Posted on Leave a comment

Shuang Jiang Meng Ku Rong Xi Tea Co.

After I posted the Mother Tree’s Tea on Hou De, I did a bit more research on the tea producer – full name is Shuang Jiang Meng Ku Rong Xi Tea Co. “Shuang Jiang Meng Ku” is the location of the tea company, “Rong Xi” is the last name of the owner’s family. I have always liked their offerings – and honestly think the CP-value of their teas is (should probably say “was”) very good.

Meng Ku Ring Xi official website: http://www.ynmkrs.com/

I searched for the Bing Dao Village on Google Earth, and soon realized the village is just upstream of the Meng Ku Tea Co. on the Meng Ku River:

Their information on BaiDu says (here is the link):

(勐库戎氏茶厂)的前身是创办于1993年的勐库茶叶配制厂,1999年该厂收购了竞价拍卖的国有企业“双江县茶厂”,公司已经发展成为固定资产3000万元、年生产量700-900吨、产房2万平方米、占地63亩的茶叶精致加工企业,并注册有“勐库牌”、”青岗牌“、‘忙波牌’三大品牌商标,主要的茶区为勐库大雪山和半坡冰岛山

Translation:

The predecessor of Mengku Rong’s Tea Factory was the Mengku Tea Preparation Factory, which was founded in 1993. In 1999, the factory acquired the state-owned enterprise “Shuangjiang County Tea Factory”, which was auctioned and auctioned. The company has developed into a fixed asset of 30 million yuan and annual production An exquisite tea processing enterprise with an output of 700-900 tons, a delivery room of 20,000 square meters, and an area of ​​63 acres. It has registered three major brand trademarks: “Mengku”, “Qinggang” and “Mannbo”. The main tea area is Mengku Big Snow Mountain and Banpo Bing Dao Mountain.

I don’t know about you … but I notice the last sentence: “the main tea area is MengKu Big Snow Mountain and Banpo Bing Dao Mountain”! Before Bing Dao became very famous, Big Snow Mountain already gained popularity. Xi-Zhi Hao’s 2007 Dian Gu used raw tea leaves from this region – and after Lao Ban Zhan, 2007 Dian Gu is my most favorite XZH pu-erh!

Guess that’s why I’ve always liked Meng Ku offerings. Premium quality, premium CP-value. I know the Mother Tree’s Tea has become kind of expensive – and unfortunately I wasn’t smart enough to buy more in 2006. Other Meng Ku’s offerings are still more reasonable than big names like Meng Hai Tea Co, or Xia Guan Tea Co.

Posted on Leave a comment

US$ 85 a Pot of New Bing Dao Pu-erh! White Tea!?

As I was posting the 2005 Meng Ku 1st-generation Mother Tree’s Tea, Youtube somehow picked up my interest and randomly suggested some videos. Now this is an interesting one from a Taiwan tea merchant Mr. Chang who travelled to Bing Dao:

@ 3:01 of the video, they showed the pale green liquor of the tea .. OMG, I can feel my stomach hurt just by looking at such pale green pu-erh liquor:

How much did it cost to brew one pot of Bing Dao tea? US$ 85 @ 3:47:

I remember when I was still buying pu-erhs before 2012, the liquor from a new pu-erh was never this light pale green. I had noticed, however, the liquor and taste had gradually become more green-tea like – one of the reasons I lost interest in buying any pu-erhs since then.

This white tea-like Bing Dao pu-erh is simply … eye-opeing.

Posted on 2 Comments

Old Hou De Sample Packs

Yesterday when I was digging through a box simply labeled as “Puerh Black Tea Samples”. It’s a box full of tea samples, either we received from tea producers like XZH or Chen Guang He Tang, or Hou De sample packs that were not sold. Most samples are pre-2012 – that was about the time when we stopped buying any pu-erhs at all.

I found one sample pack that still has our previous house & Hou De Asian Art address on it – and it is a 2005 XZH Lao Ban Zhan sample pack, still sealed! Since we no longer live in that house, I masked the house address. If you still have sample packs with this old address (zip code 77077), then you are really a long-time customer of Hou De : ) We rented a PO Box later (I think around 2006) to represent Hou De.

Imagine a time when we were offering samples of XZH (1) Lao Ban Zhan (2) You Le Remote Mountain and (3) Nan Nuo Purple Tips …

The XZH Lao Ban Zhan sample has been sealed since 2005. After I cut away the heat-sealed line and opened the zip, a very concentrated ripe fruity aroma rushed to my nose. Of course, I could not wait to make a tea out of it. It was surprisingly young – I guess due to the fact it has not had fresh air and always kept indoor – but very concentrated in fruity aroma and camphor-like spiciness. What was most interesting was the whole body sensation out of the tea – normally I don’t like to describe cha qi, as it is a very personal feeling and can be misleading. But there was a sensation “climbing” all the way from stomach to my head and left a tingling feeling in the scalp! So very strange and interesting.

Posted on Leave a comment

Opened up an Original Tong of XZH Yin Cakes

Last Friday evening, everything was still good and calm …. Saturday, you started to feel the trembling in the air …. and on Sunday evening, we received almost like an organized attack … all available 2006 Spring Xi-Zhi Hao Taichi Yin cakes were gone! And this was after I had to persude at least two customers not to buy too many – or buy up all – of the Yin cakes. Sweat .. sweat … sweat …

So here I want to share with you the painful task to break open an intact Taichi Yin cake Tong … step by step …

There were two nei fei in between the first and the second cake:

For those of you swooping up the Yin cakes … here is another good news: its price in Asia is like > US$900 a piece, Yin or Yan cake:

27,000 Taiwan Dollar is about US$ 940 in today’s exchange rate. Before shipping.