2017 Mansong New Company Yiwu Mountain Tea

YiwuMountainTea sample packs

I received some unsolicited samples from a new company in Yunnan called Yiwu Mountain Tea. The owner emailed asking if I wanted some samples (no, not really) but then I got talked into it. I am glad I did! Yiwu Mountain Tea has a retail website, but the owner stated they mostly do wholesaling, with some purchases direct from small time farmers and some of their retail offerings appear to be factory label teas.

While my kettle boiled I opened up the 2017 Mansong and started brewing before checking the website to find out this tea is already sold out. I went ahead anyway since I had already opened the packet, although I prefer to try teas that are still available to buy. On the plus side, I have a fairly recent memory of an excellent Chen Yuan Hao Mansong for mental reference, and the prices on Yiwu Mountain Tea approach the high premiums we would pay for CYH.

2017 Mansong

This still-green Mansong hits all the right notes for me in what I want in a premium tea. Hits like a truck with full sweating, full body qi, hot flashes, some thickness in early steeps, yun, and bitter as hell as it cools. Mansong is a bit on the north side of Yiwu, but recently the prices of this small area are high. I notice the leaves are definitely first flush, mainly younger trees. I am tea drunk enough to give a fast thumbs up on this sample.

I had planned to try the other samples before posting this, but I notice the prices of full cakes are steep for what most people reading my post here are likely to afford. Most of the 2017 are not available to buy in full size teas. The good news is a sample pack is available for $31.64 that contains a total of 8 teas, 120g. The website also says that “free gushu samples” are sent with any order over $30. As a comparison, a 2016 CYH Yiwu Chawang at Teapals sells for around $70 for 75g sample pack.

Second steep

This seems like a fairly decent deal and probably limited in availability. If you are like me, we are priced out of the premium market now so opportunities to try teas like this are scarce unless you know someone willing to share. I am not sure what I think of the factory teas on the site, but the sample pack is certainly attractive. 

2016 Bitter Tits

2016 Yiwu from Bitterleaf Teas

Finally we have a new spring puerh! As many of you puerh hogs know, this year Yunnan experienced unusually cold weather and even frosts and snow! All of that colder weather pushed back the growth of older tea trees later in the spring. Along with this, vendors likewise appear to be pushing back somewhat against the trend of releasing tea cakes early, perhaps as a response to last year’s wetter teas which required a longer period of rest. So my first puerh in for this new year is a cake personalized for Old Cwyn by Bitterleaf Teas, so I’ll call it 2016 Bitter Tits.

Tear at 3 o'clock. For those who read analog clocks.

My new titty tea is a purchase in response to an offer from Bitterleaf Teas several months ago on Steepster. For just $34.50 I could get a full 357g cake with my own custom neifei! Now how can I possibly resist a deal like this? Well I can’t. Some of my Steepster friends don’t have anything they can use for a custom neifei, but naturally I have plenty already designed using my own personal forefinger in Art Studio for IPad. I didn’t mind coughing up $34.50 for my own tea cake as it saves me a trip to Yunnan this year. And I got several samples along with my cake, quite a surprise making this even more of a value.

Personalized for Old Cwyn

The wrapper itself is one of the best designs I’ve seen. Who doesn’t love a chain smoking monkey with a uni-tit? The only downer is someone else’s name on the wrapper. I don’t know who Kelly Puissegur is. Or how to pronounce it. Kitty Pussy-grr. Meow. The guy who emailed me used the name Jonah. I suppose I could maybe email again and find out, but I’m the end consumer here and this is supposed to be my personalized cake. Whatever, the smoking monkey is cool enough I can let that slide. Also, the wrapper arrived with a tear on the back from the sharp edges inside the cardboard box, yet another small disappointment simply because the wrapper is a keeper otherwise. I guess I can cut out the monkey at some point and paste it onto a spare wrapper, assuming I’m not too arthritic when I have to use a scissors. At least my son can take me to the hospital if I have an accident, yet another instance in the world of ours where old people are overlooked even in the small details of life.

