2010 Menghai Tea Factory 8592

Now that I’m measuring out my Pu Ers more consistently (5g in 130ml gaiwan), they are tasting much better––surprise!

I think I used way too much leaf the first time. This time it’s much less “bold”, just smooth and sweet. This is currently one of my favourite teas to drink with food. Right now drinking it with a bagel w/ cream cheese and tahini, and it goes well when I add maple syrup to the make it a sweet bagel too.

tl;dr: Unoffensive, easy to drink, brews out quite a bit and forgivingly. Mostly a cardboard/pencil shavings taste in a soy-sauce colored liquid, mellows out into something sweeter. Not my favorite flavor profile to start, but if you’re into it this would make an excellent cake at the price, and the ending was worth it. 3.9/5.

6g leaf, 75ml porcelain gaiwan
98C, 10s rinse: Gentle smell of caramelized sweetness over earth.
98C, 5s: flat, watery, unremarkable.
98C, 20s: Can’t really get much smell off of it. Pensil shavings, cardboard/carton-y, flat mouth feel. Very unoffensive. Immediate qi (or maybe I just haven’t eaten yet xD). Basically soy sauce colored.
98C, 45s: gentle ripe notes finally appearing. mouth feel less flat, leaves totally opened up. Super easy to drink at this point, basically chug-able.
98C, 60s: mouthfeel really rounding out. some faintest fruity smells, currant?
98C, 90s: these leaves become more fun to smell the longer they’re brewed. cardboardy tastes are gone, simply a clean, unoffensive shou taste.
98C, 90s: sweeter smell, creamier texture/flavor.
98C, inf s: sweet….cardboard….? those are real flavor words….
98C, inf s: really loving these last few steepings. it’s still super dark, if no longer soy sauce level.
98C, inf s: third dead man steep, flavor starting to thin but I’m still enjoying it.
98C, inf s: probably done.

This tea was good. Just what you expect from a Dayi ripe. A moderate amount of fermentation taste that was not fishy or unpleasant and a sweet note from the beginning. I did not notice any bitterness. I used a little more leaves than usual because I over estimated the size of my gaiwan. I thought it was 180ml but I measured it and it was 150ml. The tea was still quite good just a bit strong. As to the specifics of the notes I really wasn’t paying attention so I am not sure.

I steeped this twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 14.2g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 minutes. Judging by the color of the tea there were another six steeps left at least.