2013 MGH 1302 Jingmai Dazhai Green Pu-erh

First cake purchase, haha.

200f, 100mL gaiwan, 5.3g

dry leaves like rest of PS order: dried fruit smell

1×5s rinse

wet leaves: strong smoke
5s: slight sweet
10s: astringent and sharp with a cooling aftertaste.

I can’t remember why I stopped on the second infusion with this one either, but I have the rest of the cake still, so I’ll update this if I feel the urge to pick it up in the near future. Not sure how PS stores their cakes, but if I had to hazard a guess, this one didn’t age much at all however they’re storing it.

Drank this today while reading the timeline of Star Trek and now I feel dumb… then again it’s confusing. Enterprise is the earliest of them all but it was made last, why why why!
Anyways, this is a solid tea that has no bitter notes to it and a strong taste of what raw sheng is like when pure and untampered with by elements such as age, humidity, traveling, random hairs stuck in the cake, fast food oil from fingers when it was broken, and anything else.

That being said: All jingmai material I’ve had has been excellent and pure. This is true for this as well, even if I support what Glen is doing and say with a bias; CLT has that good good jingmai.

Here’s a reason to buy this: It’s a 2013 Jingmai cake at only $19 for 200g. I’m being serious when I say that’s a good deal.

Okay, it’s time for me to stop being in dragon mode (hoarding it all to myself) and review this. I didn’t want to hype it too much b/c I hadn’t had the funds to order my fill yet, but I just placed an order for the rest that I foresee myself purchasing, so here goes.

Oh boy! This tea has interesting written all over it. I was first drawn to the packaging, as I love the stag artwork on the wrapping. After reading the description from PuerhShop and the other review here on Steepster I knew I should give it a try, so I ordered a sample.

The first sniffs of the dry leaves in a warm gaiwan are wonderful. It has a really soft fragrance with the scent of flowers and fruits. I’m getting hints of magnolia, and maybe some cherry, plum, or nectarine. Definitely a stone fruit scent.

The scent of the wet leaves is more complex and hard to describe. It’s predominantly nutty and vegetal, but with a nice fruity tanginess in the background. It reminds me of really high quality green teas from china. Maybe a Bi Luo Chun. There is also a subtle floral aroma if you inhale deeply. This is lovely.

I gave the rinse a little taste. Even just sipping that there is a lingering floral taste in my mouth. Wow. I’m not going to describe the other flavors of it. I’ll do the first infusion first.
Something about the scent of the brewed tea makes me incredibly nostalgic. It smells very perfumed and flowery. the taste is more vegetal, buttery, and nutty, with green bean notes, but the lingering floral taste and aroma is what sets this Puer apart from others of its kind for me. I can definitely agree with the other reviewer here who said it reminds them of oolong tea. I can tell it is sheng puer from a mile away, but it definitely has a lot in common with oolong in its floral and green notes.

In the second infusion, the tea has become a bit more buttery and nutty. It still has a bright vegetal and floral note, but it is not as powerful as before. It is very prominent on the nose still, however.

The third infusion is a little more sweet and floral. Less of the vegetal, nutty. Still pretty buttery and smooth. I should mention that this tea has zero bitterness and is a really great raw puer. Very warming qi.

If you go with this tea for about 7 to 8 infusions or more, it starts to mellow out substantially, and any hints of young puer bitterness it might have fade away. The predominant flavor is of honey and flowers. The taste and fragrance are something sort of like orange blossom water. It just goes on and on this way for many infusions. It’s so gentle and lovely, I can only imagine how great this tea will be in a couple decades.

I’m buying a handful of cakes of this to age… the first tea I’ve done that with! I have seasoned one of Master Weilong’s one of a kind unglazed interior gongfu teapots with this tea. It smells so nice inside now. This is a tea I’ll be taking with me for the long haul.

Now this is a really interesting tea. I am working through a set of samples from Puerhshop.com and I’ve been steeping through them. Some I have to go back to, but this one really turned my head.

I took the first sip and thought I must be drinking an oolong! This has a much different flavor profile from many young shengs. Instead of apricots and smoke, I got more floral notes. It didn’t just remind me of an oolong, it quite literally tastes oolongy.

If cakes of this remain when I order again, I’ll probably grab one. Good stuff!