Wetness of the pressing more obvious on the under-side.

I haven’t ordered anything from Bitterleaf Teas before, and didn’t even have this new company on my radar. In fact, their little marketing ploy is probably the only one that can sucker me in at this point, especially when I really don’t need another Yiwu cake. Still, I do need spring tea and the weather is certainly warm enough here that I don’t feel like drinking warming teas like shou or heicha. The date stamp on the wrapper is 25 April 2016, and I received it on 27 May, so the tea is really fresh. And not brown like some other so-called “spring” teas we know of…

A mix of leaf grade.

In fact, this cake is really wet. The leaves are blackish green and tough to chip off this compressed cake right now. In another month or two the tea will likely dry out some more and loosen up a little bit. I managed to pry off 7g from the under-side, careful to preserve my personal neifei on the front, but then threw my back out in the process. One of life’s little trials I must offer up for the day.

I went with 95C on the temp for the water, as I don’t want the tea to turn to mush. Right now this is really what I’d call “green tea,” as opposed to fully rested puerh so hitting it with boiling water is too cruel. The leaves are smallish, as are the tiny twigs I can see, suggesting we have a young plantation cake. In the hohin I can smell a strong mint and lemon, along with the usual Yiwu honey.

Second steeping

First cup is rather unremarkable as a green steeping, the tea opens much more on steep 2 when I took this photo. I popped an Advil Liqui-gel capsule for my back and continued. Steep 3 is highly bitter, a strong plus for a tea going into a collection of rather sweet Yiwu teas. I’m starting to prefer my teas more bitter, I think the more bitter teas are likely to resist fading.

The cooling mint profile shows up in the throat, and the tea is bitter sweet and sour lemons. Lingers on the upper back of the palate, not very long in the legs but I don’t expect legginess in a plantation tea and certainly not one with a naked old lady for a neifei singing in the tune of $34 and Change. What I’m glad about is that I don’t see any padding with taliensis leaf, so the thickness belongs to the main profile rather than added leaf.

Leaves after about 4 steeps.

I’m also glad to note that the processing here is top notch. Not a hint of char in the strainer and no smoky taste whatsoever. This is the reason I prefer to buy teas from sourcing vendors rather than large factory productions. I find that the sourness of charred tea bothers me more and more, it is just an aesthetics issue for me. I want to taste the tea and not the processing. Smaller vendors sourcing their own tea oversee the processing themselves for the most part. For these vendors, their business has a great deal riding on the smaller productions they can afford to purchase. They can’t afford to pick out decent leaf and then end up with poor processing.

Steep 6 is a bit sweeter, the huigan is beginning to kick in, and the throat is still very cooling. Stronger clover honey scent now the tea is opening up. Steep 7 is more green liquid and vegetal in the cup, I think dropping the water temp now is probably a good thing with tea this fresh. I’m going to keep going at 95C because I’m lazy but I will guess the tea is starting to cook at this temp. In a few months when the cake dries out, the tea will withstand the higher temps much better. The tea gives 10 decent steepings with regard to flavor but again the tea is suffering my punishing temps so I’ll stop for now.

                          In case you missed it and want to borrow it.

I think in the early days of trying this tea that Bitterleaf’s 2016 Bitter Tits Yiwu...errr,..Limited Production Yiwu, sits very solidly at $0.10/gram with other teas at $0.25/gram. So I mean that this 357g cake at $34.50 compares very well with 200g cakes in the $50 range. It doesn’t of course represent high end Yiwu, but as a solid drinker and one for aging, the cake has what it takes. And of course with my image on it, this tea is a no-fail.  Even better, Jonah was kind enough to enclose a few other samples along with my purchase, a couple of puerh samples and a black tea. I’ll try and get those up soon on Steepster.

