Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Pu-Erh
Where to Buy: Cloudwalker Teas
Product Description:
This 15 year old sheng pu erh tea is hand-picked from tea trees growing in the wild of Yunnan province in China. If you are looking for a pu erh with a slightly wild flavour, this one is smooth, with a touch of roughness around the edges suggesting its ancestry. Much of the competition suggests the best pu erh tea comes from wild tea trees. What they don’t do is say that their pu erh teas are actually wild! This is the genuine article. A pu erh tea cultivated from wild tea trees in Yunnan province and aged in Taiwan.
Taster’s Review:
It surprises me how much I’m enjoying this Pu-Erh.
The flavor is remarkably smooth, but as the above product description suggests, it is a little rough around the edges. It has a very autumnal feel to it, it is rugged and somewhat masculine, but with a sweet undertone that lingers into the finish.
The aroma of this tea is quite earthy and I found it somewhat disconcerting before I took a sip. What I noticed is that if I inhale deeply before taking a sip, a strong, earthy essence arrives onto the palate. Since it is the earthy quality that I like least about Pu-Erh (I don’t actually dislike earthy flavors when they are delicate, but when they are quite strong, I find them somewhat off-putting), I do not inhale deeply for taking a sip of this tea. The earthy quality then becomes a mere trace of what it is when I do inhale deeply.
There is no bitterness to this Pu-Erh and I’m finding it exceptionally sweet that reminds me of burnt sugar caramel, and it lends itself well to the rustic appeal of this tea.
I can really feel myself “warming up” to Pu-Erh – in more than one sense! As this year comes to a close and the dawn of a new decade approaches, I am happy that I have finally shed much of my fear about Pu-Erh!
