Revisiting the 2005 Dehong Golden Tuocha

I bought this more as a curiosity than anything else, and I posted my notes on it a few entries back. Now that I've had it in my possession for a few months, I've only broken it out a couple of times. Main reason I don't try it more often is because of the fact that I'm sure I could cut diamonds with it. I broke it out one night when Teddy and I were sampling a bunch of different Pu-erh. We always have these nights where we'll try something really amazing, and just for fun, follow it up immediately with the skankiest pu-erh we can find. Twigs? Pine needles? No problem! That's just how we roll sometimes.

Last time, I remember my biggest takeaway being the bitter to smokey to smooth to minty effect...all one at a time. This time, the bitter has already started to go away. It had a little bitterness, but nothing that I would consider bad at all. The smoke flavour has definitely lessened. I'm not sure if it really has, or if it's because I've tasted something even smokier; the Xiaguan FT Flame tuocha I just received the other day made this seem like candy. In any event, the liquor still brews up dark, the rinse still smells of smoke, but the flavour is much much smoother now. Not so sweet as some of the others I've had; in fact, not sweet at all. The minty flavour has also subsided. It's still very interesting to me how much this tea changes in such a very little amount of time. Makes me wonder if these subtle discoveries, however big they may seem now, will be miniscule as they really start to age.

Is it just me, or do you want to replace every bing you open with a fresh one? That feeling when you cut into it for the first time and you know there is no going back. It's an $11 cake and I feel this way...Imagine how I felt cutting into the 2005 Dehong Purple. I need to see if I can't find more of those. Glad I was able to get a couple of the 2008.

I need to learn more about Dehong. It seems like Xiaguan has taken over my collection. At least, until my tong of the Menghai 7542 shows up...

On a side note, since I'm thinking about it, my tong of the 2006 Xiaguan Tibetan Baoyan arrived this afternoon. Yakbutter, anyone?