Cwyn

2015 Last Thoughts and Bitter Things

There's bitter feelings, bitter thoughts of you.
Oh, bitter things in life that have come true,
With never ending heartaches, never ending tears,
Bitter feelings and bitter thoughts of you.

"Bitter Feelings," Larry Lee Phillipson, 1959. On Cinch Records 3858 and on
No Welcome Home, Live at Green Bay, Wisconsin May 24, 2010 NLT Records

2014 Last Thoughts is the tea I discussed on the very opening post of this blog. The tea fit with the theme of this tea drinker at the end of her life, drinking her way to the grave. I wonder if I'm tempting fate just a little bit by drinking the new 2015 Last Thoughts and then writing about it again this year. But then I thought no, the tea doesn't have to be entirely about me, only a little bit, and in truth the tea isn't about anyone except maybe clues in the writing by a madman on the wrapper. This is the top tier effort by white2tea and that madman who sent me a sample. Readers have been searching my blog already for a review so I should write about the tea.

Pretty baggie.

I think understanding the tea tier is important. This tier of tea is not something which can be picked fresh upon request. It isn't sold by the roadside along with a bottle of water. You can't get it from the farmer or anyone else by asking. In fact, you can't even buy it. At all. The tea is acquired, as opposed to simply purchased. God only knows what Twodog or any other vendor these days goes through in order to acquire this tier of tea, because really all of it has been essentially spoken for and locked down by other investors for years now. So what happens is a little bit gets held somewhere, by someone, and you have to not only find it, but convince the person holding to part with it and pay the premium. And I'm certain the price is more than money, but about something else, and we won't be told. Tweets during the time period stamped on the neifei are a bit about relationships, single malt scotch and bourbon, but these hints are vague at best. Bitter things, no doubt.

Photo white2tea.com

My point here is that when approaching the tea, you'll notice some browning already which suggests that the date on the neifei is the pressing date and the picking date is unknown. This tier of tea is harvested and then hidden away, as opposed to picked fresh the day of sale. Maybe it changed hands already a couple times. And word of mouth saying "I know someone who knows someone who has got what you're looking for." Information is a premium, and you pay a big price for bitter thoughts too.

A sniff session is a must.

So you're darned right I'm gonna spend an entire evening just sniffing the tea in my cha he. In fact I'm not ready to drink it until I'm sure I've got rid of the people in the house, and the cat and everything demanding my attention. If you own this tea, you've paid a premium yourself with hard work, hard-earned pay  and the full treat is to sit down and enjoy without interruption. All these little bits are how I tune into this tier of tea, and I must have snorted when sniffing the cha he because a few bits fly out onto the floor and I quickly scramble to pick them up. So I'm probably brewing cat hair anyway. More bitter things.

First steep on boiling water over about 5 grams. And I drank the rinses, or should I say, I skipped the rinse. A bit of dry storage in the rinses, the tea appears to be a mix of fresher buds and some stored tea. Last year was all gushu, and this year seems to be a blend of gushu with something else far older and more sinister. TwoDog seems to flavor blended gushu more and more from what I read by him on forums, and I have to agree. For I can pick up a fresh gushu like Chawangpu's fruity Hekai and call it a day, but for top tier I want a bit more of an unknown experience.

After getting down the two rinses plus what would normally be a first steeping for me, I broke out in a sweat. I noticed some heart palpitations going on which I haven't experienced on a tea since Camellia Sinensis' Hong Jing Tian shou with the rhodiola herb in it. Need to slow down a little. 200 ml or less and I'm easing back already, this tea has a kick of something going, caffeine plus...? dunno yet but I need a lie-down.

First steep after I drank two rinses.

