A Tea Addict's Journal

Traditional storage can be good for you

February 5, 2007 · 4 Comments

I had some wet stored loose tea from Ying Kee in Hong Kong today.

And while drinking it, I couldn’t help but wonder what all the fuss about dry storage is. Ok, I know, good, well aged dry storage tea can be wonderful, but is it really worth the time/effort/price?? I mean… it’s fun to store tea and watch it change, and it’s great when you get to drink the finished product, but really, at the prices they command, why would anybody pay that much money for a cake of dry stored stuff that is still only ok to drink now (needing, say, 10 more years) when you can just buy stuff like this and drink away?

I’m not saying it’s fantastic, I’m not saying it’s the best thing I’ve had. Far from it. What I am saying, however, is that bang for the buck, this is quite good, and it even cleared my minor nasal congestion I’ve been having today. Two infusions down, and the congestion just disappeared. It was amazing.

No, it doesn’t cure cancer.

Infusion 3

Infusion 8

I should go buy some more of this stuff as a regular drink. So far I’ve been only drinking these as a “throw in the cup and brew” tea. Today’s actually the first time I drink this with any seriousness. It’s got pleasant aromas and a lingering sweetness. It doesn’t have any of the cooked puerh taste, which is a big plus. It is quite cheap. It is loose, making it easy to brew. If I’m not looking for the perfect cup, this is a fine tea to drink on an everyday basis.

Categories: Old Xanga posts · Teas
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4 responses so far ↓

  • lewperin // February 5, 2007 at 3:38 pm | Reply

    This isn’t available over the Internet, is it?

    I guess not; looks as if there’s someone nasty squatting where Ying Kee should be.

  • MANDARINstea // February 5, 2007 at 10:42 pm | Reply

    Is offical cooked puerh time! I found the flowing oil on the surface of your first cup. Do you know what that is? I got the same effects from my HK loose cooked also…

  • MarshalN // February 5, 2007 at 10:44 pm | Reply

    No no no, the oil is not from the tea, it’s a mixture of chapstick making its way onto the tea, and some of the food that I ate….

  • wisdom_sun // February 7, 2007 at 7:03 am | Reply

    I’m with you, my friend — I cannot understand the “give me dry-stored or I’d rather die of thirst” fuss either. Not that I prefer poorly-managed or deliberately abused wet-stored teas, but I think many tea merchants, especially in Hong Kong, with good repute have developed very good storage methods and inventory management techniques, or what I would call “traditional storage” that is neither too dry nor too wet. Ying Kee can probably be counted among them. And the whole “dry storage” fuss is but a marketing gimmick that upstarts and wannabes devised to try to overthrow the old establishments. These new outfits, having neither the technique nor the track-record, could not but resort to rumors (remember the “pig shed tea”?) and false science (c’mon now, did the Old Song Pin, Tong Xing, Fu Yuan Chang and so on have temperature and humidity controlled dry storage?) to build their market. Shame, shame, shame!

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