2020 blind tasting: Mattcha’s reveal
While I’m uncomfortable with his generous and over-the-top praise, I can finally stop biting my nails in anticipation: Matt has finally revealed the teas in his blind sample set! He...
2017 Dayi 7542, hot vs. cold storage
I stored two cakes of 7542 for almost three years: both in mylar, both without added humidity. The only diference is that one (labeled H and on the left) experienced...
Storage experiment: W2T Tuhao AF 2016, three years in
An update to the storage experiment, featuring White2tea’s Tuhao AF, which I tested after 1 year of storage. This has been in the hotbox at 65%RH and 32C for 3...
Risks of humidified or heated storage
As a result of my storage experiment posts, especially the one detailing the Hotbox storage system, I’ve received a lot of emails and seen some commentary (good and not so...
Storage experiment: 2016 W2T Bosch, two years in
This is an update to my original post introducing the storage experiment. To review, I am storing part of my 2016 W2T Bosch cake at room temperature (23-24C, on the...
Storage experiment: 6 months at 40C and a warning on heated storage
The storage experiments continue: today we have two samples taken from my favourite cake of young sheng: the 2015 Biyun Hao Lishan Gongcha. The sample on the left was kept...
Storage experiment: 801-8582 — can one year make a difference?
Following up on my last storage experiment comparing cold vs hot storage of the 2017 Dayi 7542, we have a very different question: after 9 years of storage in Taiwan,...
Storage experiment: W2T Tuhao AF 2016, one year in
White2Tea’s Tuhao AF was one of the cakes stored in the Puerh hotbox described in my previous post. This is a much more aggressive LBZ-like tea than the Bosch and so...
Conditioning experiment
A puerh cake will generate a certain relative humidity (RH) when sealed in a close-fitting mylar bag. Cakes which have just arrived from Taiwan natural storage, for example, will typically...
Tetsubin by Masamitsu Kikuchi
I bought this from Horaido in Kyoto. The tetsubin is by Masamitsu Kikuchi, Yamagata prefecture, and the model is “Mozuya”. It is designed to be reminiscent of the large Kama /...