The Ripe Puerh Showdown

I am moving to where I presume getting good tea will be costlier. Therefore, I plan on stockpiling some tea now to last me the next few years. I have placed a larger than normal order of samples of mostly ripe pu-erh since that's what I drink most of on a day to day basis. Here is my recap of the brewings in relatively short order of brewing two to four a day for ease of reference and not having to remember too much for too long. Below are a few notes about each.

2006 Menghai Sonji Cooked Puerh 601
Smells nice somewhat malty. Taste is a bit flat

2008 Menghai "7672" Ripe Puerh
Something reminiscent of a cooked puerh that I am familiar with. Very faint fishy aroma, which is surprisingly not offputting.

2007 Menghai "Jade Dew" Ripe Puerh
Similar to the tea just above but worse all around

2005 Menghai "Ba Ji Pu Bing" Ripe Puerh
Good aroma and flavor, slight hint of sweetness.

2005 Hai Lang Hao "Jin Hai Lang" Ripe Puerh
This is a competitor for the worst tea I have had.

2000 CNNP "Lincang" Ripe Puerh
Slightly smoky aroma. Strange metallic taste.

2005 Mengku Gong Ting Mini Ripe Cake
This seems like an oversized single use ripe puerh with mostly particulate tea, leaves are non existent.

2012 Xiaguan "7663 Classic Ripe Cake"
Mediocre all around, not bad but not great. The one cake of this is drinkable.

2012 Nan Jian 703 Organic Ripe Puerh
Aroma is mediocre, slightly strange. Fairly bland body. This is a step in the right direction for organic teau. My experiences with organic tea have all been not good for now.

2013 Yunnan Sourcing Yong De Blue
Reasonable aroma and smooth flavor profile. A decent pressing.

The contenders for what I will get are:
2008 Menghai "7672" Ripe Puerh
2005 Menghai "Ba Ji Pu Bing" Ripe Puerh
with 2006 Menghai Sonji Cooked Puerh 601 as a far outside chance.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Nan Nuo Duo Yi Zhai" Ancient Arbor Raw Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $80 for a 400 g cake

This tea seems rather average with most of the flavors and aromas limited to the "bite" when the you are drinking the tea. There is not much left after that. There is a faint something that lingers around but it seems rather shallow. Maybe I am missing something but it seems a bit on the high end for what it is. I probably wouldn't get this even if reasonable priced, but I could see how some people might like this.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Yong De Blue Label" Ripe Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $15 for 357 g cake

This is very similar to the 2011 Ye Zhuang Shuang Li "Red Label Yuan Xiang Bu Lang" I recently had. In its current form it not good with overpowering swamp/fish aromas. Maybe after a few years it will mellow out a bit, but it is still relatively new. (If anyone knows where to get the nice storage boxes for puerh in the pictures I would like to get some more for convenient storage)

2011 Ye Zhuang Shuang Li "Red Label Yuan Xiang Bu Lang"

From Yunnan Sourcing $15 for 357 g cake

This one calls for a wash and trashing of the water to get some of the funk off of it. After that it is somewhat alright although some unpleasant stuff still hangs around. I'd be surprised if this improves much over time. It feels like this could use another year or so to air out the stuff that the first wash gets rid of. Nothing to special or noteworthy about this.

2011 Xiaguan FT "Mushroom Tuo" Raw Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $14.5 for 250 g mushroom

This is a surprisingly nice find. It ranks high on my list with a decent amount of camphor. This raw has a very medicinal feel to it. So far I have tended to brew this fast and light.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Chen Xiang" Aged Raw Pu-erh of Wu Liang Mountain

From Yunnan Sourcing $29 for 400 g

 This is one of the top few the best smelling raw pu I have had. It is of course camphor rich, which is my favorite. The body was lacking, being fairly simple and not leaving me wanting to drink to much. This is unfortunate since it smells so great, maybe the soup will mellow out after a few years, but I wouldn't bet on it.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Qiu Yun" Wild Arbor Raw Pu-erh tea of Yi Wu mountain

From Yunnan Sourcing $17 for 250 g

This tea is a really nice production by Yunnan Sourcing. This is what I think of as a great example of a raw puerh, especially for someone new. Its not so much that it is a great tea as it is that it is one of he most solid representations of raw puerh I have had. It was much more forgiving when brewing than many raw pu-erhs. Also not overly complex where I feel like there's something I should be appreciating but am not. For a beer analogy I think of this teas as the Pabst Blue Ribbon or Budweiser of raw puerh, and I mean that not in a derogatory way, quite the opposite. In my opinion, in the current market of raw puerh that seems to be dominated with rare but more expensive greats and flooded with fairly bad examples it is nice to have this bedrock around.

