Misty Peak Teas

14 infusions. Liquor is an amber gold, almost apricot color.
There is a pleasant tartness on the tongue which shifts to a lasting hui gan. I found this to be a dynamic tea that is flavorful enough to keep you wanting another infusion over the course of its’ long legs.

Not much stopping this from being top shelf. Quite enjoyable and mellow in its’ age.

I didn’t have time to take notes into account with this session but the tea itself was very enjoyable and brewed forgivingly well!

First, I would argue that most tea drinkers would be well-served to have this tea in their cupboard (ignoring the price for the moment). Additionally, my rating is accounting for the fact that it’s retail price is $24/100g cake. For those wary of pile fermentation flavors and odors, this certainly is one of the easiest introductions to the style while retaining some degree of complexity. It isn’t too woody, malty, chocolatey. It’s a more medium-bodied shou puerh, with a limited but present richness and thickness in the cup, and pushing this tea doesn’t appear to draw out a great deal of bitterness. I really like shou puerh, but this one is nice for days when my palate is worn out or I just need a really clean shou puerh. I struggle to think of another ripe puerh I’ve had that was so clean, especially for its age. I probably wouldn’t have bought it if Misty Peaks wasn’t running a two-for-one sale, and I’m afraid that $27/100g including shipping is a bit too steep to buy another one, but I’m happy to have the two cakes for the time being.

Has a heavy sweetness which calls a Hongcha to mind.
Images and more at https://puerh.blog/teanotes/2015-misty-peak-spring

Floral, slightly spicy and with hints of apricots.
Images and more at https://puerh.blog/teanotes/2014-misty-peak-autumn

I was given this tea some time ago as a gift from Misty Peaks. It was a decent tea and I should really have saved some to age as I believe it would have done very well over the past few years.

Unfortunately I did not save any leaves and instead drank them all, so I imagine the tea was palpable and worth a purchase had I not received it as a gift.

My main concerns for this tea was not the taste itself, but the lack of brewing information and the cost (in Canadian bucks it was pretty pricey).

I ended up brewing about 6-10 grams and was rewarded with 8 infusions. The tea ended up being a mixture of sweet and bitter. Notes of raisins, plum, and apricot made themselves apparent.

Good tea? Yes, but the packaging was much better. I figure if you have the time to purchase a sample, go ahead and give it a try.

My full video review can be watched here!
https://worldteapodcast.com/videos/misty-peak-tea-puerh

To my understanding some question can this really be ancient arbor tea from Yiwu. This tea isn’t exactly cheap, but with the current maocha prices you would expect it to cost closer to double what it is going for right now, if not more. I judge based on taste (and qi and all that good stuff), so I don’t really care where the tea comes from, how old the trees are, etc. Of course we’d all prefer vendors to be as honest about the tea they sell as they can, but honestly you should take anything any vendor tells you with a grain of salt. Even if they tell you the facts as they know them, the farmer might be lying to them or send them a different tea than the one they sampled. I’ve never had Yiwu tea before, so I don’t have anything to compare this tea to. However, I do have some in my pumidor waiting to be opened, so in the future I will be more informed.

As is becoming standard for me, I brewed 13 grams of this tea in my 250ml Yixing clay teapot, so a ratio of around 1g/20ml which seems to work well for clay. I gave the tea a 10s rinse, followed by a 10 minute rest. I steeped the tea eleven times for about 18s, 17s, 20s, 20s, 23s, 27s, 31s, 34s, 44s, 59s and 94s. The tea showed no signs of giving in anytime soon, but I was confident I’d seen all it had to show me and frankly I’d consumed a lot of tea by that point so I decided to stop.

Even though the flavors in this tea were light, the tea was surprisingly strong from the very first infusion. Throughout the session it brewed out very consistently both in terms of color and strength. There never really was any noticeably body, which is a small minus. The flavors themselves were very basic and didn’t change dramatically over the course of the session. The first infusion reminded me a bit of hay and was perhaps lightly floral. It didn’t have any sweetness and made me feel a bit thirsty. The next one had maybe a hint of sweetness as well as some astringency, which you could not only feel in your mouth but also taste in the taste, if you know what I mean.

