Aromatic Bamboo Species Raw Pu-erh Tea "Xiang Zhu"

A fun tea! Bought in early 2021; though the tea is undated, the seller writes “The material is 2012 “da shu” tea from De Hong”. Getting the tea out of the bamboo was no problem. I simply tapped a meat cleaver into the end of the bamboo, working it in until the bamboo began to split and could be pried apart with leverage from the cleaver. Found only 41g of tea in the first bamboo casing. The tea leaves came apart readily and infused quickly. After infusion, I observed that the leaves were chopped into quarter inch chunks. Smoky, spicy aroma, with a flavor of sage, celery and cedarwood. A pleasant tea that I’ve enjoyed both gong fu (14 good steepings) and Western style (4 big mug steepings) in a stainless steel strainer basket. Sometimes it’s fun to explore off the beaten path, and this tea didn’t disappoint.

Hello hello.

I went through my teas today, organized things, bagged teas that I like to drink but don’t want to clean a strainer for, etc.

And I found a tin of samples. Heh.

This one is from Sil. I do like it. It’s sweet. A bit sharp as raw puerh can be. I don’t have anything excellent to say about it. Just. It’s nice. I appreciate drinking it today. Thanks!

I’m enthousiastic for discovering a whole new flavour on the spectrum. It is ‘nag champa incense’. And yes, that review on yunnansourcing using the same peculiar description is also mine, but that doesn’t make it less true :)

As for splitting the bamboo, there are some YouTube videos on that topic (then again, there are probably YouTube video’s on how to become a brain surgeon as well). I remember having decent results with a butcher style / chinese style kitchen knife, a spare hand to bang on the knife, and a relatively clean dustpan to collect the contents from all over the floor. YMMV.

I used a very small amount for a small evening session. Turns out you don’t need very much anyway, one brew after the other.

This is a pain to get into! It comes in a piece of bamboo, so you have to find a way to crack the bamboo open. My strongest pliers didn’twork, nor did a kitchen knife or wacking it on the pavement. I finally got a small crack going by throwing it around outside for a bit. Still can’t get much out other than broken leaf. Oh well, if broken leaf is this delicious and smooth, I can’t wait to try a check of it.

3 rinses (cold water) to get rid of all the tea dust from digging it out with a knife. I used 4g leaf

Steep 1: 10 seconds, boiling water, 125 mL
-Smells much like bamboo wood, tastes EArthy in a woody way
-Notes of sage, sweet oregano, and eucalyptus
-No bitterness at all, extremely smooth

Steep 2-3: "
-The bamaboo gives this a really neat flavour, it takes like wood and savoury herbs
-So much flavour! Lots of tannin, but no bitterness of a young sheng
-This is a 2012 “da shu” tea from De Hong (https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/pu-erh-tea/products/aromatic-bamboo-species-raw-pu-erh-tea-xiang-zhu-50-grams)
—Lightly herbaceous

Steep 4-6: 90 deg. C water, 125 mL 12 seconds
-This tea is really unique and very drinkable.
-Notes of celery and sugarcane
-Less herbaceous than previous steeps
-Brews a lighter colour than previous steeps even though the flavour strength is the same

Sil you know I love you. I absolutely adore all the amazing care packages you send me. I may not like every tea that you send, but it’s always an interesting experience, and quite often I find some hidden gems that I wouldn’t have chosen for myself. Thank you for being an amazing tea friend – but……

https://www.instagram.com/p/BC6GFsgOEwo/?taken-by=dex3657
https://www.instagram.com/p/BC6GWrEuExZ/?taken-by=dex3657

This is the most vile tea I’ve ever tasted. Buckley’s cough syrup is better than this. OMG it is so camphor, medicinal, icky.
Tea in easy gaiwan – rinse – sniff – ewww camphor – scared.
flash steep – sniff – maybe if I rinsed again…
two more rinses and another flash steep – hold your breath and try it. Nope ewwww Buckley’s.
This went on through a gazillion steeps and 1.5 litres of water. I sniffed and sipped occasionally though this process, but nope couldn’t do it. I could not even contemplate drinking a cup of this. WORST TEA EVER

Sorry ….. I’m going to let this go and choose something else…..

I picked this one up on a whim a while back and haven’t had a lot of time to sit with it. I picked up a little to share with tea friends, so today i split it up and sat down with it to try it out. First off, i’d much rather someone else take it out of the bamboo for me lol. That was a tough split, getting it out. Secondly, holy is this stuff packed tight at the top. Breaking it apart to share was an experience for sure. :)

Brewed up, this took multiple infusions for it to really open up, even after i did a super short steep and then let the wet leaves sit. What i enjoyed the most about this was the smell. The aroma of the leaves is really interesting. Hints of menthol, reminded me a little of the eucalyptus from the other tea i had today…almost woodsy but more like a woody menthol. I really enjoyed it.

Short steepings kept this one from going bitter…i was picking up notes of the menthol like quality from the aroma as well as a bamboo sort of taste. there’s a very slight floral taste to this, but nothing super strong. a light brew throughout but not lacking in taste. an interesting experience for sure!