I've found that drinking tea with non-tea drinkers is sometimes a good way to re-sensitize my palate to aspects I've become blind to due to comparing teas to one another rather than considering them in isolation. For example, rather than reflecting on my own, "What kind of white tea is this?" I get to talk with someone about what white teas taste like *in general* if this was one of your only points of reference. That's a pretty fascinating, unique lens to look at a specific tea. With pu'erh, I find that the aspects of my palate that would be re-sensitized tend to be less overwhelmingly positive, but it's still fun.
I've mostly stepped away from the side-by-side comparison because all the interesting puerhs (for me at least) are mainly about body feel and aftertaste. Like you said, they can become muddled when tasting them together. Great strategy for more aromatic puerhs though.
I like to use cool water in the tea cup between samples. It helps to reset your palate so there is not anything lingering from the other tea. 1 or 2 tea cups of water usually does a good job for me. :)
Thanks James, great video as always. I’m not sure this is the appropriate video for this comment/question but for sampling and tea drinking in general, how do you develop a palate for the higher end, more unique teas? I feel like when you drink more entry level raw puerh for example the tasting notes are pretty easy (grassy, pineapple, floral etc) but I have had some higher end CLT and W2T samples (drinking CLT Naka at the moment) and no ideas how to describe the profile. You and Denny always seem to come up with something. How do you “level up” here?
I'm not James or Denny, but for me it's not really about finding ways to describe the taste if I'm trying to analyze it for myself. It is more about the feeling of the tea. Sounds very woo-ey, but as the price of tea goes up, generally, the value is in the experience of the overall feeling and not taste. At the end of the day, puerh just kind of tastes like puerh :) but I gravitate towards the gushu and premium blends because they have qualities that I personally seek.
Good question. And I also don't know that I have a perfect answer, but it is kind of one of those things you'll know when you know. There's often something just a bit extra in terms of depth or aftertaste that you don't get from stuff that isn't as good. Even though as the other comment points out taste-wise they can be very similar.
One thing that helps me sometimes is to go in the reverse direction and start with some descriptors from other reviews and see if they map on to the sense experience in that moment.
Thanks for the replies. I definitely feel like I can tell the quality, and I can often find the notes in descriptions others have written. I mostly want to be able to keep a tea journal that doesn’t have “smells like Whole Foods” or “somehow reminds me of a crunchy roll in the first steeps,” it’s undignified!
That's a good question and perhaps because I don't buy from that range I don't have a great answer. Probably a mix of the best semi-aged boutique cakes I could find (Yiwu and strong aging candidates) as well as a handful of older teas with good pedigree (1999 Xiaguan T8653).
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