2011 Menghai Sheng Tai Tuo Cha

Gongfu!

This is something that I made Gongfu near the end of last week to be shared between myself and my roommates over supper – I prepared the tea, one of the roommates provided the food, and the other cooked it. It was a nice trio of contributions! Unfortunately the food was really spicy; and it kind of killed my palate quite a bit during the tea session. Especially for the first part of it as well.

However, after the initial wave of heat had cleared I paced myself better and found a nicer balance between eating and drinking the tea. I think even without the wave of extremely spicy food I would have found this tea a little bit thin/light tasting, but I’m sure the spice didn’t help that feeling. It was, if nothing else, very clean and well rounded. No off notes/fermentation funk to it! Mostly tasted like a sweet woody quality; had a touch of a higher note so I’m inclined to say Cedar just because I think there’s an associated high note that Cedar has over other wood types – but it was also sweeter/smoother than I associate cedar, so maybe it was more of an oak type thing? What’s the in between/cross of cedar and oak!? Perhaps it was that. A little bit of cherry too – but only a smidge, just a hint of that sweet fruity note in the finish.

Despite feeling this was a little thin, I think I still enjoyed it more Gongfu than I have in the past when I’ve prepared this one Western style…

Breweing this way early, could easily use another couple years to lose some of it’s more astringent properties. Pleasant level of soil smell and taste, muted though, more like oak because of its astringency. Clay, old leather, mushroom flavors all present. This would be a good shu to mature, but if you drink it now (2017), brew it short and expect that astringency you get from alkaloid rich herbs like Yellow Dock or Goldenseal.