57 year old tea

Hey Dominic,

I am not scientific enough to debate the chemistry of what occurs, I suspect it is mostly oxidation and humidity, theoretically with microbial activity but I have never found definitive proof of that. The cakes are easily porous enough for o2 to penetrate them over a period of years so oxidation is very real. In any event, I can assure you that I, and many other even slightly seasoned puerhites, can taste the difference between decades easily. Rather than intellectualizing it (no negative tone intended) I encourage you to obtain sample from one of the better vendors and try it for yourself. A 30 year + puerh can be an awesome thing, however choose wisely as aged crap is still crap, and forgeries of very inferior quality abound.

-- Mike Petro

Thanks for the reply... and I understand it, and I have tasted a few different vintages with the aged being "better" in some cases, but I still question whether that excellent aged Puerh would have been just as excellent when new... or at least very similar after 4 years as 30 years. Just as crap + 30 years = crap, I'd imagine heavenly + 30 (or 4) = heavenly.

I guess that is my main point of contention, but I do still wonder if the taste varies by depth into the bing/brick/etc. Also bing's and tuo I can see easier, but bricks and highly compressed stuff still is questionable to me. Dunno, I'm no expert or devote nor claim to be... but I have found a few puerh's I enjoy a bit.

- Dominic

I'm more than happy to change my mind... really I am. No foolin'. I replied a bit further down to Mike Petro's response, if you care to check it out to see where I'm at with this whole aging business. I tried to clarify a bit better what I was saying.

- Dominic

I have a good assortment of green and cooked puers made in the past five years. They all look and taste different but location, grade, and recipe determine the difference. It is hard to keep everything in puer a constant to say aging takes place even over the long haul.

Jim

Alex wrote:

I always think it interesting when someone brings up the benign bacteria argument. Surface bacteria is the most destructive force in nature. I throw a beeng in my compost pile and it decays at the same rate as the other organics. The only reason we're not eaten alive by surface bacteria is because of our dead cell no nutrient epidermis. I'm trying to think but the only good bacteria for us exists in our gut and the byproduct excreted as a stool.

Jim

Blair P. Hought> > I fully agree with your comments. I may bring fire and brimstone down,

Mike -- a few things worth considering about Mitea which makes me rather suspicious of them.

I'm not questioning your judgement, but I do wonder about their honesty. Then again, they might very well just be duped by some mainlander as well.

Thanks for the free advertising of my blog, I suppose.

Although I'd appreciate it if you noted that I also had doubts about the 10 year old claim.

At the same time, I have had 10+ year old teas that DO look that way, at least in terms of the colour of the liquor, so it's not entirely impossible. Nothing is absolute in puerh. Colour alone is not a good judge of the tea. It needs to be combined with the way the dry, wet leaves look, and also how it goes down.

As for aging -- yes, it has a marked difference to the tea. I've been drinking teas for.... 7 years now? I've had some teas three or four years ago that now taste very very different. They do change, and in remarkable fashion.

In the old days they don't drink it right away after they get it, and also, when they transport it on horseback, it's not the same as storing in a dry, nice living room. It's on horseback, exposed to some elements, and generally soaking in a lot of moisture (think horse sweat) and things like that. It's sort of a mix between dry and wet storage.

As for the tea in question, somehow it sounds like some offering from mitea, but I think it's bogus. Nobody can date those teas to that precision, especially since it's 1949, when China was raging in civil war. Somebody's been duped.

MarshalN

Alex wrote:

Somebody help me. I understand all Shu is produced from the wodui process. I surmise Sheng is nothing more than compressed QingMao with no wodui or at best limited fandui. I came across the fandui term on a Chinese site which means turning the pile. The process called shicang is an after factory dangerous 'aging' technique for Sheng to enrich THE BASTARDS to quote Cartman.

Jim

PS Speaking of aging I just tried a YunWu which had been sitting on my shelf for nearly three years which is one of my first purchases from my local tea shoppe. I didn't care for it back then. I woke up this morning KNOWING it would taste better. It aged overnight in my sleep.

MarshalN wrote: ...if it looks like a duck, it ain't aged puer...

Bacteria do a lot of stuff that you don't have to worry about, as long as they're not doing it to you.

--Blair

That's my understanding. (wodui = moisten pile)

That doesn't sound right to me. How can you have fandui (turn over the pile) without a pile?

I think most experts would agree with this. But I can't help wondering - forgive me, purists - if the border between shicang and its opposite gancang might be fuzzy. You run across reputable sources touting sheng Pu'er stored a few years in humid Guangdong (as opposed, especially, to relatively dry Yunnan) on the basis of it tasting more aged than you would expect from its actual vintage.

