2011 YUNNAN SOURCING "MANG FEI" AGED MAO CHA MINI RAW PU-ERH TEA CAKE

Overall the flavor is a bit mild, yet the first 2 infusions often have decent flavor strength.

Brewing about 3 grams of this one in a competition tasting set right now.
Wet leaves after the wash have a wonderful damp forest smell.
Yummy semi-aged flavor with sour fruit notes.
Floral elements in the aroma. Fresh mouth feel.
Only slightly smoky on first infusions.
Note that the leaves were aged in mao cha form for 5 years before pressing. This is apparently a great way to speed up the aging process.

Overall seems like a good value currently at $4.50 for 100 grams.
Its nice to be able to buy a a whole cake at only 100 grams.

A great way to start a rainy and cold morning. The tea is brewing quite thick with a good mouth-feel and returning apricot/peach/woody flavour for a few minutes after sipping. Even though the tea has obviously aged a fair bit I am getting a good amount of bitterness.

I remember when I first tried the tea a few years ago I thought there wasn’t that much going on with it, though I did find it to be a clean crisp tea, so put it on the pile to drink through quickly. More recently it seems to have turned a corner (or my brewing has) and although not overly complex there does seem to be plenty going on with it to keep me interested.

I enjoyed this tea. I think it deserves a higher rating than it gets. I noticed some smoke flavor in the early infusions and some sweet flavor later, even the sheng apricot notes. I drank some of the infusions straight and put sweetener in others. Even in the infusions I drank straight I noticed the pronounced natural sweetness, or apricots notes. I used sugar in some of the ones I sweetened and even tried maple flavored agave nectar in another. It was a little too sweet this way. Even in the early infusions this was not bitter. This was s smooth tea throughout the session.This was a tea with a noticeable effect on me. I didn’t get tea drunk but was quite relaxed. I took this one out of the pumidor and I think my cakes are beginning to age. I hadn’t drank this one before so I really can’t make a comparison but that is my feeling. It was quite good in the end.

I steeped the hell out of this tea. I brewed it ten times in a 140ml Yixing teapot with 5g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 10 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, 2 min, 5 min, 10 min and 20 min. There was more to the leaf when I was done but I will want to move on top something else tomorrow so I didn’t save the leaves. There was a noticeable fall off in strength and flavor by the 10th steep but I think the tea had at least two more steeps to it.

This is a nice slightly aged sheng, and pretty economical. It brews a deep fall orange and has a mixture of dry and juicy flavors. It can be pretty bitter if brewed with lots of leaf, and must have been a real bruiser when it was young. Light camphor flavor, peach, sandalwood, tobacco, walnut, and fall leaves are the flavors/scents that come to mind.

This is the first tasting note I’ve posted for quite a while now, and it feels good to be back on Steepster. I like the new interface, and it’s great to see that the pu’erh loving community here has expanded.

This little cake is pretty tightly compressed. I broke out the needle and the flat blade to get into this one. The leaf pried off are smaller than most sheng leaves. The dry aroma is almost an oak woody scent. I did 8 grams in the yixing with a 5 second rinse. The wet leaf had an almost metallic scent to it. The first infusion of about 10 seconds yielded a dark amber color. It has a very light scent to it with a good hard hit in the flavor department. It is an upfront slightly bitter and astringent note with hints of pine and the familiar tingle of the camphor from the tea. It has a nice thick sense in the mouth. It is not an overly complex tea but it leaves a nice mouthwatering sweetness to it. The flavor notes carry on for a while after drinking a few sips of this. Nice and upfront and no beating around the bush with this one. Punchy ,upfront and drinkable to be as young as it is.