The Essence of Tea

Of all aspects of this tea, the most stunning was the initial wet-leaf aroma. Goodness. A rich, intoxicating push of licorice root and star anise, following by a bundle of tropical fruit: persimmion, jack-fruit, rambutan, and banana. Absolutely illustrious. A lot of aroma came out of a small amount of dark, large, well-dressed leaves that were dark and had an excellent sheen.

Hot steeps and long ones produced surprisingly light tea. I kept my chubby yixing only partially filled in an attempt to concentrate the flavors, but for the first few steeps of treating this tea like other young sheng pu’er, I felt as though I could taste the minerals of the water and the clay more than anything from the tea. An ephemeral and ethereal gauze of apricot, straw, and honeydew made brief appearances. Otherwise, the water extracted light green bitterness, a not so subtle reminder that pu’er, in its early days, is really a form of green tea. Maybe I should have treated this sample as such.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=239

I think this was my favorite of the three I tried last year and again this year, it is my favorite of the three. It’s got all the elements of puerh I like, big leaf purity, a bit of sun-dried fruit wildness, a wonderful returning flavor, good texture, and a solid afterglow. This tea doesn’t need me to attach copious sensory descriptors to it today, it just works (although, I do agree with buttery and nutty, per Hobbes). Unlike the Manmai, it’s not grassy nor flinty, and to me it has more overall depth than the Mansai.

Incredibly fresh bright fruity aromas leap off the leaves. They smell just like every in-season fresh fruit skin all at once…grapes, apples, pears, peaches, cherries. All wrapped up in that delightful woodsy and mossy musk. The leaves are large and tightly folded into both broad and twisted shapes. They all have a nice even green-brown sheen with a many edges of white fur.

This tea starts off with a fairly thin, relatively bland and textureless soup, despite the leaves appearing to go through agony early and quickly. The third and fourth steeps really start to pop with fresh apricot flesh, aspen boughs, and pleasant balancing bitterness. While the product description at Essence of Tea include “goopy” as a property, I find the texture never gets there – maybe I did not use enough leaf to elicit that character.

Evident that this is a “green” tea, it is also the youngest pu’er I have tried. It doesn’t have that raw, fresh gum-numbing youthfulness that others have, but instead, it reveals its roots as a green tea, feeling more like fresh bi lo chun than musky, wild, funky pu’er. Such youth might allow me to more readily detect the near-Jingmai essence from this tea, as I think that particular terroir has a fresh, juicy lychee or apricot sensation to it.

The most enjoyable sensation this tea provides is after it has been swallowed. Big cooling mintiness rises and a long lingering herbal licorice flavor spreads across the palate.
Not unexpected for a tea lacking the wisdom of a much older one and having opened its bright green leaves so early, it empties itself by steep seven or eight and collapses into dry minerals and bark. That being said, such vibrant, high-quality leaves will likely prove to be quite outstanding in many years time.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=220

not as complex as the 1996 Orange in orange, but a nice aged tea nonetheless

Nicely aged & thick in the mouth. This is what a good puer of this age should be like!

This is a real pu-erh tea that holds nothing back.

If you are one who likes to walk into a deciduous forest in fall after a light rain and lick every surface clean, then this tea is for you. Robust, bitter, and unrelenting. It may have been because I steeped it in a gaiwan or maybe my greenhorn taste buds are not mature enough for such an aged pu-erh, but my god was this tea bitter. Bitter in the woody, leaf-pile, pine needle, stick, compost heap kind of way. I truly felt like I was walking through a forest after rainfall. It was also very dry in the back of the mouth.

I’ve drank it twice now, both times from a gaiwan. I’ve only steeped it for a total of 5 infusions each time, only because I couldn’t bring myself to drink anymore. However, there was enough strength in the tea for at least twice as many infusions, if not more.

Even though I did not enjoy the tea very much, I could tell that it was something special. Very complex in flavor with great strength, mouth-feel was OK, and it was still very calming and warm; however, definitely not for the faint at heart.

UPDATE: I’ve taken the advice from Nadacha and decreased the amount of leaf I used and steeped it this time in my yixing pot, the results? Simply fantastic.

The harsh bitterness is gone and what is left behind is a soothing, earthy, woody piece of delightful drinking. Impeccably smooth and creamy without a hint of dryness. It has a deep and complex flavor with notes of earth, wood, wet leaf, vanilla and leather. The aftertaste is full and coats the back of the mouth with a vanilla and wood-like bitter-sweetness.

Amazing what 14 years can do for a good tea!

Quite mature for its age, with slight wet-storage, which doesn’t seem to manifest itself in the cup. Of course, as a person partial to wetter-storage, YMMV. The tea itself sits very firmly and thickly in the mouth, leaving an aftertaste that sticks around for a while. What’s most surprising about this particular tea is how much bitterness it has left. It’s definitely not astringency or sharpness, but a sort of herbal/medicinal bitterness, reminds me of a bitter herbal tea that my parents sometimes drink. In other words, bitterness in a good way and with an interesting flavor profile/“texture.”

Tasted better than all the other samples I got from Essence of Tea (except for his 80s Liu An which I haven’t tried yet), which is surprising since all the other teas I got were older than this one. Alas, I bought the last cake and it may not be re-stocked for a while. Currently hunting for it online as a back-up plan.