The third steep was slightly more astringent still, with a bit of a greener taste to it. In the fourth steeping the astringency went down and the sweetness up while still not being actually sweet. There was, however, a lingering aftertaste to this infusion that had a distinct sweetness to it that was not present in the actual taste itself. The taste of this lingering sweetness reminded me of the two Yunnan Sourcing Da Qing Gu Shus I reviewed recently. In the following infusion the sweetness was less present and the taste became “greener.” At this point the tea reminded me a lot of the 2014 Autumn Da Qing Gu Shu and the similarity applies largely to the tea as a whole in terms of taste. The difference is that this Misty Peak sheng lacks the autumnal leafy flavors I detected in the Da Qing and only has the most basic underlying flavors of that tea.

Going onward, the rest of the steeps were not much different. All had some astringency. Eventually all the other flavors began to taper off and all that was left was some general type of sweetness that wasn’t however a mineral sweetness that I’ve tasted in many other teas in later infusions. Notable exception is steep no. 8 which actually had a nice herbal nature to it, if that’s even the right word. In the context of this tea it stood out in a positive way.

Now let’s talk qi. Because the qi is probably much more notable about this tea in its current state than the taste. Already from the first infusion I was feeling some serious pressure at the back and sides of my head, but the second infusion was even more intense. I could feel the qi not only in my chest but in my whole body, which was a first one for me. I started to get seriously warm and had to slow down my drinking. I should note that the sensation wasn’t unpleasant, however. The rest of the steeps were less intense in terms of qi, but what’s notable about this tea is that the qi was very consistently present in each of them. The only real spike happened in steeping number six which hit me in my belly, made my muscles ache a little and caused some minor tea drunkenness. After the seventh infusion I had to take a little break from the tea, because it was affecting me so much and I was finding it too difficult to concentrate on it. At various points over the course of the session the sheng turned out to be a quite warming tea.

So all in all how do I feel about this tea? Taste-wise it is about as simple as it gets, reminding me of a slightly stripped-down version of the autumn Da Qing Gu Shu I mentioned. Not a bad tea, but relatively basic. The cha qi and the longevity are the things that stand out here. I could not steep out this tea, which is always a positive. The qi doesn’t hit you like a truck like the autumn Da Qing does, but it stays incredibly stable throughout the session, which is something I haven’t experienced before. Part of the reason why I quit prematurely was because this tea builds up so much qi over the course of a session that I had to admit defeat to this tea. My muscles were sore for the rest of the evening, so this is definitely not for those who can find young sheng to be too intense.

As mentioned, this is the first (allegedly) Yiwu tea I’ve had, but my experience with it seems to match what I’ve gathered from others’ general descriptions of tea from the region. It would help to be sure of the origin, because I feel this is a tea that’s more suited for storage than immediate consumption, and I’d like to be more certain it will age well as people say Yiwu tea tends to do. Whereas the autumn Da Qing Gu Shu was a slight disappointment due to my high expectations for it, this tea was a mildly positive experience since I had no expectations really. Taste-wise the Da Qing has more going on right now, but the qi in that was quite untamed and the longevity so-so. It’s a weird thing for me to be comparing these two teas in particular, but they reminded me so much of each other, especially after drinking them back to back.

I will be storing this tea away for now, but if I desperately need the space in my pumidor, I may end up drinking it. I also have the autumn 2016 counterpart waiting for me, but I’m a bit hesitant to try to consume it at a tender age of mere six months, so I may end up waiting a few months on that. All in all, not a bad tea in its current state. Not a great tea, but not a bad tea.

The first shu pu’er I’ve tried (also my first tasting note on Steepster). I’ve been drinking loose leaf tea for a few years now, but only become truly passionate about it in the last six months and been brewing my tea gong fu style since the beginning of 2017. I’m also still fairly new to pu’er, but I’ve tried about half a dozen raw pu’ers so far (mostly young sheng). This as some background to my notes.

