Puerh Blog

ZSL? Another cryptic name and there are already so many in the puerh space.
It stands for Zheng Si Long, which is the brand that Mr. Zheng owns.
When I first read about this name on a puerh website, I though I must be dreaming!
Beforehand, this name was only known to me by reading Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic.
I can’t recommend this book enough, if you want to dive deeper in the culture of puerh drinking and many
other facts around it. Maybe one day I will write an own post on that book, which it totally deserves.
Reading this book, Mr. Zheng was introduced as a tea master and became a legend to me.
And it turned out that he was contacted by a small tea shop, that specializes on - well puerh, duh!
So let’s see what ZSL products have to offer.

If you are interested in puerh tea, it is only a question of time when you stumble upon some chinese words that describe the character of tea or some broader concept.
One of the more famous representatives is gushu. The direct translation is “old tree”. And you will quickly notice that once a puerh tea has gushu within its description, the price tag will more likely be significantly higher. Why is that? Is the taste worth it?

Mengku? What’s that?
After knowing this region for several years know, it is surprisingly hard to find a proper definition.
So let’s stay with this: It is a region. And that region is quite famous for producing high quality puerh tea!

Puerh tea from Thailand is getting more and more popular. Since Thailand is bordering Yunnan, the environment is very similar. The same goes for tea: Of course there is also good Gushu to find in Thailand! But only since a few years I see more and more concrete Bings from Thailand. Let’s try one today!

Today I tried another sample of my first pu-erh.sk purchase.
This time it is another Sheng from Jingmai.

This Yiwu 2015 Bing was purchased on my first trip to Yunnan in November 2019.

This sample is from the first purchase from pu-erh.sk and I am not disappointed!
For its young age (2020) the first unusual impression are the very dark leaves. The description also indicates that the leave material is sourced from very old trees. Sadly, the concrete Province in Yunnan is not provided in the description.

This tea I got as a 20g sample. I bought it together with several other samples as my first purchase from thetea.pl.
The first steep has typical Yiwu tasting notes. Refreshing but still a subtle astringent character.