Sheng, Shu or blended ?

Can't seem to find a definitive answer. Pix at flickr.com suggest blended if
the sample photographed came from the same brick.

Anyone had any personal experience with this one?

Cheers
Mal
Oz

Dont worry folks, I found this post on
http://community.livejournal.com/puerh_tea/27264.html
....this tea appears not to know whether its 'Arthur' or 'Martha'.

Will skip this one I think.

Cheers
Mal
Oz

"Mal from Oz" > wrote in message
...
> Sheng, Shu or blended ?
>
> Can't seem to find a definitive answer. Pix at flickr.com suggest blended
> if the sample photographed came from the same brick.
>
> Anyone had any personal experience with this one?
>
> Cheers
> Mal
> Oz
>
>
>

You would know by simply inspecting the infused leaf. Shu is black,
sheng is green, and blended is both. I remember mentioning the first
blended puer I bought a while back. The answer they don't do that.

Jim

On Mar 15, 4:35 am, "Mal from Oz" > wrote:
> Sheng, Shu or blended ?
>
> Can't seem to find a definitive answer. Pix at flickr.com suggest blended if
> the sample photographed came from the same brick.
>
> Anyone had any personal experience with this one?
>
> Cheers
> Mal
> Oz

Don't be fooled. 8972 MH brick is nowhere near late 80's
production...

Many people - vendors included - conveniently take the 1st 2 numbers
as the year of production; in the age of state-run factories, they
were mostly for inventory references, only a few were specifically
numbered according to the year it was produced. It is sad that vendors
do not do more homework to authenticate their products before
advertising them to the consumers...

8972, from sources, was first seen in the market around 98-99, using
leaves harvested and processed in 96. There were around 4 productions
of this brick, the last in around 2002.

All productions vary in fragrance and flavor for one unstable variable
in the production of this brick - mist. Unlike conventinal cooked
puer that are fermented using measured amount of water sprinkled on to
the tea pile, this was fermented by spraying mist over the tea pile,
which made the fermentation uneven, hence the cooked & uncooked leaves
that one finds.

There were rumours that some of these 8972 bricks were kept in high
humidity environment (or wet storage) to speed up its ageing process,
after the bricks were produced. Otherwise, those that were not kept in
such environment turned out quite nicely.

Hope the info helps...

Danny

On Mar 15, 8:54 pm, "Mal from Oz" > wrote:
> Dont worry folks, I found this post onhttp://community.livejournal.com/puerh_tea/27264.html
> ...this tea appears not to know whether its 'Arthur' or 'Martha'.
>
> Will skip this one I think.
>
> Cheers
> Mal
> Oz
>
> "Mal from Oz" > wrote in ...
>

Hey Danny,

When I see black and green infused leaf from puer it is the result of
the process you described and not intentional blending? I think I
first came across it in one of those Xiaguan mushroom shaped puer made
for Tibet. I essentially drink my puers 'blended'.

xiexie,
Jim

On Mar 15, 2:20 pm, wrote:
....puer puree...
> All productions vary in fragrance and flavor for one unstable variable
> in the production of this brick - mist. Unlike conventinal cooked
> puer that are fermented using measured amount of water sprinkled on to
> the tea pile, this was fermented by spraying mist over the tea pile,
> which made the fermentation uneven, hence the cooked & uncooked leaves
> that one finds.
> Danny

On Mar 16, 9:46 pm, "Space Cowboy" > wrote:
> Hey Danny,
>
> When I see black and green infused leaf from puer it is the result of
> the process you described and not intentional blending? I think I
> first came across it in one of those Xiaguan mushroom shaped puer made
> for Tibet. I essentially drink my puers 'blended'.
>
Hi Jim,

I believe that the factories have various different methods of
processing pu'er, and blending cooked and green maocha may be one of
them. I was told, rather severely, that blending cooked and green
maocha is merely a myth perpetrated by vendors and consumers who
judged the brewed leaves on its appearance of cooked and green leaves
and assumed things - factories such as Menghai Tea Factory was very
stringent on the Wo Dui process, after the fermentation, leaves were
graded and picked; leaves that were not fermented fully would be
discarded, hence the unlikeliness that factories would go all the
trouble to blend cooked and green maocha to produce a half & half
pu'er.

