But today I opened a sample of YS' 2004 Song Pin Hao Yiwu (no longer in stock, much to my dismay) and it was so yummy that I'm gonna post an uninteresting photo anyways to commemorate.
I do like how both my gaiwan and Muji cup has concentric circle design elements.
I've heard of Song Pin Hao before, probably on Teadb, and was intrigued enough to look them up (another article). I found out that they (the house's full name is Qian Li Zhen Song Pin Hao to avoid confusion later on) made a (the?) legendary pu er tea in the 1910s to 1920s. The sub-label of "Song Pin Hao" is reserved for their top quality productions, which ceased in 1930s under China's communist regime (another good thing lost).
Obviously what I had today isn't the legendary stuff, but it is the taste that I look for in raw pu er. A 2006 Xiaguan that I got from my dad tasted really similar, perhaps it's the aged-ish raw taste? Sort of a woody category of taste is how I can best describe it. I read a lot of descriptions of more aged raw as having camphor taste...but I have no idea what camphor taste like.
Unfortunately it seems non-trivial to source this, so I guess I'll just try to find more raws from the early to mid 2000s and develop my palette more.
...
I got more tea from YS a couple days ago:
taking this photo makes me want only daylight bulbs in my home, such awful color balance
As much as I'd like to say that I won't be buying more tea this year...we both know that it'd be a lie. Especially since this is my 本命年 so I wanna buy a tong of 2018 tea to store until the zodiac cycles through again. That means at least 2 more orders: one full of samples (and full size of previously sampled tea) and another actual order. Aka I need to get a job soon, not a fun process :(
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