Even in a warm gaiwan, the dry leaves don’t have a particularly strong aroma. I didn’t really spend time trying to figure out what the smell reminded me of. I was drinking this tea together with my mother and fumbled a bit with the gaiwan I’d given her as a present that same day, so what I’d intended to be a quick 10s rinse ended up being more like a 20s rinse. The smell of the wet leaves after the rinse was somewhat reminiscent of chicken poop, but said smell dissipated rather quickly. As someone new to ripe pu’er, this made me a bit anxious about what to expect from how the actual tea would taste like, but I try not to have too many expectations and let the taste speak for itself.

I brew all my sheng in a beautiful 250ml fully handmade Yixing clay teapot, which kind of forces me to use less leaf to water than many others do in order to avoid making the first few steeps too strong because of the minimum pour time it imposes. Therefore I’m not used to brewing pu’er in a gaiwan and furthermore this was my first time steeping shu so I wasn’t sure what kind of ratio would be appropriate for achieving the strength I want. I’ve heard a lot of people using 1g per 15ml, but I estimated a more conservative figure of 7-7.5g being a safer staring point for me personally. I ended up putting around 7.6g in the 150ml gaiwan and this turned out to result in a strength that was about the right level for the first couple steepings, with me pouring the tea out as fast as I could (around ten seconds total from the moment I start pouring the water in the gaiwan to the gaiwan being empty). I could have probably used a bit more leaf, say 8g or maybe even 9g, as at least this particular ripe seems very forgiving in terms of how much you put in.

As for the actual taste, describing this tea is very hard as it tastes completely different from any other tea I’ve tried, even raw pu’ers. I don’t know if this is representative of all ripes, but the language in which this shu speaks is totally different from what I’m used to. Contrary to the messy appearance (and possibly smell), this tea tastes very smooth and clean. The only word I can think of to sum up the general vocabulary of flavors it contains is earthy, but I don’t think it does a good job of conveying how the tea actually tastes like. The tea has darkish, mature earthy notes, which are often accompanied by a sweetness of some sort. The first proper steeping had a very dark liquor characteristic of ripe pu’er and a quite thick, almost syrupy texture. This very first infusion also was the only one where you could perhaps taste a hint of a medicinal quality to the tea and it had an actual mouth refreshing effect which you could feel as coolness when you inhaled through your mouth.

From the second steeping onward the liquor still looks very much like a cola drink or brown cough syrup from many angles, but when viewed horizontally in a clear vessel the liquid is actually a stunning shade of ruby red or even crimson red – almost like blood in a vial or a liquefied ruby. I wouldn’t say that there is a lot of development in flavor from one steeping to the next, but there are certainly many distinct different flavors present in this tea, they are just so close to one another that without paying close attention they may seem like the one same flavor over and over again. The differences are subtle, but they are they. Around the fifth infusion I also detected some underlying perhaps even floral notes peeking their head, but they seemed to go away again after that.

The earthy notes that are predominant for the first half a dozen steeps or so finally start weakening somewhere around the seventh or eight infusion, making way for a sweetness that is a different kind from the one that has accompanied the earthy notes in previous steeps in one way or another. I ended the session at the tenth steep at which point the flavor was clearly starting to taper out, even though the sweetness was actually still stronger than in other teas at a similar point when the infusions start to taste increasingly watery and you know the leaves are getting close to the point of being spent. As I have no experience on this matter, I don’t know if this is typical of shu pu’er, but I’m used to raw pu’ers having notably more longevity than this ripe at least. Not that ten steeps or slightly more depending on what you still count as tea and not simply water you’ve soaked some leaves in is disappointing, but I’m used to most pu’ers outlasting me instead of me outlasting them.

As far as bodily effects and tea drunkenness goes (as still a tea novice I dare not use the term cha qi as I’m not sure if it is the same thing), to again use sheng pu’er as a reference point (young gushu in particular), I’m used to suddenly noticing the effects of the tea around the fourth or fifth infusion. With this tea, the effect was a bit delayed, suddenly kicking in somewhere around the seventh infusion or so (I don’t keep tasting notes as I drink, not yet anyway). I noticed it first in my head with a slight lightheadedness perhaps and then in my chest and stomach. Not too long after I did feel a bit tea drunk for a while, but overall the effects were somewhat mild compared to my typical pu’er sessions with sheng. I’d just had a meal before the session, so I’m not sure if this had any impact on this. But aside from the more noticeable effects, the tea made both me and my mother much more quiet than usual. Not really tired but it just puts you in a state where you kind of forget you could be talking to others. You just end up sitting there forgotten in your own thoughts.