/Lew

Hi MarshalN,

I don't dispute any of way you say, it all has merit. I totally agree the "specifics" of what they claim are questionable. However I have tasted their 1949 puerh and one of their 80s puerhs and, as those before me have said, "the tea doesn't lie". The allegedly 56 year old puerh is indeed on par with other authentic thirty year plus puerhs I have tasted.

Unfortunately, I don't have a sophisticated enough palate to tell the difference once we get beyond 30 years. That why I added +/- 25% disclaimer, it is definitely well aged, and not wet storage, but whether it is 30 years or 50 years I couldn't say. It is difficult, actually impossible, for me to tell a 30 year cake from a 50 year cake based on 20g sample. Actually I probably couldn't tell the difference based on taste alone unless I compared the 2 side by side. Especially since efforts are often taken to halt, or dramatically slow, the aging process after a tea reaches 30 years or so.

There are so many "stories" being told about different puerhs, especially antique ones, that I tend to not pay any attention to them anymore, after all "the tea doesn't lie" but many (probably most) vendors do! It seems like most vendors add 10 or 20 years to the legitimate age of a cake, particularly when the wrapper is not clearly identifiable, but even those are often forged. So yes, MIT probably embellished the truth, or those who sold them the tea did, but the tea I tasted was easily in the same class as other reputable 60s and 70s puerhs I have tasted, for example those that came from Sunsing or Teahub. Unfortunately I have not tasted enough of the old stuff to get any more granular than that.

-- Mike Petro

Well Mike... the problem is the price for that thing though.

At that price, I can find myself 357g of 20+ year old puerh....

Do you have tasting notes/pictures from that sample? i am curious as to what it might actually be.

Jim, could you please describe a little bit what it tasted like three years ago, how it changed, and what it tastes like now? Thanks. That would be interesting. Michael

Sheng does not go through the wòdui process (AKA 'artificial' accelerated fermentation) ergo no pile. Sheng is the process of 'natural' gancang or dry storage using QingMao to start/promote/establish fermentation under strict factory controlled scientific conditions. In the first case fermentation takes place over the short haul in the factory, in the second over the long haul as shelf life, supposedly. Strictly speaking neither factory method existed before 1975 which dates the modern shu and sheng puer product.

Jim

PS I see more parallel between tobacco process> "Space Cowboy" writes:

You sly devil. I can't say teas fundamentally don't change their taste over a long period of time and claim one that did over a short period. I got me pride. In this case I simply woke up and liked the taste versus what I remember a couple of years ago. Back then I thought it tasted bitter now the flavor gets through. Some would say aging via time made a difference. I would say I can't be sure. Certainly my taste buds aren't the same. I now like teas for simply the variety of taste and not some arbitrary taste ranking based on my idiosyncractic personality quirks. I always thought YunWu should taste better but then one day I started to like Wuyi Rock tea and the first eventually fell like a domino. I've been revisiting my 10,20,30 year old tins and realize nostalgia is more important than taste.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

I don't think you need a factory for gancang; you can do it in the privacy of your own home.

Well, apparently shu Pu'er didn't exist before then, though similar methods were being used for heicha outside Yunnan. But sheng certainly existed before '75, though maybe the word wasn't needed because there was no contrast to draw with shu?

/Lew

You need a factory to start or establish the modern Sheng 'natural' gancang fermentation, you need a shelf in your home to finish it, supposedly. The old description I see of pre modern factory puer processing is fermenting in pits similar too composting. I'm not sure what it would have been called. Probably closer in taste to sheng because shu uses modern fermentation bacteria. Tea compression is independent of puer.

Jim

PS > "Space Cowboy" writes:

I agree, I never said I would pay that for it, nor did I recommend it to others, if you refer to my original post you will see that all I was saying was that it was not "odd" to be drinking tea that was more or less that age. Expensive yes, but not odd, I can find similar vintages from several sources. I was mainly responding to those who were questioning the sheer existance of an "aged genre", I was not endorsing this particular vintage, I was pretty clear on that when I said "Are they "exactly" 1949 vintage, heck I don't know but give or take 25% I would say the vintage is accurate". In other words it was at least 30+ but beyond that who knows - not me.....

Pictures no, it was only a ~20g piece and I shared parts of it with friends. Tasting notes maybe, I would have to dig through my archives at home. However it is possible, even probable, that I simply drank it without taking notes, I often drink tea just for the sheer enjoyment of it. There is nothing like drinking a good aged puerh (or other fine tea) and enjoying the sights and sounds in the woods behind my house, it's almost spiritual!

Mike