After Party Enchanter

Deep dark liquor when brewed and very thick early infusions are as dark as soy sauce if not darker (if its possible) I brew this one in a 200ml yixing red clay pot which dramatically adds to the thickness. Gorgeous tea and one of my favourites I’m sad that they sold out before I could buy another cake. Definitely worth the price.

Where to start very thick mouthfeel and texture. Coats the mouth as you drink adding to the experience. Juicy on the sides of the tongue and at the back of the mouth. Warming tea and by the time you have finished brewing it leaves you with a gentle heat and slight perspiration. Taste with it has a definite sweetness, fudge with a touch of chocolate and brown sugar. Best way to describe it is a dark fudge brownie with brown sugar. It has a minerality which increases through the infusions.

Now that Im finally into Shou Pu Erh I really love this one
Chocolate, leather earth (but not too much), good mineralitiy
Sometimes you got to “learn” a new taste and afterwards you start to love it

I’ve been reviewing so many raw pu’ers lately it’s time for another ripe. At around forty cents per gram, this tea is crazy expensive for a shu. I ordered two five gram sample packs and after weighing them my scale displayed eleven grams. I used all of it in my 160ml Jianshui clay teapot and also drank the tea from a Jianshui clay teacup. I rinsed the tea for slightly under ten seconds and let the leaves rest and wake up for five minutes before I began brewing. I did seven steeps, the timing for these being 12s, 12s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 60s and 2 min.

Since my sample was already broken up into smaller pieces, I got a dark color right from the first brew. The liquor was exceptionally clear for such a young tea. The taste was sweet, with a little bit of the young shu vibe going on, but it was really minor. There was a darker note as well that was not quite chocolate nor coffee. The body was pretty average for the time being, could have been a bit better.

While the second infusion brewed perhaps even a bit darker, there was actually a little less body now than before. The taste was dominated by a generic unidentified darker note. While the tea started off less sweet than before, it got sweeter over time, developing into a cherry or cola type of sweetness. While it was not bitter, it was leaning a bit in that direction.

In the third steep the body got back closer to the first steep or maybe even a bit thicker. The taste was sweet, increasingly sweet. I could taste maybe a touch of vanilla or fudge, or maybe vanilla fudge. Yes, I would say the tea had a caramel vibe to it. As the tea cooled, I could catch a hint of dark chocolate in it. I was beginning to feel the tea in my body.

The body dropped again in the next steep. The taste was slightly sweet, quite generic. There weren’t really any distinct flavors for me to pick out. Maybe a bit of weak nougat if I really push it, but not much else. I was feeling the tea a little more now. While the tea continued brewing a dark color in the fifth infusion, there was almost no taste at all now. Maybe some generic sweetness, but not much else. There was a very distinct void of flavor. There was the most absolute basic ripe pu’er base, but nothing else. I was continuing to feel the qi, but the energy in this tea is one that caused a slightly unsettled feeling and a throbbing sensation in me, which was not something I enjoyed.

For the next infusion I decided to push the tea a little and brewed it for a full minute. The results were similar to before, only now there was an added note of a non-bitter bitterness. The flavors felt really stretched out, like the very late steeps of a tea. The tea actually reminded me of the taste of paper, and once I got that image in my head I could not get rid of it. I’m all for being adventurous when it comes to tea, but sorry I’m just not interested in drinking something that tastes like paper. The body was passable, but fairly thin for such an extended steep. The tea tasted absolutely hideous once it cooled down.

I brewed the seventh steep for full two minutes in an attempt to force out some sort of flavors of interest. I ended up over-brewing the tea as expected. Not much changed, however. The tea was still dominated by the dry paper taste and I decided to call it there. At this point I was so not into this tea that I didn’t have the fortitude try to do the science and see what else there was to see.

While this tea started out okay, maybe somewhat above entry-level ripes, from the fifth infusion onward I was not able to extract much from it besides color of which there was plenty. For a shu that costs forty cents per gram, four steeps is abysmal. That is poor for any kind of pu’er. While fairly easy and straightforward to drink in the early steeps, I honestly couldn’t recommend this tea even if price wasn’t a factor. There are simply so much better alternatives out there. If you want to experience a true high-end ripe, try one of Hai Lang Hao’s many excellent offerings or something by one of the vendors specializing in pu’er like Crimson Lotus Tea or Bitterleaf Teas. Also a personal favorite of mine similar to this one in flavor is the Menghai/Dayi “Xin Hai Bai Nian” which comes highly recommended.

The wet leaves do have the smell of damp autumn day in the forest, wet caves and burnt paper, but the taste is super clean. I didn’t get any of the sweet stuff though. I should give it another try.

Brewing notes:

Brewed gongfu style, 10g in 200 ml Yixing pot, 95C. First infusion 15 seconds, +5 thereafter. Flash rinsed before brewing.

Sensory details:

Honestly, in terms of flavor, all I can say is “umami.” I do not have a sophisticated or developed tea palate. The liquor was thick and almost syrupy. The last drop clung to my glass Gong Dao Bei like it didn’t want to let go. The color of the liquor approximated soy sauce, or a Medoc wine.

The experience:

At first, I was sipping, trying doggedly to dredge up details for a proper tasting review. By the fifth infusion, I was like, “Rack ‘em up, bartender!” and belting down shots. This would be an awesome tea to drink with a rare filet mignon. After the sixth infusion, I decided to take a break, and will pick it up again this evening. After roughly 1.2 liters of this tea, I feel like I’ve just had really good sex. You know, muscles loose, mind cleaned out.