JalamTeas

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Recent Tasting Notes

82

After a short rinse (15sec), I’ve so far had 2 drinkable steeps of 20 sec. I was pleasantly surprised that it was smooth and not astringent. There’s a smokiness and slight sweetness with a hint of peach at the end. I’ve been having a lot of oolongs, so it was nice to get back to a sheng Puerh. Really enjoyed this.

Flavors: Peach, Smoke

Preparation
Boiling 6 g 6 OZ / 177 ML

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80

I’m in my second drinkable steep. Made it in gaiwan with a 15s wash, followed by 20s steeps so far. The scent was a little earthy but also a scent of sweetness. The taste is similar to the scent. Smooth but also bright. Even though it’s supposed to be a lower caffeine content I definitely feel a stimulating effect. I don’t taste all the complexity the previous reviewer mentioned. At least not yet.

Flavors: Sweet, Wet Earth, Wood

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 30 sec 6 g 5 OZ / 147 ML

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82

I wish there were other tasting notes because I can’t quite describe what I’m tasting and smelling. I’m currently on the second drinkable steep. The scent seemed smokey. The taste seemed vegetal. It was nice. I’m intrigued by it since there is more here than I know how to describe.

Flavors: Smoke, Vegetal

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 30 sec 7 g 6 OZ / 177 ML

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50

Did a couple of sessions with this tea over the last weekend. I’ve used up about half the cake now.

I really do not find this one to be plausible at the price. It is not horrible, but it is… boring. There is a little huigan in steeps 4-8, the mouth feel is decent, and I got a pretty solid tea sweat. But the endurance is poor, the tea being pretty much completely played out after around 10 steeps, and little feeling of power. I would as soon drink young Menghai factory tea at 1/3 the price.

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 9 g 110 OZ / 3253 ML

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85

My second session with this tea. The first time I thought it was rather boring, but this is really quite nice. Fairly thick mouth feel, sweet and bitter, nice mouth coating by the 3rd steep, smell of something powerfully fruity… pineapple maybe?

After 5 or 6 steeps the lid scent weakens and changes to something more like sugarcane, and I’m getting a pretty decent puer sweat. Tragically I won’t have time to steep it out in the gaiwan, something has come up and I’ll have to dump the leaf in a mug to finish.

Possibly I like autumn sheng more than I thought.

Flavors: Pineapple, Sugarcane

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 8 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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70

No notes yet. Add one?

Flavors: Nutty, Tannin

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 6 g 6 OZ / 177 ML

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83

This tea is now unavailable. I was lucky to get a sample. I didn’t think I’d like a fermented pu-erh, but this is nice. Earthy and smooth. I know there’s another flavour in there too, but my palate is not sophisticated enough to figure out what it is. I’m curious to see how the taste changes after a few steeps.

Flavors: Earth

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 8 g 6 OZ / 177 ML

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77

I think I’m becoming addicted to this one. I’m not normally a fan of pu-ehr or green teas, but I like this one. Has a tang and brightness to it. Only a short steep is needed at first and can be resteeped up to 20 times. I think what I enjoy most about this tea is the ritual I’ve built around it by steeping using a traditional gaiwan.

Preparation
0 min, 15 sec 4 g 6 OZ / 177 ML

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88

From the Puerh TTB #2

I have a terrible habit of hoarding the last few grams of a tea, and when I participate in a TTB, that’s often all that I get. So I have a box of about 30 samples I’ve taken from the TTBs over the past year that I haven’t tried. Kind of dumb. Yesterday I polished off the last 2 grams of an EoT sample and enjoyed it so much I decided to try this tea today.

It started out really well with a sweet straw flavor with very long strong finish. Good mouth-feel. Hint of caramel. Strong cha qi. Very approachable, but fairly complex and interesting. The 2nd steep smelled a bit like damp ashes but that quickly went away. Mild taste builds power in the mouth leading to a big finish. Taste is damp straw with no sign of the caramel, but a hint of ashes. Becomes astringent as it cools. The 3rd steep again gave me a hint of ashes in the nose, but they again dissipated quickly. The taste is stronger, with wood as well as straw flavor. Astringent but not bitter; the astringency builds in the finish to the point that it is too much.

In both the second and third steeps, the finish is stronger than the taste, and the flavor increases dramatically if I aerate the tea while it’s in my mouth. If this were a wine, I would say that it is “closed-in” and together with the tannin I would suggest that it needs age to come together. I’m not sure if it works that way with tea, but suspect this is a tea that would age.

