2009 7542 903

 

Pu erh tea drinkers including myself love numbers.  We not only enjoy buying, drinking, storing our pu erh cakes, we even name our pu erh tea by numbers.  

Ask any pu drinkers to name popular pu erh tea and you will get and hear numbers like 7542, 7581, 7572, 8582 along with exotic names like Banzhang, Yiwu or brand names like Dayi and Xiaguan.

I just opened a popular pu erh tea cake - 2009 7542 903.  

These numbers meant - 

2009 - year of 2009

7542 - name of the pu erh tea cake

903 - third production batch

All these numbers sound so scientific.  Yes, we tea drinkers are quite smart.  If you had noticed the World Chess Championship that is going on as I write this blog, one of the players actually brought a hot flask of tea on stage to drink while he analysed the chess moves.  I bet the tea is pu erh tea.

Back to this tea.  7542 is a very popular pu erh tea.  This tea was originally produced by Taetea (aka Dayi) tea factory. This tea rose to fame when a Hong Kong tea seller found a old batch of 1988 tea in his warehouse and found that the tea had aged to a very nice drink,  That tea was nicknamed '88 Qing'. 7542 tea became famous to this day.  Today a new 7542 cake commands more than $120 per cake.

I had kept this 7542 in my personal collection for more than 10 years.  This tea brewed up strong.  Non smoky, woody, notes of dried herbs.  There are still astringent notes.  Even though the tea is already 13 years old, I felt the tea would need another 5 more years of storage.  Though the tea brew is a nice dark amber colour, I felt the tea would be even better with more age. The are still some 'roughness' and some bitterness in the tea that need to be smoothen out with more time in storage.

I had sampled many 7542 post 2014 and there is a significant difference in the tea.  Many tea drinker friends and I felt that the newer 7542 had changed.  The processing of the tea is different. The new 7542 is lighter in taste.  There are fresh floral notes in the tea.  It is more drinkable to 'drink now'.  I am personally not sure how the newer 7542 will taste when you store it away for 12-15 years.  I had also observed that the newer 7542 are a good success for Dayi tea.  They had raised the prices of the new 7542 and most of these tea had sold out. However, my tea distributor friends had also observed that the newer 7542 though sold out are never drank.  The tea had now became an investment commodity.  Investors would buy cartons of these tea, keeping these tea away in its pristine condition, unopened carton and all, and selling the tea for a profit. Any dent or damaged to the unopened carton would meant a lower price for that particular tea.

It is unfortunate that many new tea now are expensive and many buyers treat the tea as an investment.  For tea drinkers like myself, tea should be enjoyed and be drunk.  Chinese tea is more than just tea bags and bubble tea.      

  

Tea For One

 

Tea for One.

I had received a few questions about drinking tea for one person......how much tea do I drink in one session and what is the size of the teapot or gaiwan used.

These questions are important as many of us brew and drink Chinese tea alone at home.

When I brew tea for just myself, I would normally use approx a 90 -100ml size teapot. I do use a gaiwan occasionally to brew my tea as well. Such a size, to me is good as it allows me to drink up to 6 to 8 infusions in one sitting.  It is a lot of tea as the tea may add up to half a litre (the tea leaves expands after every infusion) and I estimate the overall tea I drink would be close to half a litre.  

I normally go a quick double rinse with pu erh and once for oolong. I use boiling water for each infusion. 

Drinking 6-8 infusions of tea can be a leisurely affair for me. I would be reading the newspapers, check on my measly investment portfolio or listening to some music.  I normally finished my tea session within an hour.    

You would have noticed I used 2 teacups In the pix as each cup can accommodate 2-4 sips.  

You can also use a large teapot (about 500ml), add some tea leaves and boiling water and enjoy the tea like in a dim sum restaurant. 

I am thirsty.  

 

2004 6 Famous Mountain Pu erh Yellow Label

There are many things I like about this tea.  This is a 357g pu erh cake produced by 6 Famous Mountain Tea Factory.  Stored in Singapore for more than 16 years, the hot and humid South East Asian climate had done much to help age this cake to a mature and sophisicated tea session.

