2009 Menghai Black Puer Tea Mini Tuocha 6g

Dry – Sweet, earthy.
Wet – Sweet, creamy, bitter/tart notes(chocolate?)
Liquor – Dark Brown/Deep Bronze.

1st 20secs – Sweet, earthy, vanilla, creamy, a slight bitterness up front. As it washes down, it is slightly more bitter and has a bit of astringency (particles “Chen Dian?”). The aftertaste is sweet, earthy and slightly refreshing.

2nd 10secs – Sweet, earthy, vanilla, creamy and slight bitterness. As it washes down, it is bitter but smooth creaminess. The aftertaste is sweet, smooth and slightly refreshing.

3rd 15secs – Sweet, earthy, vanilla, creamy and slight bitterness. As it washes down, it is bitter, smooth and creamy. The aftertaste is sweet, smooth and refreshing.

4th 15secs – Sweet, vanilla, smooth and faded bitter notes. As it washes down it is bittersweet and smooth. The aftertaste is sweet and smooth that becomes refreshing.

5th 25secs – Sweet, vanilla, smooth, slightly creamy up front. As it washes down, it becomes bittersweet and slowly turns sweeter. The aftertaste is sweet, smooth and refreshing.

Final Notes
Honestly, This mini brick is a good one AND beautiful looking; it has to be one of the most beautifully pressed mini tuo I’ve ever seen. If you buy the 4oz for $24 (20 mini cakes) it is worth it. I had a sample 3 for $5 dollars… that seems a bit too much. That aside, the cake is well made, and you can tell is hand picked, the buds are beautiful and almost completely intact. The pressing is very light so keep that in mind when steeping (so you don’t oversteep past your preferences).

I think this is the right one … Tasted at the San Francisco Tea Festival. It was very rich, but not bitter, although slightly less smooth than the older vintages.

For the past few days I’ve been drinking shu in the evenings. The weather here has been so foggy (what else is new?) but I forgot until recently how good shus are for having after dinner. I should try to keep drinking them because I have a whole shoebox full (shubox?) :)

Today was very relaxing since I went to a 3 hour yin yoga workshop with this friend of mine and then had dinner at a South Indian restaurant. I feel like I’m all ready for bed but it’s only 7:20 pm… ha

These are nice little tuos, I especially like the square shape of these. I put one in my xiying and after a quick rinse I did two steeps of about 20-30 seconds each and combined them in a glass cup. This is a fairly mellow shu… it has a lot of coffee flavor in my opinion, smooth but also a little bittersweet in the finish.

The second steep seemed to get a lot more mellow and also darker. It definitely doesn’t seem to have a lot of fishy or funky flavors like some shus can. The flavor started getting lighter around steep #5/6 which maybe means I should have steeped it a bit longer but I might be all puerh’ed out for this evening!

This would be a decent tuo to try, especially if you were ordering other stuff from Pure Puer…