The fourth steep is ca return to the first steep: no ashes in the nose, but a rich clean flavor. Like it finally woke up. Shows a hint of tart bitterness at the finish. The cha qi is still very strong. Overall a good tea; I wish I could try it again in 10 years.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 2 g 2 OZ / 59 ML

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77
drank Naka Unfermented Puerh by JalamTeas
15019 tasting notes

puerh from this morning, courtesy of the lovely dexter Now, i’m not a huge fan of sheng. They’re more hit or miss for me than shou, though i have found a couple i really love (wild monk, i’m looking at you!). This one is sort of middle of the road for me. it’s too shengy for me, without that sort of sweetness that i do enjoy from sheng’s. Happy i got the chance to go at it this morning, but i’ll likely swith to a shou this afternoon before going back to another sheng :)

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I’ve been sipping on this puerh all morning and in light of the fact that i can’t get it anymore, i didn’t take super detailed notes. dexter sent this one my way and i’m always happy to try out more shou’s. this one had an earthy aroma initially but it lessens over the steepings and takes on a more subtle taste. The brew is smooth and extremely pleasant.

Stephanie

I had a REALLY nice shou sample from Jalam before…forget which one it was but it had lots of nice dried fruit notes. Prune and raisin.

Sil

yeah i have a few more samples from them that i’m looking forward to trying out thanks to dexter

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90
drank 2015 Ta Go Raw Pu Erh by JalamTeas
289 tasting notes

Happy Christmas fellow steepers! Enjoying a nice pu this holiday afternoon. This is a wonderful tea from Jalam’s December tea club. It is from a region described as being “off the grid” in the Menghai area. It brews a copper color, with no bitterness at all in early steeps. It is acidic like young pu erhs are. Bitterness starts to come through in later steepings. It is buttery and delicate, full flavored if not simple. Very high quality as all Jalam teas are in my experience.

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drank Bada Mountain Sheng Puerh by JalamTeas
1719 tasting notes

Tea of the day. The moment I pulled back the paper I was impressed with this one. I am not used to such a fresh green aroma with only a little shengness to it. The leaf is as nice as the aroma. There is a lot of green, some brown, and an abundance of silvery buds. I can tell by looking there is a lot of large leaves in this cake. I did a rinse (for once), poured off and let the leaf rest for while before preparing the first cup.

The liquor is apricot in color. I braced myself for the young sheng astringent blast and was happy to find it wasn’t present. This is a 2014 cake but the astringent bite is light and comes and goes. This is lightly sweet. I caught hints of smoke. The aftertaste reminded me of peach.

I am not that educated in sheng so I can’t tell much about quality. I can say I enjoyed drinking a sheng that I didn’t have to wince with each sip.

mrmopar

Bada is pretty smooth generally. The rest period really help the puerh I think. it will sometimes absorb its own weight in water during the rinse.

ashmanra

Ooo, intriguing!

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I’m continuing my Bulang sampling mode this week, starting with this one from the Jalam Tea club. It’s a beautiful compact little cake, rich mahogany colored. I loaded up my yixing and even though the steeping were short, the tea was very dark & rich, and the flavor brought to mind coffee, cinnamon, and a dense chewy whole grain bread. I drank several steeps over the afternoon, and I should be able to get more out of it in the morning, I think.

Christina / BooksandTea

Sounds delicious!

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I enjoyed sipping on this all afternoon, and will probably try a few more rounds in the morning. I wish I had more to say about it, but that was hours ago. It was smooth & tasty, & helped to rid me of the headache that I had all morning. Sadly, this is a sip down.

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75

a nice smooth tea!

when i smell the leaves dry, i smell mustyness.

when i smell the leaves wet, they smell green.

when i smell the brewed tea, it smells like sweet and honey.

when i taste the brewed tea i taste honey and sweetness.

i rate this a 75 because it is too smooth for me.

many thanks to Scribbles for this sample :)

Flavors: Honey, Musty, Sweet

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 30 sec 7 g 8 OZ / 250 ML

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I got this in the mail earlier this week, but haven’t had time to sit down with it yet. I took today off to relax, so it’s a perfect day to spend some time with this tea.