Two hours later I have some yogurt and nuts and I'm back at it. Two more cups, about 175-200 ml total together. And again, the increased heart rate, sweating and something foggy about my head. I feel the tea in my stomach. The huigan is a real creeper, 10 minutes after the cups I am tasting nothing in particular but then a flower opens in my mouth of sweetness. I am looking around the room to try and find explanations for the sensations, ruling out things like food or meds. But I feel like how my cat looks after I give him wild catnip, he sniffs and starts playing with it and then he stops and stares with a wide-eyed look, as if he is not himself and suddenly realizes it. I feel a bit like I've taken half a tab of hydrocodone, which for some of you might be paracetamol with codeine and an aspirin in there too. And I feel it in my head, my throat and my stomach.

I keep thinking this cannot be possible, that I'm feeling like a lightweight with this tea. I know I haven't had as much time to drink tea lately, but I'm still drinking things like Korean sejak and black tea, and keeping up the caffeine with diet colas on hotter days too, and coffee in the morning. In fact, I drink caffeine all day. And it's only been five days since I finished off that Poundcake, a total of more than 10,000 ml in a 3 or 4 day session. I drank two of those Bonjour 920 ml pitchers back to back. Twice. There is no way tea should be affecting me like this. Listen, 200 ml should not be more than a slurp to Old Cwyn.

On Steepster, I see one of my Friends has tried the 2015 Last Thoughts, and I ask about parameters because this person has a rather short note with no mention of any particular effects. Turns out a rather healthy amount of tea was consumed. So maybe it is just me. But I need another lie-down.

Two hours later I have a protein shake with fresh fruit and veggies blended in. And then two more cups. 10 minutes later those two cups hit me again like a truck as before, the same symptoms. And the creeper huigan, no taste in my mouth and then the explosion of fruit and flowers. My head is disconnected and my heart rate up. I'm going into herbalist mode, thinking not of parameters but of dosages. This is Chinese medicine somehow. I usually need less medicine than most people because the effects of all medicines are strong, and my parameter on this tea means a smaller dosage here. I'm thinking 3g/100 ml for me rather than 5g/75ml. Regardless, I'm gonna push it on myself just a bit more and go for two more cups just 20 minutes after the last two.

At about 10 steepings.

This isn't the post I had planned. I was going to talk about the profile, the thick motor oil etc. etc. based on last year's Last Thoughts. I get the Yiwu top note, and hints of a Menghai flavor base just like last year, but I also get deeper flavors like aspirin and apple vinegar, what I mean is medicine. The tea isn't as thick as last year's, the buds are here but some other leaf has been blended this time. Huigan has that delay but is explosive. I just cannot understand how I can drink all that Poundcake and this Last Thoughts is now kicking my ass, like Dong Quai in vodka. I'm gonna grow a stubby nub sixth finger at the base of my pinkies and turn into Anne Boleyn and she was one bitter thang.

Next morning I start up again, two, well three cups this time. Same effects, I'm zombie-fied. Flavor now is stone fruits, still decent astringency and hot chili oil into the gullet. The tea is staring me down, saying "you're the girl who drank all that Poundcake, now we're gonna give you the what-for."

I might be hallucinating, but I think I see a cross.

The truth is, as an herbalist I focused more on tonics and a few womanly herbs, but I'm out of my depth with the effects this tea has. It would take a real Chinese medicine doctor to sort this one out, and anyone who is a doctor needs to order this tea for their patients...in tongs. Nevertheless I'm determined to steep this one out and hoard the rest. Of course the leaves are still going after 15 steeps. I just can't believe it, I don't remember last year's cake doing this to me. 3g/100ml is probably the ideal dose for me, and not a smidgen more. The tea that knocks out even Old Cwyn.

Around 15 steeps.

Naturally a few more cups in the afternoon at tea time. Ten minutes later of course I'm back to a wild-eyed stare and my mother-in-law asks what's wrong with me. I tell her about high-end, old arbor tea.

"Do you tell your doctor about this tea you're drinking?" she asks.

"If I did that she'd fire me as a patient."

"You should drink tea bags from the grocery store."

