In May this year I have bought a brick of the 2005 Wild Tree Dehong puerh
from YunnanSourcing. To start with, it had a wonderful, strong and sweet,
almost peach-like scent and taste and lots of chi. I was looking forward to
enjoy many more hours in the company of this wonderful tea, I have even
ordered one more brick for further aging. But to my disappointment, the
taste and smell of this tea have rapidly disappeared after only a few
months. Today, after half of a year, there is only a faint reminder left of
the original strong taste and scent, and in the same time there is no sign
of further ripening.
Has anyone of you experienced something similar with this tea? I believe I
am storing this tea properly, in a small cupboard in my living room where
the temperature is constantly around...

[Gyorgy]

This post caught my eye as I have about 10 bricks of this tea in my
stash. http://tinyurl.com/yfxreb So I brewed some up, half in a
panic, to see what was going on.

I did notice a change in the teas character. The tea wasn't weaker,
but it wasn't as floral either. It had notes of brine, grain and/or
bamboo, and astringency with hints of sweetness in the finish. I did
not get as many steeps as I seem to remember though. What temp water
are using? I used a full boil on this one, where on harsher greens I
often use lower temps.

Whether or not you would consider this a "ripening" is in the eye of
the beholder, but it did seem to be an evolution at the least.

"corax" gmail.com> writes:

True. Also, it points me in the direction of pleasure, and it helps
me avoid some disastrous uses of my time and money. Thanks, Mike!

/Lew

I have a similar experience with this tea, got one brick, it was great
and got a second one several months later and second one didn't have the
same strength, recently tried it again and the first brick is loosing
its character too but not as much as the second one, still a very good
tea, didn't noticed any significant astringency either.

Have tried it on one on my friends and he hated it then, will try again
and he might like it now. Can't think of anything better than to keep it
in Ziploc bag to prevent from becoming just an average tea.

The moral of this story is that if you want to make a major tea purchase
try it on one of your friends preferably not a heavy tea drinker, you
will get completely different perspective on the tea, at least in my
case it helped me to restrict myself to only one additional brick.

Oleg

KM wrote:

Which tea do you mean?

This one ?:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/2005-Wild-Tree-Raw-Pu-erh-Brick-Dehong-Yunnan-500g_W0QQit...

If so, then I have same which I can try and see if it has turned to
blandness (I hope not). Just want to check before I start cutting into
things.

Kat

Yes, this is the one.

Thanks,
Gyorgy

Kat wrote:

Gyorgy

my 2 bricks of this tea have been stored in tissue paper (because they are
essentially loose bricks without proper wrapping) in a cardboard box with my
other raw pu-erh bricks.

The tea does not seem to have lost all its flavour to me. The brew still
has the clarity noted in the eBay listing and is a bright golden yellow with
a nice aroma when brewed. I would say it has a medium strength Chi, but
like yourself I can't say I've noticed any ripening of this tea. It has no
bitterness, but all its flavour seems concentrated in the first cup and in
the first sips of subsequent cups. Oddly enough, as the tea gets cooler as
you work your way to the bottom of the cup (cups 2 & 3 - only had 3 cups so
far) the flavour seems to dissipate and is not as strong as when you started
drinking the cup.

I'm inclined to think that is a "drink now" tea rather than one suitable for
long term storage. I've had similar sorts of things happen with loose
pu-erh as far as taste loss is concerned, but I had hoped not run across the
same thing again in cakes and bricks. Goes to show what a gamble pu-reh tea
purchases can be doesn't it when you don't have a lot of experience?

Kat

three years! wow. congratulations mike! and thanks for all you do to
educate and enlighten the tea world. it's an inspiration to us all.

corax

Dear Kat and Mike,

Thank you both for your time and efforts to check this tea for me!

Mike Petro wrote:

I used to brew this tea with water of about 80 degrees C, but after reading
your post I decided to give it one more try with fully boiling water, and it
did help a bit. I did a series of eight steeps...

I have to say that you comments on how astringent this tea is caught me by
surprise. So far I haven't had any astringency at all in the cups I've
brewed of the tea. I broke up one of my bricks of this tea on the weekend
(well as much as I could anyway - it was a HARD brick! and didn't do my
hands any good at all) and decided to drink a few more cups.

One thing I did notice was that the newly broken up brick seemed more floral
in taste that than the pieces I had broken off around the edges for my
previous tasting. Also, I brewed the second lots in my Yixing teapot, where
my previous brew had been in my glass infusion cup, and I didn't notice the
dramatic taste loss at the bottom of the cup I'd seen in the glass cup,
though you still only get about 4 cups of tasty tea if you are lucky out of
the leaves.