This theory seems logical, until the appearance of V93 cooked tuocha -
which is fermented "al dente" - not as thoroughly fermented as some of
the previous Menghai cooked pu'er; and the theory is not so firm after
all - if they can do a light fermentation on cooked maocha, why not a
blend? they would in theory try to achieve the same result.

One method I would use (though not exact) would be to examine the
brewed leaves. If on a single leaf there appears to be fermentation
on one half but green on the other half, then I would guess that it is
spray-mist fermentated. If most of the leaves are fully fermentated
with other half green, then it might be a blend...

Just my 2cent...

Danny

Danny,

As usual your two cents is the best bargain around.

Jim

On Mar 16, 9:34 am, wrote:
> On Mar 16, 9:46 pm, "Space Cowboy" > wrote
,,,I delete us...
> Just my 2cent...
>
> Danny

writes:

> [...supposedly cooked and raw maocha never get blended...]
>
> This theory seems logical, until the appearance of V93 cooked tuocha -
> which is fermented "al dente" - not as thoroughly fermented as some of
> the previous Menghai cooked pu'er; and the theory is not so firm after
> all - if they can do a light fermentation on cooked maocha, why not a
> blend? they would in theory try to achieve the same result.
>
> One method I would use (though not exact) would be to examine the
> brewed leaves. If on a single leaf there appears to be fermentation
> on one half but green on the other half, then I would guess that it is
> spray-mist fermentated. If most of the leaves are fully fermentated
> with other half green, then it might be a blend...

But couldn't individual leaves that are part-green and part-brown be
the result of sun-drying? I know I've read that sun-drying causes
uneven partial oxidation.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

> I believe that the factories have various different methods of
> processing pu'er, and blending cooked and green maocha may be one of
> them. I was told, rather severely, that blending cooked and green
> maocha is merely a myth perpetrated by vendors and consumers who
> judged the brewed leaves on its appearance of cooked and green leaves
> and assumed things - factories such as Menghai Tea Factory was very
> stringent on the Wo Dui process, after the fermentation, leaves were
> graded and picked; leaves that were not fermented fully would be
> discarded, hence the unlikeliness that factories would go all the
> trouble to blend cooked and green maocha to produce a half & half
> pu'er.

These days there are little gradings done as most factories are simply
trying to pump out a large quantity of this tea to appeal to the
newfound hysteria of Pu'er collecting in Guangdong, HK, and Taiwan.
The uneducated locals here all spout the following sentence when
deciding whether to buy a ton of tea or not, "I'm looking for good
quality leaves." (hao cha di..). It's rather annoying because they
don't know what exactly to look for and it is causing the price of
pu'er here to raise to stupid levels. In 10 years, I think tea that
was made after 2005 will be basically worthless because of the huge
demand and huge production from the factories. This is evident also
by the ridiculous pricing of 2004 tea this year; from nearly all
factories/areas of Yunnan.

Most pu'er cakes are blends, but with regards to the bricks, there is
really no telling what leaves go in to make it. I do know that I have
seldom seen bricks with good leaves besides the small menghai
'fangcha' (100g) cakes that I have a few of. Those large bricks
marked 'mi xiang' and 'zao xiang' are relatively worthless because of
the poor quality.

There isn't much of a bright future when it comes to pu'er.

> But couldn't individual leaves that are part-green and part-brown be
> the result of sun-drying? I know I've read that sun-drying causes
> uneven partial oxidation.
>
> /Lew
>

Sorry, I wasn't clear - it is not "brown" as in oxidized colour, but
dark brown or black as in the fully oxidized leaves (the can't
unfurled types) that you find in cooked pu'er.

Sun-drying causes a slight amount of oxidation, but most of the
oxidation would be created when the plucked leaves are left in the
basket to knock and bruise against each other en route to the
factory...

Danny