note: Cat Steven’s “Tea For The Tillerman” is the album for tea sipping today.

Here’s the track, “Wild World:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj4ibL1VqDo&list=PLtS_jNy6-K_ceZvwxJH93XrWUqu1huEAV&index=11

Listening to this on vinyl is especially enjoyable :)

i personally love this tea, i started with the sample, and recently received the tuo from glenn at CL, plus a nice sample, thank you!

i dont even designate a rinses for this i just drink every stage. im not sure how to properly describe the notes, but its definitely musty and so smooth with sweetness. i think of this as the “yoda memorial tea” because i feel like the humid atmosphere of dagobah would produce this sort of tea if aged there.. lol.

as the tea develops it actually shows a bit of bite which permeates the surface of the tongue. the qi is chill/relaxing… i really stocked my 125ml pot with 9g, and its seemingly everlasting and strong.

brew starts (if i remember correctly) a dark yellowish colour, then gets rosey, then dark reddish like black cherry, so beaut, and i just got a glass cha-hai so i can see the colour in its entirely.

regarding the qi again, it has crept up on me. after about my second cup i went into the shower, so the shower added to the calm qi feeling. now as i type this the tea is more apparent. trust me a steamy shower or bath plus this tea = not doing much for a while, lol.

i may not be too experienced in the world of tea, but its been a few years and i know enough to know i really like this tea. i rate this a respectable- 91- the year i was born haha peace.

Reasonably priced aged tea. Tastes that I would associate with wet storage. Good Qi.