And there we have it. See, this here is why I started out with the photo of Larry Lee Phillipson. Phillipson is an old-timer Wisconsin rockabilly lead singer who lives in my home town. Like TwoDog, Phillipson spent his youth jumping on the back of trains and hopping off at farms looking for work. In between that, Larry pressed his musical vinyl discs, just as today when TwoDog presses musical tea discs. You can rely on one thing from your family here in Wisconsin when you come home with Achievements, like Larry from Nashville with "Bitter Feelings" and Twodog from Yunnan with "Last Thoughts." You can count on "No Welcome Home" and someone always acknowledging greatness with "yah okay, now sit down and eat yer peas."

train tracks...oh, bitter things and bitter thoughts of you.

Note: the video poster spelled the name wrong. And the song is original.

99 Grams of Poundcake from white2tea

this shape and I have a past.

I hadn't planned on reviewing the new white2tea Poundcake gourd but it is a week already since it arrived and no one else has. The gourd is just such an enticing shape I can think of several uses for it. Originally I thought I'd pass on reviewing this since I have no way in hell of breaking this thing apart. Recently I got a pick injury trying to pry apart a tiny sample, so I worry over the dangers I might face. But what the hell, I might as well brew it on top of my car.

30 sauerkraut jar

Now I'm not just about doing crazy shit for the blog. I did my research. Early scuttlebutt on the Poundcake is the first three steeps are incredible. Seems reasonable to me therefore that I want those steeps as long and as large as possible. So the only solution here is to steep the whole 99 grams at once. Sometimes you gotta go big or go home, baby.

A wise teapot choice, the double-wall.

Big tea calls for big equipment so I drag out a Bonjour borosilicate double-walled 30 oz honker. I don't have a gong bei this size, so instead I am using a 30 oz sauerkraut jar which luckily nestles my strainer quite nicely. Right away I can see that I am going to need to refill and heat the kettle for each steeping. I start out with two rinses and photographed the second one because I don't think I want to stop for photos on a real steep.

None for the neighbors.

Steep number one I use about around 20 oz of water and get a bright yellow brew. I therefore have about 4 cups of first steeping. The brew is entirely honey sweet with no bitterness whatsoever, and notes of nutmeg and cloves, suggesting that "cake" image the tea is named for, and the motor oil thickness that all of white2tea's house label productions seem to give me.

First steep of oily goodness.

So yeah. I drank the entire first steep in one go. I have sheng literally down to the inside of my ankles. If I stand up now I will slosh. Really should be taking my time but instead I gulp the whole thing. Now I'm sweating with dry mouth but not so dry that I need water. In fact I kinda want more. Thought I'd  wait til tomorrow for a second steep, but might as well keep going.

Rinse photo again.

Second steep I moved indoors to use my Zojirushi water heater which keeps my water just under boiling. I must remember to use my Bonjour pot on puerh shapes like this, sheng balls and whatnot. The double walled insulation really keeps the tea lightly steaming for a bit in between steeps which helps to open up the gourd. I really don't need to use a puerh pick after all. The tea is really starting to kick in now and I'm feeling decidedly woozy in a happy way.

Have you ever noticed when green tea really hits you that your eyesight improves? I don't know if this is the actual tea or the effect of hydrating the eyeballs. Or, in my case, floating the eyeballs. I check the scent on the leaves which is rather vegetal, a swampy vegetal since I'm brewing so much tea all at one time.

I've heard this tea will brew more bitter as time goes on and people are reporting a good ten steeps so far. I'm sure other reviewers will be there for you with deeper exploration than I'm providing here. I think the flavor really does have the sweetness of cake and suggests to me that Poundcake is one of those teas for people who really enjoy their young sheng, that the leaves are chosen for this particular flavor in their fresh state.

Right now I've got my Son posted for sale on EBay so I can afford all of the white2tea productions this year. So far a lot of lookers but no takers. In reading all of the Yunnan travel logs from western puerh vendors, I can say that Twodog spent more time in Yunnan sampling more young tea, drinking more alcohol with farmers, eating more insects, and plucking more lunch chickens than any other producer. You all know this is true. We've heard there is still one cake left to come in the 2015 Collection, and that a few of these gourds remain if you contact white2tea.

