Full disclosure: I’m a full out pu-erh junkie. Have been since my first sip in a San Francisco tea shop, only exacerbated by trips to Asia, which means my pu-erh stash is pretty deep, full of lovely tea not available here in the States.
That said…
…I’d put Phatty Cake up against the best of ‘em in a heartbeat. It’s smooth, rich, lovely, and complex. Have been able to pull quite a number of brews from the sample Garrett sent, each just as delightful as the earlier round.
I need one more pu-erh like I need a hole in the head, but hey. Looks like that’s precisely what’s going to happen (the tea, not the hole).
Enjoy!
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This review makes me happy! Thank you for taking the time to write it up here. I am so glad that you are diggin’ it! Wishing you all the best, Garret
My pleasure, Garrett. One question: What grade is the Phatty Cake? I see on the site there’s a Phatty Sequel mentioning the addition of Gr. 3, but am curious as to what the single “non-Sequel” clocks in at…?
Hi! The material used in the original Phatty Cake is grade 1 leaf. So not the smaller gong ting grade. Grade 3 is a slightly larger leaf added in to add a different dimension to the phatty cake. It’s a sequel right, so it had to have a different twist in the plot :)
When I tasted the 2007 material for the phatty cake, I chose not to do a blend because the single leaf experience was just so nice and I wanted to see how it would age once pressed. And it has done very well, indeed.
The loose 2007 material is this:
http://shopmandalatea.com/ripe-pu-er/loose/lin-cang-2007.html
I hope you are having a tea-riffic day!! G
This review makes me happy! Thank you for taking the time to write it up here. I am so glad that you are diggin’ it! Wishing you all the best, Garret
My pleasure, Garrett. One question: What grade is the Phatty Cake? I see on the site there’s a Phatty Sequel mentioning the addition of Gr. 3, but am curious as to what the single “non-Sequel” clocks in at…?
Hi! The material used in the original Phatty Cake is grade 1 leaf. So not the smaller gong ting grade. Grade 3 is a slightly larger leaf added in to add a different dimension to the phatty cake. It’s a sequel right, so it had to have a different twist in the plot :)
When I tasted the 2007 material for the phatty cake, I chose not to do a blend because the single leaf experience was just so nice and I wanted to see how it would age once pressed. And it has done very well, indeed.
The loose 2007 material is this:
http://shopmandalatea.com/ripe-pu-er/loose/lin-cang-2007.html
I hope you are having a tea-riffic day!! G