This was the third, and final, tea I ordered when buying a puerh bag and a puerh pick from CTC. The review on here made it sound great and, at £10 for 100 g, it sounded like a bargain.
This morning, I set down to breaking a bit of my cake off (just shy of 5g, I think) and prepared this in my Verdant Gaiwan. Having never broken up a puerh cake before, I’m not sure if this was typical, but it was more difficult than I expected! Videos on Youtube always make it look so easy hahaha. The leaves were nice, though – brown-and-dark-green, with some stem (but not much!). They were nice and intact, and they were consistent throughout the cake – what was on the outside was also on the inside, which I took to be a good sign.
After drinking WP’s Arbor Mist sheng puerh, I had a decent idea of what to expect, but I actually think I preferred (on the first attempts, anyway) this sheng – the infusions it produced were really lovely! Flavourful and tasty, but it was also quite fruity. Alongside this fruitiness, there was a lovely smooth mouthfeel and a surprising, almost cream-like note. It was also lovely and sweet.
The initial infusion was a pale yellow and subsequent infusions became a darker, gold/golden-orange colour. The earlier steeps were more vegetal and a little pungent, with that hint of bitterness and astringency, but later infusions had such amazing fruit and cream notes! The tea left me feeling alert and happy, so that’s a plus too. The final infusions (#9-11) were milder, but still really delicious – I got stonefruit notes, along with that lingering creamy flavour. It did also give me that tingly mouthfeel, that I’ve often seen described, so it’s nice to fully understand that concept now :D
I still haven’t tried enough sheng, I don’t think, to award a particularly meaningful score to this tea. But I’d strongly recommend it – it was really lovely! I’ll certainly be turning to this tea plenty in the future – brewing it like this (which, tbh, I think I will) will mean I’ll get another 19 sessions. Delightful! :D
Flavors: Creamy, Stonefruit, Sweet