I'm glad I decided not to hoard the gourd and instead went all out for the huge brew pitcher, just like some people might drink lemonade or beer in the summertime. Come winter when I'm steeping away at shou, heicha and oolong teas I will have a wonderful summer memory of this huge pot of tea. As for now, you know what I will be drinking for the next five days while I steep this one out.

Requiescat in Pace.

2002 Yong Pin Hao Red Yi Wu Zheng Shan

One of the reasons Good Tea so insanely easy to find is because I know people who have better palates than myself. At the top of my list are the guys over at Teadb.org. Every week the site features videos of actual tea brewing and sometimes "special guest" tea drunks. On Saturdays, Teadb issues an article covering a tea of the month or a feature article on tea vendors. I find the articles appealing because their analytical approach to tea is much like my own (minus my insanity). Teadb videos demonstrate a high level of skill in verbally expressing the experience of complex flavor profiles. Not to mention the teas look mouth-wateringly good.

But more than this, Teadb demystifies tea by focusing on brewing and tasting techniques. Eschewing myths, tea mysticism, politics, stories and hype, Teadb instead zeroes in on the two most important questions about tea: Does it taste Good, and How much does it Cost? With regard to good taste, Teadb displays skill in finding and discussing complex teas as well as the best brewing methods. As for cost, teas are broken down into price per gram or ounce, depending upon the offering. I have yet to be disappointed with any tea I've purchased from their video or article list. Today I am finally getting around to tasting a tea I bought five months ago after reading about it on their website.

Neglected in tea fridge.

I've had this 2002 Yong Pin Hao cake from Yunnan Sourcing for so long now that I've forgotten it is a Yiwu cake. When I smelled and tasted the floral I thought, this seems like Yiwu and how did I get so many Yiwu cakes in my collection?  Went and looked it up, sure enough Yiwu right there in the name. I bought this from Yunnan Sourcing's China site last spring, and have been storing it ever since. The cake is still available. Looking back at the website, my cake seems a bit more green in appearance by comparison with the YS photos. The underside of the cake is more brown, so mine might be a top o' the tong, as it were. A cut on the top of the very thin paper also supports a tong-topper guess-timate.

Winter natural light here adds a bluish tinge to my photos.

Hoping for a good Sunday tea drunk I work off 9 grams for my 125 ml cup. I see a number of sticks and pray they are not a bad sign. This cake is one of the  strongly fragrant floral teas I own. Been wondering what's stinking up my tea fridge, so now I know the Yong Pin Hao is one of the culprits. Gotta love it when a 14 year old cake still smells so sweet, pointing to good leaf and excellent dry storage.

I pretend I'm using Stig Lindberg tea ware

Initial flavor notes include the usual apricot char, plus grape-y floral and then what I call daisy vegetal. Wisconsin field daisies don't really have a sweet scent, plus they have stringy stalks which split into strands, giving off an acrid vegetal smell.

Thick, dark orange soup on the first steep which contrasts a bit from the reviews on Steepster I've read from recent months, which noted a honey yellow soup instead. Don't know if the summer storage worked on this cake or if it just turned a corner on its own. Subsequent steeps get thicker and very syrupy. When I pour the tea into the cup I don't hear any liquid splashing sounds, it's viscous like lube.

Had to use flash here. Probably forgot to mention my camera is circa 2005.

 Three cups in and not drunk yet. Reminds me of my old dad, a finger of vodka eventually turned into a fist. Then two fists. I'm heading for four fists over here at the tea saloon. Might be due for a Tea-aholics Anonymous dry-out so I can start getting wasted on tea again. Two days later and I'm still steeping away around 10 steeps. This is reminding me a bit of Last Thoughts by White2Tea in the flavor, but where Last Thoughts goes past 30 steeps for me, this one I'm already lengthening steep times once it hits 8.