While drinking the first infusion and then again a couple hours after the session I noticed that the tea kind of coats your tongue with its taste that stays there for a long time, but you won’t actually taste it unless you wet your tongue a little, which is when you’ll be able to keep extracting the taste as long as you keep salivating.

All in all, fortunately this first exposure I had with shu pu’er ended up being a positive one. I honestly can’t say if I’d recommend this tea or not or say if I think it’s good or bad. I only really have positive things to say about it with nothing negative coming to mind. That being said, I don’t really have anything I could compare this tea to as it is so radically different from anything else I’ve tried before. I’ll have to drink it more to determine if I like it or only find it a pleasant tea to drink from time to time. This is not a tea I would recommend for those new to tea, but for those who already have some familiarity with raw pu’er this might be a safe ripe to try out as your first shu. Being relatively inexpensive and a quite small cake at only 100g, even if you end up not liking it very much at least you won’t feel too bad about your investment.

I’ve already ordered the popular 2015 Yunnan Sourcing Green Miracle (along with a few other YS cakes) and look forward to tasting it as my second shu pu’er. I will also have to try a Menghai ripe at some point as they are considered a benchmark of sorts when it comes to ripe pu’er. Will I become a shu drinker or stick with raw? Time will tell.

this tea looks waaaaay too dark to be a 2015. so confused.,

Another from the TTB – I haven’t ever bought any tea from MP, but figured I’d try their tea after it came my way in the TTB. I had enough of this for one normal-sized session and one smaller session. My first session was weird – I think my tastebuds were a bit off, as it tasted just weirdly bitter. Second session was a little bit nicer thankfully, though I did find this tea wanting to get bitter on me.

In my second session, when I managed to taste the tea properly, I got notes of hay mostly, with a bit of a funky apricot note as well. That apricot note was a bit weird, tasting almost plasticy or artificial for some reason. As I mentioned earlier, I found I had to keep steep times pretty low or this tea would get unpleasantly bitter on me. Even with steep times under 10s for the majority of the session, I got only about 9 steeps from this tea. This one wasn’t particularly to my taste, even when I did taste it properly and manage the steep times a little more closely.

This was a gift from someone.

The ball is tightly rolled, and it doesn’t offer much of an aroma. If I wear to maximize my imagination I believe I caught hints of hay, light wood, and oatmeal. I warmed up my gaiwan and rolled this little orb inside. The scents picked up with some harsh grass, wet wood, and an unpleasant tone. I would describe it as oversteeped metallic tea. Nonetheless, I washed the orb and prepared for brewing. The taste was oddly sweet and light. The taste was basic and noted as “tea taste”. The drink had a slight sweet aftertaste. I experienced no depth with this tea or complexities. The tea tasted like tea, haha. This was very plain and nothing exciting to note. Qi wise, I felt a strange head high that was reverberating within my skull. The feeling was not good. This was a weird tea, and I don’t think its for me.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BI3G0y9gqvu/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Rolled puerh ball (sheng) by misty peaks review.

Ru Yao dragon teapot gongfucha.

Dry leaf: musty, sweet.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BL1Rnj7AN1j/

Wet leaf: sweet.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BL1T5YHg7DR/

1x long rinse.

Light steep: I taste/smell; slight smoke. light —→ honey, spices
https://www.instagram.com/p/BL1T1VDAIrH/

Medium steep: I taste/smell; slight smoke. Light to medium —→ honey/spices.

Heavy steep: I taste/smell: medium smoke. Strong —→ honey, spices and fruity (peaches).

All in all, a wonderful mellow tea! I think the previous tea may have marred the tastes even though I washed it out well. ( I could be wrong: maybe it’s the fruity I taste). Time to get a yixing teapot for sheng.

