2010 NAN JIAN "CERTIFIED ORGANIC WU LIANG MINI BRICK" RAW PU-ERH TEA

Once broken apart, the brick had quite a few fine grains of tea which ended up in the cup. The brick was tightly packed which resulted in small, broken leaf pieces once picked apart. I found one small (2mm) pebble. It was difficult to find the sweet spot between being too weak and too bitter but once I found it, the tea was passable. It had a dryer, malty hay taste that was a little bit vegetal. It was fairly astringent and got very bitter and astringent fast when over-brewed by even 5sec. I brewed it at boiling temperature, however perhaps somebody with a variable temperature kettle will be able to get more flavour and less bitterness out of it at a lower temperature.

Steep times: 45, 15, 15, 20, 45
I drink the wash, hence why my first steep is so long. Brewed in a clay teapot.

The risky buy of the month. It is the cheapest 100g-brick of puerh on Yunnansourcing.us and for a reason.

First, the good stuff: it smells good. The wet leaf has a complex, multi-faceted aroma that is very enjoyable. No fishy smell, no pure decay.

Now, the bad part: it needs at least 5 more years to develop because the acidic tatse of the fermentation is there, ready to pounce and overpower everything else. Which is a shame, because there ARE a number of more subtle, interesting flavors. Unfortunately, the only way to bring them all on the scene together is to do super-short steeps of 5-10 secs, and avoid the boiling water. So, you end up “savoring” a weak puerh for a 2-3 steeps – after that regardless of your efforts the sourness pushes everything else in far corners of the palate.

Oh, and I forgot to add that the brisk is tightly packed and produces a lot of dust – and whatever is not dust consists of small broken leaf pieces and lots of stems. That is, even five years from now it will still be a low-grade puerh of a questionable quality.

The take-away: avoid this brick, there are much better shengs for just a little bit more money.

Probably not the best puer starting point, but got to start somewhere!

Hard to break apart. Leaves are pretty choppy. Actually I didn’t see a single whole leaf in the 5g I tried so far.

Single rinse. First step is pleasant but it’s easy to make bitter after that. Not sure if it’s my fault or the tea. I will use colder water next time; this water was close to boiling.

Even with the bitterness, it has a pleasant smokiness up front. At the end of the sip there’s a hint of a vegetal green tea taste, which I’m not the biggest fan of but that’s personal preference. There’s also a bite that lingers on the tounge.

I would like the smokey taste without the bitterness. I’m underwhelmed by this first attempt but hope that time and more brewing experiments will result in a nicer brew.

This brick is just that, a brick. Compressed too tightly and dry to break off a good solid piece. Comes off the brick in tiny particles which makes it quite a bitter brew. Very “chopped” leaves. Think I’ll expose it to some humidity and see if i breaks better. First two steeps were not that bad but on the third the strong bitterness takes hold and doesn’t let go. I didn’t get past the fourth steep before jumping ship. It was a cheap small mini brick so I wasn’t expecting much. I wouldn’t really recommend this one as there are better offerings out there. This was my first “mini brick” so I’m not sure if they are all pretty bitter and chopped but I think I’ll stick with cakes when going small.