The tea brews very strong. I could use less tea and yet get 10-12 dark amber infusions. Spicy, woody with a nice faint sweet aftertaste. The added complexity of the tea can be detected from a much subdued smoky camphor profile.  I will reach out for this tea on quiet afternoons, where I do my work while savouring every sip. 

I always believed that pu erh tea should be drank old and this tea had supported this thinking.  

1993 Y303 Oolong

 

This oolong is a 1993 production.  This tea was given a name - Y303.  This Chinese oolong was a special order for a Japanese beverage company. Packed in carton boxes of 18kg, this large consignment of tea was meant to be shipped from China to Yokohama, Japan, via Singapore.  However, the Japanese company that ordered the tea experienced financial difficulty (bankruptcy) and this tea was 'stuck' in Singapore before subsequently sold to a local tea merchant.  

This 28 year old tea is very smooth and mellow. The aroma is perfumed like with a sweet lingering aftertaste that stays in a mouth for about a minute. There is also a light mineral taste in the tea.  Smooth, mellow and sweet. Good for 6 to 8 infusions.  

 A vintage tea.  Happy days. 

The World Of Tea

 

You got the whole world in your hands.  My tea set up comprises of the following:

1.  Japan Nambu Tekki cast iron tetsubin kettle.

2.  Taiwan purion teapot. This teapot is sitting on a vintage Chinese porcelain plate where the owner had etched the family surname 'Lu" on the surface of the plate.

3.  Teacups; blue ones made In Frankfurt, Germany while the green ones are Korean celadon teacups.  

4. Coasters are made from rattan; handwoven in Lombok, Indonesia.

5.  Tea is a  2008 pu erh tea cake from Yiwu, Yunnan. This was a special order cake from teashop in Malaysia.  The teashop owner had even got his tea calligraphy friends to help design the wrapper of the tea cake.  Tea had been stored in Malaysia for more than 12 years. 

This is my adventure in every cup. 

De Hong Pu erh

This 100g small iron cake was made by a lesser known factory in De Hong, Yunnan.   There is no date on the brown paper wrapper and my guess, from the taste and aroma, would be slightly more than 10 years old.  

I call this pu erh - the peated whisky without the alcohol. I enjoy Scotland whisky and there is a type of whisky that is peated in aroma. This is due to the drying process where the distillery used peat and burn the peat to dry the barley. As a result, the alcohol distilled from the barley contains this smoky, peaty profile. This pu erh has a similar smoky peaty profile; smoky like burning embers, peaty, camphor and mint aroma, spiciness and a faint sweet aftertaste. 

Not for the faint hearted.  If you are not used to smoky pu erh, please belt up. You may like or not like the smoke but you will admit that the smokiness do add an extra dimension to a pu erh tea session.   If you enjoy peated whisky like me, this tea is up your alley.  

2004 Nan Qiao Tea Factory Raw Pu erh Cake

 

I chose a 2004 Nan Qiao raw pu er cake to refill my tea caddy last week.  Readers would now I have a few tea caddies specially dedicated for pu erh tea.  I have 3 caddies for raw and 2 caddies for Shou or ripe pu erh.  I believed that breaking up a cake, brick or tuo and storing the tea in tea caddies do bring out the taste and aroma of the tea. This time, 3 caddies need to be refilled and I am happy choosing the teas to put in them. 

This 2004 Nan Qiao cake is very strong in my opinion. This is not a tea to introduce to a new Chinese tea drinker.  This tea is strong with woody and herbal notes.  There is a nice woody taste with an oak-like wood aroma (like those oak cask notes in a Scotland single malt whisky).  There is a bitterness of herbs.  I had sat down for about 30-45 min to have a tea session of this tea and there was a mild sweatiness and intoxicating sensation which lasted a few minutes.  There is hardly any sweetness but the oily sensation in the tea was very good. Mouthwatering and the tea simply slides down the throat.  There are some seasoned tea drinkers that prefer a more floral and sweeter profile....so such tea like this Nan Qiao may not appeal to all pu erh tea drinkers. 

If you like being 'tea drunk' or 'in a state of stupor" from drinking tea... such tea would be a good choice.