I cannot rate for this reason. Will revisit in the future.

http://mistypeakteas.com/product/rolled-puer/

I am drinking this as a sample from the Puerh for Beginners TTB. I have been slow on trying the raw puerh’s from that box because of my stomach (Ulcerative Colitis) being in a rough spot over most of the winter and spring. But now, I am currently in a remission period so I am able to venture out into raws a little more.

I put my 4g sample into my 100 ml gaiwan but didn’t fill it up all the way due to a smaller amount of tea available. Set my kettle for 190F.

One rinse of about 5 seconds followed by a first steep of 15 seconds. Light straw color. Very light flavor… can’t quite place it yet as it seems a bit thin. Something is there though. Maybe a stone fruit note.

2nd steep, 15 seconds. Same color. Noticing a slight sweet note right along side an undertone of bitter. But not much. Almost not noticeable if you weren’t looking for it. I got a little drying effect as well. But there is a lingering sweetness after drinking.

3rd steep, 20 seconds. I think next steep I am going to make a steep jump in steep time. I keep getting a very similar flavor and mouth coating. It is not a bad thing but just fairly light and underhanded. Perhaps I am used to ripe and black tea with the over handed in your face flavor and this is just how raw puerh is supposed to be?

4th steep, 30 seconds. I am getting a little bit of a fruity floral after taste on this one though. It is pleasant.

I’m stepping away for a while now. There might be a slight stomach tinge that I am going to keep an eye on. Plus, I have things to go and do currently :)

To be continued!

I found this ripe puer very clean in taste. The notes are earthy, woodsy, cherry, and sweet. No funk, dry, fish, or anything weird. It is also a ripe puer that doesn’t have wet storage, library book, rotting leaves, and compost flavors that some prefer.

It is a good new to puer tea or for someone who wants super clean taste.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/new-black-ripe-puer-misty-peak-teas/

This tea tasted pretty good. The fermentation was not overpowering or fishy or even really unpleasant. There was a bittersweet note at first, reminding me a little of bittersweet chocolate. After the bitter note went away a sweet note remained. Not entirely sure what to call that sweet note. Overall this was a very good tea. However, I have to question the quality of the fermentation. I eat nothing at all around the time I drank this. Something made me sick and it was likely the tea. I suppose I could be coming down with something and it could be a coincidence but I doubt it. Because I can’t be sure it was the tea I’m not going to lower my rating because of it. If it happens again the next time I drink this then I suppose I will be certain. I only gave this eight steeps, but I was using a big 220ml teapot. It would definitely have gone a few more steeps. Overall this was a good tea.

I steeped this tea eight times in a 220ml teapot with 12.6g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. The tea would have certainly gone a few more steeps but I had had enough caffeine for the day.

misty peak’s Spring 2016 sheng puerh review.

Ru Yao dragon teapot gongfucha.

1x medium rinse

Dry leaf: musty, green.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BH4-C_Hh3dQ/

Wet leaf: honey, green, metallic, sweet.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BH5eUkhBCfb/

Light steep: I taste/smell;
slight —>cream, smoke. Light -→ honey, green. Vegetables.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BH4_Bi9BCM0/

Medium steep: I taste/smell;
light —> cream, smoke. Medium -→ spices, honey, green.

Heavy steep: I taste/smell;
slight —> cream, smoke.
Medium -→ honey, spices. Strong metallic.

All in all a very yummy tea. Nice tastes and cha qi. I rate a 90 because there’s not enough smoke, and the metallic kick at the end was not too nice.

Many thanks to misty peak teas for this free sample.

PS: i guess this is not a good tea for my stomach. i had some burning in my lower gut after drinking this tea. i’m not deducting points or saying this tea is bad for you. i’m just saying “people, please remind me to never drink sheng younger than 3 years, thanks.”

This was an interesting experience courtesy of Liquid Proust’s grab bag, one that reminded me I needed more training on how to break up an especially tight chunk of cake. The dry leaf smells nice—like raisins. After the rinse, they smell like honey, raisins, and hay.