Sigh, it's all good but what I really want is dark brown and muddy in my tea. Maybe that's an auspicious sign. I'll be tasting mud for eternity and pushing up daisies soon enough, and perhaps I'm just craving what's to come. A reverse of the nesting instinct. Keep up this tea business and I'll be wanting diapers, the logical direction to go next. Really hoping for the extended nursing home stint, got it all planned out now with tea cake horde, IV for caffeine hook-up, Xbox, and online delivery orders of cherries in port wine from Marks and Spencer. That last bit is the wishful thinking part.

I intended to take a photo of the tea leaves here, but jones-ing for a stronger fix I dump them in the trash without thinking. Sorry, in a bit of a hurry to move on to my Liu Bao. The problem with aged sheng is most of the caffeine is fermented out. I literally fall asleep after drinking shou puerh. Green and black (red) teas never entirely leave my cupboard, sometimes one needs a good strong fix.

Yunnan Sourcing has some excellent deals on Yong Pin Hao productions at a wide variety of price points. I paid the premium to get more aging because of my own situation. If I were younger, I'd be tempted by the 2003 Yong Pin Hao 100 gram more tightly compressed tuos of broken Yiwu tea bits for $6.50 each, what an inexpensive daily drinker with 11 years on it! Or the 2013 Yong Pin Hao Nannuo spring tips, a steal at $19. Even just going with the 2005 Bamboo House Yiwu is less than 1/3 of what I paid for my cake and probably another good tea. Anyway, you can find all these by doing a search for "Yong Pin Hao" on Yunnan Sourcing's China site and see for yourself.

Thanks to the guys at Teadb for the recommendation!

The Out Law of Bad Tea

Lately I've been feeling a little cheated.

I drink so darn much good Puerh tea. Did you read about the previous two cakes in my blog? Outstanding. How on earth did I find those cakes? Easily. Using a computer, I went to a website and clicked Add to Cart. Then I hit a Button called Checkout. Two weeks later, the order arrived at my door, with samples of MORE great tea, and even a cute little note. How swell is that?

So where is all the Bad Tea everyone talks about? Everything I drink is awesome. Blog posts, reviews, forums, emails, my Inbox is full of more great tea than I can possibly buy and drink before I pass on. Fabulous tea friends mail me boxes of their best. And yet other people's blogs are full of bad tea, complaining about how awful the tea is nowadays, too expensive, holding the porcelain after a particularly bad session, chewing aspirin for a tea headaches, ruined stomachs, bad kidneys, angry anti-tea spouses and dead cats.

To make things worse, all the Bad Tea is completely unobtainable. Although I've had things easy acquiring all the wonderful teas I now possess, it's been hell trying to track down the really bad cakes. Every time someone writes about a Bad Cake, a Fake Cake, a completely Undrinkable Cake, it is always sold out. What's up with that? Or it's a cake somebody found in a dirty, smelly tea cafe in the impossible and unknown reaches of China. In other words, someplace I can't get to.

Where is all the poop tea? Or how about bug tea? Always at some tea convention I can't possibly attend. Someone just wrote about Chinese rat poison cigarettes. Where is this stuff when I need it? Can't all the Good Tea just go away for 5 minutes, so I can get my hands on a really offensive puerh before it sells out or before I'm dead! Seriously I'm going broke on good tea, there is so much of it, but the Bad Cake just continues to elude me.

Finally, to top it all off, nobody can help me. Scott, Twodog, Garret, Arthur and the rest all have great tea. Tea forums? Well, Allan is occupied with shipping issues. Mrmopar, alas dear fellow, has a funeral to go to. His cat Chairman Meow who helpfully handpicks teas has been particularly sleepy of late, and shipping a cat to my location is a problem. My new friend Y had her credit card hacked on a tea site. Tea Fairy is in the celestial stratosphere of heavenly tea. The Oolong Owls are occupied, perching upon packet after packet of Korean Sejak...I say, these good people are busy. I could ask James at teadb.org, but he has spent months suggesting the best possible teas for me; 'twould be lacking in grace now to ask for advice about godawful bad tea.

