90

I got a sample of this tea from Norbu a while back, and decided to try it today after I was looking in the cardboard box that now holds my sheng collection. I read you shouldn’t keep these in the kitchen, but since I have a studio apartment there isn’t a ton of storage anywhere!

1st steep: in the Xiying teapot, and after a quick rinse I decided to steep it for 30 seconds or so. This is a very gentle sheng as it is evidently made from compressed ya bao tea. The tea color is very light and the aroma is that of clover with some very soft vanilla and lemony notes. The tea aftertaste is sweet and almost custard like.

2nd steep: similar to steep #1 but some thicker honey notes are becoming more prominent, this is very enjoyable!

3rd and 4th steep: I decided to combine them together into one nice cuppa. I’m still getting the lemony and custard notes as well as some banana. I don’t seem to be getting a huge energy boost from this stuff, but it is tasty! Overall, very enjoyable.

If you don’t like the standard shu type of pu-erh you might want to give this one a whirl, it’s very gentle…

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 30 sec
Bonnie

Nice flavors!

Michelle

What’s wrong with keeping shengs in the kitchen?

TeaBrat

If you intend to keep a puerh for a while, they can absorb the odors from food/cooking and alter the taste

Garret

If you are storing pu’er at home, it will help if you keep it in a cardboard box to at least shield it a little from cooking smells, spices. Incense, perfumes, colognes, air sprays… all of those things will quickly absorb into pu’er tea (not to mention they are hell on the body because of the chemicals). The more one can keep pu’er away from odors, the better. Here at our shop, we have all our teas in a special vault with proper airflow, proper humidity and temp, air filtration and ZERO odors other than the livin’ thing that is pu’er tea.

One also does not want to store it where dry air (heating, air conditioning) is blowing on it. It will dry out the tea and stop/greatly inhibit its aging.

Missy

Totally going on the shopping list, thanks for the review!

ScottTeaMan

Great info Garret…….Thanks. :))

TeaBrat

Garret – I have steam heat. I wonder how that would affect the tea?

Michelle

Aha. Thanks!

Garret

Hi everyone :) Steam heat is nice because you don’t have that forced air drying the heck outta your stash! In MN it gets cold and dry during the winter and even without forced air, the humidity in houses can get quite low. If one has the space (and the gumption), they can make their own little humidor out of a closet (as long as you can get airflow established) using a small humidifier. One must be careful, though, to really watch the % of humidity. Too wet and you’ve got mold and funk. No good.

I can’t imagine it getting too dry in the Bay Area, though, even in cold weather. Am I correct in saying that?

I did have a customer bring in a cake of tea she was all excited about that she had brought from some dealer while visiting China. She had not used it because she didn’t really know what to do with it. She brought it here to me, after discovering we were here. I took one whiff of it in the ornate box she had it in and knew instantly that it had been stored in a cupboard with curry and other spices. Not good. Sure enough, when we made the tea… it was totally wrecked because of the spice aromas that is had stewed in while in her cupboard. It was useless. Too bad, too, because the tea factory itself is a good one and the leaf looked tremendous. It does not take long for pu’er to soak up the odors around it (cooking smells, INCENSE, cigarettes, air spray, perfumes, etc) and it never lets go of the aromas once it grabs ahold of them.

Be careful out there, people :)

May you all have the best of health!!

Lion

Lemon, yes. I can taste that now! Surprised I didn’t think of that while writing my review.

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Comments

Bonnie

Nice flavors!

Michelle

What’s wrong with keeping shengs in the kitchen?

TeaBrat

If you intend to keep a puerh for a while, they can absorb the odors from food/cooking and alter the taste

Garret

If you are storing pu’er at home, it will help if you keep it in a cardboard box to at least shield it a little from cooking smells, spices. Incense, perfumes, colognes, air sprays… all of those things will quickly absorb into pu’er tea (not to mention they are hell on the body because of the chemicals). The more one can keep pu’er away from odors, the better. Here at our shop, we have all our teas in a special vault with proper airflow, proper humidity and temp, air filtration and ZERO odors other than the livin’ thing that is pu’er tea.

One also does not want to store it where dry air (heating, air conditioning) is blowing on it. It will dry out the tea and stop/greatly inhibit its aging.

Missy

Totally going on the shopping list, thanks for the review!

ScottTeaMan

Great info Garret…….Thanks. :))

TeaBrat

Garret – I have steam heat. I wonder how that would affect the tea?

Michelle

Aha. Thanks!

Garret

Hi everyone :) Steam heat is nice because you don’t have that forced air drying the heck outta your stash! In MN it gets cold and dry during the winter and even without forced air, the humidity in houses can get quite low. If one has the space (and the gumption), they can make their own little humidor out of a closet (as long as you can get airflow established) using a small humidifier. One must be careful, though, to really watch the % of humidity. Too wet and you’ve got mold and funk. No good.

I can’t imagine it getting too dry in the Bay Area, though, even in cold weather. Am I correct in saying that?

I did have a customer bring in a cake of tea she was all excited about that she had brought from some dealer while visiting China. She had not used it because she didn’t really know what to do with it. She brought it here to me, after discovering we were here. I took one whiff of it in the ornate box she had it in and knew instantly that it had been stored in a cupboard with curry and other spices. Not good. Sure enough, when we made the tea… it was totally wrecked because of the spice aromas that is had stewed in while in her cupboard. It was useless. Too bad, too, because the tea factory itself is a good one and the leaf looked tremendous. It does not take long for pu’er to soak up the odors around it (cooking smells, INCENSE, cigarettes, air spray, perfumes, etc) and it never lets go of the aromas once it grabs ahold of them.

Be careful out there, people :)

May you all have the best of health!!

Lion

Lemon, yes. I can taste that now! Surprised I didn’t think of that while writing my review.

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Bio

My profile pic is of a pink dahlia at Golden Gate Park.

Hobbies include: tea, making art, animals, vegan things, buddhism, nature, creativity, books, writing, cooking, meditation, yoga.

I am a fan of many different teas but my favorites are blacks and oolongs, chai, also like darjeeling and pu-erh. I’n always learning and expanding my horizons!

Dislikes include: bergamot, jasmine, highly tannic or bitter teas, overly judgmental and bitter people. :)

Live in San Francisco, I’m a SINK (single income, no kids) and love the urban life, but traveling out to the middle of nowhere is always fun too.

I tend to not drink things I know I will hate so a lot of my tea ratings are on the higher side. Here’s my rating system, sorta

95-100 I love this tea and would like to keep it around

94-90 An excellent tea which I may or may not repurchase

89-80 Pretty good, above average

79-70 Acceptable

69-60 Mundane – Will probably drink it if I have it

59-50 Ick

49 and below Nasty

Location

San Frandisco

Website

http://sanfrantea.teatra.de

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