Sometimes I look at my puer stash and feel overwhelmed with what to choose to drink. Why not drink it all? Today I take a leaf/chunk of each of my shou puer and drink it!
My shou pumidor, yet again, is full and teas fall out when I open the door.
I wonder if my shou blend will just taste like generic shou since this tea type has a smaller range of flavor. But same time, I got quite an assortment of shou. I got a Japanese, 1989 to 1990s, as well as younger shou puer. I got some expensive ones clocking in at around $89 per cake, some at $5 per cake. Some of my shous are fully fermented while others still are a bit green. A number of them that just don’t exist anymore such as the original Green Miracle and Special Dark.
I had a camphor kick a while back, so there a number of strong menthol teas here. Early on, I had no problems blind buying shou from reliable vendors, but lately, I do the odd blind buys in the $40-$50 range and skip the cheaper ones. My current taste is a bit of bitterness, dark AF, with creamy notes.
Rules had to be made to drink ALL of my shou puer collection to keep this blend pure and painless.
- No unopened samples/ cakes. I need those for blogging purposes later.
- No orange chenpi shou.
- No liubao, fu bricks, or heicha.
- No individual serving/ less than 10g mini tuochas, cakes, and dragon balls.
- No sheng/shou blends.
In total, 84 shou puer (out of 105 stash) is in the Oolong Owl 2021 All Shou Stash blend. Admittedly, it is a dusty boi as that is the nature of this tea blend.
Drinking ALL of my Shou Puer
Once gathered, this shou blend has the scent of warm earth at the gardening section at Home Depot, with a bit of funky camphor.
My gongfu ratio is 1 gram of leaf per 14ml of vessel size, steeping with boiling water. After a rinse, the shou smells like cherry wood, bit dank forest floor, and more hot dirt.
First, Second, Third, and Fourth Infusion: 2021 All Shou Stash blend is overwhelmingly sweet to start. This shou blend sips in caramel and milky sweet then starts to swirl around an assortment of flavors like camphor, cherry wood, bittersweet dark chocolate, nutshells. The aftertaste is a long bitter wood and nuts. I am happy to report an oily texture and the body feeling of being face punched awake.
Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Infusion: Once the All Shou Stash blend has opened up, it is settling into aged tastes of tobacco, camphor, funky old nut shells, old wooden cabinet, and dark medicinal. There is a sweet mineral finish, but overall all the higher quality shou and older stuff are jumping to the front of the queue.
I’ve been doing the odd splash in the silver cup and it smoothes it out to sweet chocolate with a strong old book and nutty finish.
Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Infusion: The final runs at my shou blend I had to steep for 10+ minutes. These final infusions taste rock sugar, with a bit of chocolate, and wood notes.
Funny enough, there is a green leaf in this, probably a lower ferment shou.
Comments
In all seriousness, the Oolong Owl 2021 All Shou Stash blend was quite an enjoyable shou as it was complex as hell and resteeped well. This All Shou blend was less insane and more drinkable than my 2020 All White Tea blend.
Happy April Fools 2021! Oddly, this tea session was actually quite legit and delicious. If I had nothing better to do, I might break off more for future tea sessions. That said, the joke was on me.