5 Year Aged "Menghai Golden Pu-erh" of Bu-Lang Mountain

From Yunnan Sourcing $7 for 50 g

I'm not sure what exactly to make of this one. It has citrus aromas, mostly orange, that I do not really like. It is also really malty which makes for a strange combination. Interesting and worth a try, but not much more than that. On a good note it avoids the unpleasant flaws that most cooked pu has, but seemingly at the expense of developing the strange malty/orange combination.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Autumn Yi Wu Purple Tea" Raw Pu-Erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $19 for a 250 g cake

 Interesting tea. It is young, but has aromas of an tea that is several years older that this is. The body is very smooth as well, nothing complex, but something that is nice to have when I am in the mood for a simple tea. Sort of like the 'steak and potatoes' for puerh, it works well for day to day drinking. Definitely worth getting a cake or two, especially at this price.

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Lao Cha Tou Brick" Ripe Pu-erh tea brick

From Yunnan Sourcing $12 for a 250 g brick

I really wanted to like this one. The texture of the brick is much nicer than most making it easy to break chunks off. The tea was a perfectly decent ripe. However, this is where I draw the line for treasures found in tea. Drinking puerh I have come accustomed to finding the occasional treasure in the tea and find it mildly entertaining picking around it. One of the most common treasured is hair, I'm sure anyone who has had the pleasure of going through a couple their own cake/brick or whatever compressed tea  is at hand has found a hair or two. This tea had the most hair I have ever seen in compressed tea. It was to the point that I just dismantled the brick after carefully harvesting enough for a couple of sessions. I would have gladly paid a a higher price for a less hairy version. I consider myself fairly tolerant with things like this but the rest of this brick is unfortunately going in the trash. It really is too bad to see this go, since it was decent tea.

2005 Xiaguan "Xiao Fa Tuo" Ripe Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $17 for a 100 g tuo

This was all around mediocre. It surprisingly still has some slight fishy smell to it. I finished it, but was content with that.

 

2011 Yunnan Sourcing "Man Tang Hong Gong Ting" Ripe Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $25 for a 357 g cake

The description on the Yunnan sourcing page is spot on for this one. It has a nice body to the tea, but there is still some of the fishy aromas to this one. At $25 a cake it might be worth getting a few to forget about for a few years, but in its current form it is not that great. It seems like this one has potential though.

2011 Yunnan Sourcing "Ai Lao Mountain" Wild Arbor Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $32 for a 400 g cake

This was a free sample from Yunnan Sourcing, thanks for the sample. This did not really have much, reminds me of this except a little more plain. It is not something that I will get more of.

2011 Yunnan Sourcing "Nan Po Zhai" Ancient Arbor Raw Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $82 for a 400 g cake.

Sample was provided gratis from Yunnan Sourcing, Thanks! This was what I don't like in young raw puerh. Very green and tannin loaded, complex without anything that I really like. I won't be keeping this around.

2009 Yunnan Sourcing "Yi Wu Da Qiu Feng" Pu-erh tea

From Yunnan Sourcing $57 for a 357 g cake.

This is a great raw puerh. It reminds me of  this tea I have from J-tea at a fraction of the cost. To be honest it is one of the first raw puerhs that I have really liked from Yunnan Sourcing. It seems really well balanced with some of my favorite camphor notes and complex enough to keep me interested in what is going on. For being so young it has a surprisingly dark extract. I will be trying several of the remaining samples I have in the coming days. I will defiantly have one or two cakes of this in my cabinet soon. Kudos for this one Yunnan Sourcing, keep em coming.

2009 Yunnan Sourcing "You Le Zhi Chun" Raw Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $50 for a 357 g cake.

 

This one has notes of green tea. It's middle of the road at $50 for a cake.

 

2009 Yunnan Sourcing Road to Yi Wu "Ding Jia Zhai" Raw Pu-erh

From Yunnan Sourcing $95 for a 357 g cake.

This a nice tea, but very simple. Nothing special or complex about it. Theres nothing indicating that it will develop over time, I was content with the sample size. At $95 a cake this seems quite high in my opinion, I was thinking of maybe the $40-50 range after trying it.

2009 Yunnan Sourcing "Bu Lang Shan Yun"

From Yunnan Sourcing  $46 for a 357 g cake.

 This is solid stuff. The leaves are relatively dark in color for a three year old cake. I started out with a quick wash, then 10 s infusions. This is one of the few younger raw cakes that is not pungent and overpowering, especially light on the tannins the way I was brewing it. It is a great mid price range introduction to raw cakes since it is fairly simple and straight forward, not in a bad way either. This would be worth a cake or two to have a few times a year and watch age.

2006 Haiwan Ripe Pu-erh Tea Tribute Brick

From Yunnan Sourcing  $13 for a 100 g brick.

 This was about as expected, a cool looking brick of tea made with mediocre finely cut material. Nothing shocking about the tea not being that great since the brick is pressed into a cool pattern. It was drinkable, but just a average or slightly below average tea. If I get another I would just display it.