Eden 2019 Manzhuan Raw Puer

One of the coolest parts about travelling to Winnipeg for a week was that it put me in the same city at TheWeekendSessions which was a really rare opportunity for me to connect with someone from the tea community in person. So, with some planning, we set aside time to meet up for tea and exchange some samples!

TheWeekendSessions was an absolutely amazing host, and I had such a nice time sitting down with him and just talking over some tea! This is what was selected for us to drink while we talked and measured out some tea samples – though we drank a maocha version of this tea and not the compressed version. I do actually own the compressed version, so it’ll be interesting to try that tea out in the future and see if I see any big differences between the maocha and compressed forms.

Sadly, I was coming off a cold when we met up and was still a little bit stuffy – so I know that my palate was 100% off, I could tell immediately when the tea was poured that I was only going to be getting a muted version of the teas actual flavours. That’s definitely disappointing, but also something that really was unavoidable. Still, I enjoyed the tea a lot! I found that it started off pretty mellow with just a hint of sweetness that I would maybe liken to sugar cane? And then, as we got a few steeps in, there was a more noticeable bitter top note (like crushed advil) that was really short and fleeting, that gave way into a much, much sweeter and fruity lingering note – like honey dripped on the tip of your tongue? The kind of sweetness that makes you salivate a whole lot.

Thanks again TheWeekendSessions for hosting me at your home! It was such a pleasure getting to put a face to the name – I really look forward to exploring the samples you gave me, after I’m no longer sick – of course.