2007 CNNP "8891 Red Label" Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake

Had a sample of this a few weeks ago, did not review because I should have let it acclimate. It was a bit watery and flat, curse me for being impatient.

First sip this time around had me dizzy for a minute. Floral-ish earthiness at first, sweet, good huigan, becoming medicinal, clove-ish, almost minty. Nice dynamism in each cup.

I should start noting the music I listen to during a tea session. In this case, it’s Flying Lotus. Went to his show last Thursday (at an outdoor venue) and rediscovering old favorites.

I had high expectations after reading the other reviews but my experience is for some reasons a bit underwhelming. I’m getting a lot of camphor, medicinal and honey flavours that don’t like so much and don’t get often mentioned by other reviews. The tea is strong and vibrant, not particularly complex but anyway I found it entertaining and I liked the qi.
This tea reminds me of Bowmore 12 whiskey.

Smelling the wet leaves I get welcomed by a bomb of smoke and camphor. Bittersweet. Herbal medicine. Wood. Honey.

1
I get some nauseating overly sweet apple/raw potatoes puree aroma.
Light smoke. Astringency, honey aftertaste. Tingling in the throat.

2
Very sweet honey and medicinal herbs. Heavy. Raw potatoes.
Honey aftertaste in the throat, heaviness in the head. Forehead tingling, loud and slow heartbeat.

3
Herbal reminds me of yerba mate.
Strong honey.
Liquor more full-bodied and interesting. More acidity spreading around. Brown sugar, gentle aftertaste. Relaxing, grounding. No bitterness

4
Forest. Hyppie camping. The smell of wet nature, cloudy day, a campfire.
The liquor is very sweet and vibrant. I feel I can get easily tired of this type of sweetness.
The base is still herbs and honey.
I feel relaxed and comfortable. I forget about everything else.

5
Same as before plus Incense.
A vague feeling of black pepper and ripe fruits.

6
A bit more astringency and Cooling sensation. No big changes. Slightly dry finish. Still relaxing.

7
Flavour is losing intensity without adding anything new. Liquor is steady and clean. A bit boring.
I feel some tension. More pepper spiciness.

8
Camphor it’s been there the whole time and still doesn’t give up.
The tea keeps going. I feel like stopping.

Edit 26/07/21
I had another session with this and I enjoyed it much more. I like the smoke element and the camphor was not overwhelming this time. Maybe I’m developing a taste for aged sheng?

Overall not bad, but too smokey for my taste. The smokiness overpowered everything else for me. I am a pu noob, but I was surprised by how green this tasted for its age. YS says dry-wet guangdong, so I guess that would explain it. Flavor was again smoke, musty/mushroomy wood, damp hay/barnyard, something savory/meaty, and some citrus or spicy fruit – maybe grapefruit. Mid steeps leaned towards darker fruits. Pleasant round mouthfeel. Slight tartness as it cooled. Satisfying returning sweetness. Not much here that I haven’t found elsewhere, but I will revisit it.

This is a fairly simple semi-aged tea with a warming cha qi and an earth/fruity profile. It has aromas of cranberry, smoke, decaying wood, wet earth, and autumn leaf pile. In the taste I could then detect flavours of fermented pear, plant leaves, and geosmin; followed by a sweet drying aftertaste with a raisin note to it. The body is medium to light and the mouthfeel bubbly and throat-tingling.

Thanks for the sample derk! :)

Solid dry-storage sheng for the price. It has a sheng taste, on which there is elegant layers : ried fruit, spice, a bit of hay maybe ? Balanced and pleasant.

I really liked it. I didn’t notice the fruit referenced in these other reviews on here but the wood, hay, limited spice range, pronounced earthiness (like beets and potato skin), and good sweetness were all very pleasant, cleaner than that sounds. Some teas fade to become subtle at this age but this definitely didn’t, and it didn’t include any off storage-related flavors. It’s complex enough that I suspect my interpretation of it will change over a number of tastings, and intense enough that I’d expect over the coming years it will soften and deepen but won’t fade fast. As a limitation it wasn’t necessarily subtle or refined in character, but that still worked well for me. I reviewed it further here:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2019/04/2007-cnnp-8891-sheng-from-yunnan.html

Brewed Western-style because I was lazy.

Smells smokey like whiskey, and a bit musty, but with a bright and fruity element too, like raisins.

Tastes really refreshing, light, and has a mineral note like the illusion of drinking fresh authentic mineral water (haha). Another nice feature is that this tea is lighter coloured and doesn’t stain my teeth. This tea has really grown on me and I might buy the full cake.

Increased rating to 86.

Very nice semi-aged raw. Delicious. Very smooth, warming tea. Complex flavor with some tobacco aroma (hardly smoky though), but mainly a deep, satisfying sweetness. Nice lasting sensation. Clearly aged, though it has no wet-storage basement aromas whatsoever. When they sold out at YS, I was happy to buy one more on TaoBao, which tastes very similar to the one I got from YS.

Hey teaheads!

Ahhh I decided to pull this tea out for the first session in a while, and boy did this tea not disappoint. I blindly picked out this tea and made sure not to see the label until the third steep, and I could have never guessed that this was factory tea. It just tastes so good, just everything that I love in a raw puerh all in a really good daily drinker. This is one of the teas that I would actually consider purchasing a whole cake, as the price to enjoyment is hard to beat, and a tea that I can see myself enjoying long into the future.

This has aged well. A nice amber to maroon tea that is mild and earthy sweet. The sweetness is very slight and more in the aroma of dried fruits a la prunes/raisins and dried rose petals. The most present part of the flavor is the Mushroom. This is blurred together with notes of wet earth and chestnuts. There is also something happening in the exhale that brings up memories of my favorite Salvadorian restaurant. Maybe Loroco? Everything blends together to feel like a great winter drink. I highly recommend wearing an old flannel shirt while drinking.