Dirty Knees

This beauty of a pu-erh tea was produced by Langhe Tea Factory in 1999 as a medium-grade shou brick from low origins. Despite being destined for exports, it was only lightly fermented and loosely pressed. 4 bricks in a regular CNNP paper package with no individual wrapping. Nothing to write home about, but the recipe proved a good aging candidate. 22 years later, dry storage really scrubbed this one clean and pretty for you. Now that’s good shou pu-erh!

Back in 1999, the Langhe factory was operating under the huge Menghai Tea Factory banner. Production was massive and, dare we say, pretty hard to track down. Trucks full of leaves would come in every day from all areas of Yunnan and sorting would be dubious at best. We were told the lot we selected was from local Menghai material and harvested a week or two before production. The bricks are stamped 11th May 1999.

To be fair, this is probably one of the smoothest shou you’ll ever have. It’s light, sweet, fruity, clean, and very nice on the stomach. Two decades of dry storage will do that for you. Aromas range from old barn wood to beetroot to wet rocks and all around the earthy spectrum, also boasting a refreshing eucalyptus-like finish. Being both very complex and generous, one sample will easily give you more than a dozen fun infusions.

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