I alternated 190º and 170º with different steeping times from 30 seconds down to a straight pour through. As the steep time got shorter and shorter, the flavor developed from a honey-hay with slight bitterness and astringency to toasty to completely vegetal with no bitterness. I would say that the last, shortest, lowest steep had a velvety quality, but at that point, the back of my palate had begun to tingle, so that might have had something to do with it. Is that qi that everyone is talking about?

This was a pleasant tea, but I still think it was a little greenish for me to truly love.

I should preface this with the fact that I am probably not a good person to get advice from regarding shengs. I’ve only tried a handful and have only found one or two that even agree with me. Having said that, I’m not a quitter and I keep trying new shengs to see what I might enjoy.

I sampled some of this from the Beginners Puerh TTB. I drank some of it with my wife while we were playing cribbage. There was definitely an apricot/stone fruit type of scent to the dry leaves. The wet leaves exacerbated this effect.

The flavor on the first few steeps was light and slightly sweet. However, it turned a bit bitter near the 3rd or 4th steep. Not overpoweringly so, just enough to let you know it was there and detract from any of the lighter sweetness present. We did not see this one through and ended our session fairly early on with it. It just didn’t speak to us. For the half session or so that I did have with it, it provided a warming energy that I imagine would have gotten stronger if I had drank more. Also (and take this with grain of salt as I have a temperamental tummy), I noticed it made my stomach a little sour. Nothing too horrible but again, I only drank half a session and the stomach pangs were present.

Overall, I can see how this is a quality tea and many people would enjoy it. But, with my unrefined sheng tongue, it didn’t do much for me that was worth it. Having said that, I do have a 4 or 5g sample left if anyone would be interested.

This tea was excellent. It was sweet with little bitterness and a little bit of astringency. It had notes of apricots and stonefruits and a note that I think you could call dry grapes but without the heavy sweetness of a grape mind you. Overall, however, I’m not sure if it is as good as last year’s Misty Peaks Tea. Still, it’s one of the best values in young sheng out there. At only $55 a bing and I got 15% off on top of that it was a good price. Some will say it can’t be Yiwu gushu for that price but on this I cannot comment because there is no evidence one way or the other. Regardless this was a good tea.

I steeped this ten times in a 140ml yixing teapot with 8.9g leaf and 175 degree water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min.

Received a small sample of this with my order yesterday. The first thing about this is it was excellent tea. It had little bitterness and a lot of sweet notes. It had none of the unpleasant notes usually associated with aged teas. That being said it did not have the color I am used to seeing in a nearly twenty year old tea. While the color of the tea was darker than yellow, it was not the dark red to brown you would expect from a tea this old. In short while this was a fantastic tea I am not completely convinced as to the age. The color was more in line from what you’d expect from something maybe six or seven years old. It had started to change in color but it wasn’t there yet. So I have two points here. One it was one of the best raw teas I have tried, two I am not convinced it was twenty years old.

I steeped this tea 16 times in a 50ml gaiwan with 3.5g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min, 2.5 min, 3 min, 3.5 min, and 4 min.

I got a sample of this and ended up having 3 sessions with it before running out :(

I’ve never tasted Misty Peak before so I was incredibly curious as to what it tasted like. I mean, just look at it! It’s in the shape of two mountains! What a beautiful presentation.

The very first thing I noticed was the taste of cream this tea had. It had a faint buttery taste that was mouthwatering. As I continued my session with it floral notes opened up and made their-self present. It was a nice melody and a very soft and calming mixture. It had a very refreshing taste that lated through out my session with it.

Overall, I’d buy more of this tea. I would have to save up quite a bit for it, but it would be worth it. I can’t wait to keep exploring with Misty Peaks!

From the Puerh TTB #4 (Mao cha)

Light straw color and taste. Slightly sweet. Hint of apricot? Pleasant finish; very strong cha qi. Hints of bitterness appear at the 3rd steep, but not enough to be a negative. The bitterness was gone on steep 4. Overall, a very pleasant tea: smooth, slightly sweet, easy to enjoy, but not as complex as I like.