2009 Menghai Dayi "7562" Classic Ripe Pu-erh Brick tea

Thank you Mrmopar for this Puerh sample!
BTW, the new picture is me sniffing wet tea leaves, proof that I am an official tea geek and nerd!

Oh yeah, getting back into my puerh groove! Woman does not live by puerh alone(but I almost get away with it)!

We’re having a dip in temperature…snow flurries then back up to the 50’s and 60’s. A real Rocky Mountain Roller Coaster! Wheeee!
For breakfast today…a strong cuppa PU sounded fabulous! (If you take a look at mrmopar’s cupboard, you’ll see that he agrees with me!)

This particular puerh was great for bold drinking. I was thinking about how you could make a big pot, sit down with breakfast or the paper…even fill a thermos and head out the door. It’s such a big flavorful puerh, reminiscent of what I ‘Used to get’ at Pete’s Coffee way back when! My morning ‘kick in the butt’ cuppa!

Smooth, dark, stands up to additions and the resteeps aren’t weak.

The flavor:
After one rinse, I steeped 30 seconds which produced a DARK red-espresso-brown brew, smooth and full of energy. The taste was raspberry/choco/cedar/nut with a little tang. (None of those flavors distinctly strong). Muted flavors, smooth and sweet.

On later steepings the flavor wasn’t as strong.

At the 4th and 5th steep…I got lazy and put the two steeps together in an 8oz mug, sweetened it and added cream. Yeah! Good!

I kicked back and watched the news, slurped my mug of PU with a furry throw tucked up under mu chin, my feet propped on the bench coffee table. What a life!

This tea is one of those “Whatever you want me to be, I’ll be it for you baby!” puerh’s! (Too bad I never married man like that, oh well!)

Thanks Mrmopar!

One of my favorites.
This tea is good to have around. The soup is relatively thick, taste is mellow, creamy, and pretty consistent throughout the sessions. My preferred brewing method in general, and specifically for this tea: gongfu style, relatively little water, in order to sip small amounts each time.
The base notes are pretty consistent throughout the sessions: cream, caramel, brown sugar, some cocoa, tobacco notes.
It’s hard to drive this too hard: from the moment the tea opens, I generally keep steeps at 30 seconds, maybe closer to 1 min. by the end. You can oversteep it and it will still be drinkable. It will just bring the nori-like notes at the forefront. Some dried fruit notes: plums, cherry. Not much astringency, though it develops with the last sessions. You can easily get 6 good sessions with this tea without being a gongfu expert. You might get a little more out of it if you keep the gaiwan very warm, or if you let it simmer in a pan (yes, I’ve tried it).
This tea is not as creamy as other references, such as Hong Yun or 7572. It’s a little drier too: less red fruit-like, more bark or even hints of leather/tobacco.

Definitely a good ripe pu er tea. Since this is from 2009, I would say it’s a “drink now”, but it comes in a pretty compact brick, so you can probably store this for a few more years. This is something I will definitely order on a regular basis.

I broke off about 5 grams into my 100ml gaiwan rinsed twice and steeped with boiling water. This tea opened up pretty quickly considering that it came of a brick. A shout out to 2dog for sending me a free flat edge pu’erh pick in my last order as my thicker pointed pick kind of creates a lot of broken pieces especially with bricks. The wet leaf had a very nice honey/cherry sweet aroma along with the traditional ripe smells of a nice old barn stacked with hay and wet wood on a dirt floor. Wow, reading that back I could see how a non pu’erh tea drinker would think we are off our rocker for liking these tastes and smells. More for me. No fishiness just a bit of the normal fermentation smell on the rinses. This tea gave a nice thick liquor even at 5 grams. I am noticing that I prefer around 5-6 grams with my ripe and 7-8 with my raws. More than that gives me a bit more of the coffee taste with the ripe and I am not a coffee drinker. This tea is pretty delicious. Notes of the traditional coffee like bitter notes with a nice earthy/woody flavor that gives a bit of honey/tobacco sweetness on the back end. It gave pretty well considering it was only 5 grams. This one is definitely a great daily drinker. I am really digging the Menghai ripes. I imagine this one will get even better with age. I would say that this has a medium energy to it. Not too strong. Not too weak. I would recommend this to any ripe drinkers out there for a solid go to tea. Cant wait to try this one in a few more years.