Unfortunately, I must blaze my own trail to find a particularly horrible tea. EBay seems like an obvious slam dunk to find a Bad Cake. First, I need to find the most sleazy-sounding seller I can. Luckily I find the scratch I need in the seller "streetshop88" at his store called "Goshopstreet." Hell yeah. Next, I need to find the worst possible tea cake name.

All of a sudden...I Saw Him Standing There.

2011 Organic Certificate Overlord Drunk Aged Tree puer Pu'er Puerh Cake Raw Tea

Immediately I was swayed by the superficial exterior good looks of his wrapper. I swooned at the perfect pattern of his teaHarmony profile. More than 10 of him available too! Other alluring attributes:

Overlord: Finally, a teaking who is a Real Man. Go away young buds. He'll give me what I need.

400 grams for $36.98. He's sooo big and costs so little.

Drunk: Needs no convincing.

Aged Tree: Lie to me. I promise I'll believe...

2011 and Raw: Spank me good young thang.

Organic: Uh huh. Sure. Whatever.

Free Shipping: Sold.

Can he live up to the hype, all this build up? Oh I can't wait to find out.

Velvet Pillows and Oils are always a good idea

 Time to undress, the sticker is all pretentious but doesn't take much to remove it.

I'm attracted to knives made with Stag Horn and Curly Birch

Double wrapped with white boxers, so modest, what is he packing?

So Shy

Or, more to the point, where is he really from? Tiepai me up, tiepai me down. Who is taking more liberties with the language now, me or that wrapper?

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Loose compression, almost a full session's worth has broken off the sides, I use my fingers to massage a little more off the edge.

Buck nekkid

The wrapper has 2008 on it, maocha pressed in early 2012? But I don't believe what I see on the exterior, it's what's on the inside that counts. This looks hardly aged at all. Plus he's loose; he'll go fast so I better be ready. I think I want him in my pot and not in my gaiwan.

8 grams in my overly large Yixing pot. The cup is 125 ml to the top, so between 100-125 ml is fairly normal for me with this teapot. First cup looks smoky and orange, giving credence to the wrapper that this is stored maocha.

Give it to me

One rinse, I brace myself for bitter, smoky and over the top. Lately I've mostly gone in for older ones put up wet, am suddenly feeling a bit gun shy. Age and treachery always win out over youth and vigor, and I'm the aged one so bottoms up, old gal. Surprisingly not too bitter. A bit of buzz on the tongue. Second steep much more bitter. Smokiness confirmed, but not terribly overpowering. Got the leather going now. A bit of astringency but not tooth drying.

Six steeps in and the smokiness is gone now and the liquor turns more yellow. He's fairly full in the mouth and he tastes a bit citrusy. Ten steeps and my water is getting cool. He wants to quit before I do. Might let him rest a few hours, and then wake him up again with boiling water to find out what else he has in him. Anything more to this mix of chop, a few leaves and buds?

Live fast, love hard, die young and leave a beautiful memory

Those early cups remind me of my 2005 Menghai tuos. I own a 2008 Menghai tuo I bought from chawangshop, and could do a direct comparison. But even without doing that, based on my 2005 Menghai, the loose compression of this maocha won't hold up as long as the tightly wound tuos shaped young. My Menghai tuos leave me completely tea drunk and draped over the bar with my tongue hanging out. Right now I'm satisfied but not sated. A few more years of age on this loose plantation guy will improve him a little if he quits smoking, but I expect he'll fade out early.

Wait. This really isn't the truly Bad Cake I was searching for. I paid what, $36 and change? Seriously, I can do worse for a one-nighter with a guy who is or isn't what he says he is. And I can do better, and feel more grateful on my next date with a real Menghai man.

Requiescat in pace.