Tag: puerh

  • Beengs and Purge

    As some of you might remember, a couple of years ago, I co-hosted of a tea-themed podcast. On the above episode, we had a guest—James of TeaDB—to discuss puerh storage. I contributed nothing to the episode, save for a couple of queries and quips here and there. James was star informant on the subject of…

  • Bordering on Sheng Puerh

    Let’s talk about border sheng. As long-time readers already know, I’m a bit of an old hat (and advocate) of sheng cha produced outside of Yunnan province, China. I’ve devoted the last decade or so to trying sheng cha from countries along (or near) the Yunnanese border. The Phongsaly region of Laos, the Kokang region…

  • Time Traveling by Way of Tea Tasting

    A couple of months back, I did an Instagram Live tasting with this chap. So Han Fan, purveyor of West China Tea. I’ve “known” So Han for nearly six years. I put that in quotes because . . . we’ve never actually met in person. Our mutual tea-related hijinks only criss-crossed online. He first caught…

  • Biography of a Bing Cha

    I’ve often expressed my ambivalence to the tea category that is puerh. Sometimes, though, a story about it demands my attention. And most of those times, the story isn’t even mine. Even stranger still? A few of those stories focus on the puerh itself, and the journey it went through. This is one such story.

  • The Tea Balls of Manipur

    Earlier this year, a fellow tea blogger sent me information on an Indian tea growing region I’d never heard of. A place filled with old(er) growth, semi-wild assamica forests, which bordered Assam to the East. The state: Manipur. I knew nothing about this Indian state, other than the fact that it bordered Myanmar. That and…

  • Sheng Puerh-Style Teas from Vietnam

    Over a year-and-a-half ago, I wrote an article discussing the nature of sheng cha. It didn’t go over well. I used a Vietnamese sheng puerh-style tea from Son La province as a part of my thesis, and it also helped spark further discussion about how prevalent the process was in Northern Vietnam. Short answer: not…

  • What the Heicha?! A Shou “Puerh” from Fujian?

    Back in the spring of 2017, tea afficianado Nicky “Steady Hand Tea” Evers passed on a unique specimen. A Wuyi oolong from 2005 that was wet-piled, dried … and stored in Taiwan. It fell into no discernible category. The taste was “like” a Hunan heicha … with notes of cliff side roast. I compared it…

  • Should Sheng Cha Be Considered Heicha?

    In May of 2017, I asked tea peers on social media a simple question: Is Vietnamese sheng puerh style heicha a thing? At least . . . I thought it was a simple question. That query sparked a minor debate about the nature of heicha, and whether or not sheng puerh (or sheng puerh-style tea)…

  • Lazy Gongfool Tastings: Nan Nuo Shan Sheng Puerh

    Hiya. So, I decided to try something new. I have quite a few new teas to get through that don’t particularly fall within the parameters of my regular blog. That being, they don’t have much of a story to tell. Okay, they probably *HAVE* a story, but it was not one I could spin. I…

  • A Series of Single Origin Tea Sonnets

    In the Spring of 2017, I met this eccentric chap.