I liked it right off the bat. As the information card notes, it has a sweet tang to it. I decided that this was an apricot sweetness with kind of a sour note, like a sweet and sour flavor. Very interesting! I love when a tea has a unique characteristic that makes me want to come back again. This one has that. The texture is slightly oily, which sounds bad, but it’s kind of how I find good sheng texture thickness. This one isn’t that thick but has that smoothness. It was not hard on my stomach at all, which is also nice. Overall, a very good sheng!

boychik

Mmm love oily sheng

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Ya know, this tea is alright, but nothing stands out. Usually there’s a quality or a flavor note that causes me to remember a tea. I tried this the first time when I was comparing my new Juan shui clay pot with a gaiwan and it just tasted like sheng, nothing remarkable. I had it again yesterday with the same result. Perhaps my palate isn’t refined enough, but I seem to get more enjoyment out of other sheng, so maybe it’s just this tea. I guess it won’t hurt it to hang out in my cupboard for awhile, and then I’ll try again. Maybe some age will help it along. Weird, because they say such promising things about this tea, like, “we want to be able to offer this tea at least once a year.” Oh well. :/

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83

June 2021, 6 years after my last note on this tea. I find that I agree with the note from Jalam on this tea. It is non-astringent, with a coppery color and nutty aftertaste. Quite pleasant. Seems ready to be drinking it.

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83

Reasonably loosely compressed, attractive dark purple leaves, the tea brews a bit more copper colored than typical young shengs, and has an enjoyable smooth quality (in comparison to other purple leaf sheng I’ve had). Quite flavorful and an enjoyable cup.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 30 sec 8 g 6 OZ / 180 ML
mrmopar

Well hello stranger!

Javan

Hello there mrmopar. I’ve been in lurker mode, while awaiting some of these young shengs to age awhile. There seems to be lots of puerh activity on the threads!

mrmopar

I understand, I have been through a few rough days that has gotten me behind. I need to get back after it when all stuff is over around here.

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I got this in the mail today and couldn’t wait to try it! The cake was definitely darker in color than the usual Sheng, and it was pretty loosely compressed. Most of Jalam’s raw puerhs are loosely compressed and I appreciate that…makes it easier to break apart.

This tea brews up to a nice yellow color. I brewed 7g in my little Jian Shui pot, and I think maybe it could have used more leaf. In the early steeps, it had a nice thickness to it. The texture was also buttery. Taste-wise, it was more savory in the beginning and then changed to a delicious sweetness later. I also detected a dried berry note. I really enjoyed it and will definitely enjoy the rest of this cake!

mrmopar

I like the loose compression much more myself.

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I really enjoyed this tea is was medium thickness but a nice mild bitterness similar to coffee or bittersweet chocolate and a nice oily texture. This reminded me of rishi’s maiden which I liked a lot and actually wanted to purchase this tea as I can see myself drinking a lot of it especially since its lower on caffeine.

Unfortunately this is the first tea I have liked enough to warrant a purchase from jalam but they want $24/100g cake plus shipping… So working out the puernomics since it is in cake form I will loose 10% to dust upon breaking up the cake leaving 90 g or ~3oz so for $30 with shipping it will roughly work out to $10/oz for shupu! Thats insane especially for an autumn harvest. Sorry for bringing money into it because I really like this tea but for that money im sure I could buy a bunch of dayi ripes that have the same qualities if not better.

Flavors: Coffee, Dark Bittersweet, Thick

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 10 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
Cwyn

Wow I hadn’t considered the loss to breakage but then I scoop up and brew the dust. Lol.

Jiāng Luo

Funny you mention that I actually usually end up doing that if its shupu and it literally worked out to 10g of breakage from prying the cake in half which made me laugh it was precisely 10%..

As for sheng breakage certainly not young sheng, I enjoy bitterness but I am not a masochistic

Tealizzy

Have you tried any of their sheng? I really like their offerings. Also, it’s $19 plus shipping, so $24 if you’re in the US. It is a little steep, but I enjoy the information about each tea and it’s great for those who don’t know puerh that well yet and want someone else to pick stuff for them.

jschergen

Thanks for the price analysis, something that is often neglected!

Jiāng Luo

I like their sheng for “right now” casual tea, it is all autumn so winds up being too thin for my tastes but not bad tea by any means. If their cakes were priced at $15/pop I’d gladly buy up a few lbs but at $19 plus shipping thats breaks my price per quality barrier unless maybe they start carrying a few thick strong spring teas.

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