I’m sipping through a pile of samples from Bitterleaf, trying to decide if they will be the source of my big birthday order. So far, the results are mixed. I almost ordered a cake of this unseen, since I really enjoyed the 2017 Year of the Monkey Yiwu. I’m glad I didn’t because I didn’t like this one nearly as much.
The first cup was very sweet and viscous in the mouth. Not much taste other than the sweetness. 2nd steep had a bit more flavor, but nothing to write home about. Reminds me a bit of a silver needle puerh but without the floral character. Later steeps were disappointing. Not much there. Glad I didn’t buy a cake.
This isn’t a bad tea and might not be a bad way for someone to ease into puerh, but it just didn’t have enough character for me to want to buy more.
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I have a hard time with Yiwu and JingMai a lot of times myself.
I am sort of feeling the same way about this one so far, but often tend to find myself underwhelmed by young Yiwu material, though there are some mountains I really enjoy the material of. Interestingly enough, my early steeps of this one were almost tasteless, but it became more interesting later in the session. Hoping to see this one develop into something more over time.
Like Inkay said, I find Yiwu teas tend to take a few months to a year to spread their wings, so to speak. Of course there there are exceptions, but this one is probably in the former category. We have stock of this tea for every year going back to 2009 though and it’s fairly consistent, in my incredibly biased opinion. If you have the Year of the Monkey from last year then it should be a relatively good indication of where this is going, although neither this nor last year were typical weather-wise. Time will be the final judge!
I have a hard time with Yiwu and JingMai a lot of times myself.
I am sort of feeling the same way about this one so far, but often tend to find myself underwhelmed by young Yiwu material, though there are some mountains I really enjoy the material of. Interestingly enough, my early steeps of this one were almost tasteless, but it became more interesting later in the session. Hoping to see this one develop into something more over time.
Like Inkay said, I find Yiwu teas tend to take a few months to a year to spread their wings, so to speak. Of course there there are exceptions, but this one is probably in the former category. We have stock of this tea for every year going back to 2009 though and it’s fairly consistent, in my incredibly biased opinion. If you have the Year of the Monkey from last year then it should be a relatively good indication of where this is going, although neither this nor last year were typical weather-wise. Time will be the final judge!