2011 Tea Urchin Ding Jia Zhai

This tea cake is produced by Tea Urchin, a tea business setup In Shanghai.  This business is owned by a couple Eugene and Belle.  Eugene was from Australia  before he settled down in Shanghai where he married Belle.

I had written about them way back in 2012.  This couple were quite hardcore when they set up the the business in 2004.  They made frequent trips to Yunnan to source for their own tea.  They visited the smaller tea families and farms and try to find and offer to their customers the rare and lesser known pu erh tea.  I believed they have a few kids now and the recent pandemic had prevented them from visiting Yunnan to personally source the tea.

This cake is the 2011 Ding Jia Zhai. This tea is primarily from the Yiwu region.  I had stored this cake for almost 10 years and had now broken up the cake and put the pieces in a tea caddy.  This tea is aromatic; wood and hay aroma.  This tea is extremely mouthwatering.  I would not serve this tea to new tea drinkers.  There is hardly any sweetness in the aftertaste. No sweetness or fruitiness.  This tea is slightly herbal bitter with a strong qi. I felt sweaty after the tea session.  This is the type of tea when you want it to be strong without any fuss. I like. 

Late 90s CNNP 7581 Ripe Brick

This is a late 90s CNNP 7581 ripe brick.  I had acquired a carton of this tea during one my early visits to Guangzhou. I was introduced to a Chinese tea drinking group and I had later got to purchased this tea from a retired CNNP tea manager in that group. It was from him, Mr Chen that I started learning about pu erh tea and storing pu erh tea as a hobby. 

This tea survived my trip to Europe. Unlike my raw pu erh tea, this 7581 did not "hibernate' during the journey here. The taste and aroma was good exhibiting old earthly notes of old books and leather. This tea is a workhorse brewing up more than a dozen good infusions in a tea session. 

This only thing I found challenging was brewing tea in this cold wintry weather. The tea cools very fast. I like to drink my tea reasonably hot, but over here in Paris, the tea cools down and was luke warm after 10 min. I had to finish my tea quickly in between infusions. I wonder whether Chinese tea drinkers, in winter, drink their tea quickly in between infusions.