This review is for the 2005 Menghai Brick which was part of Toby’s Curated Puerh Box #003. I’ve found this to be an interesting and rewarding tea so far. The first time I tried it, I was pretty lukewarm about it, but each time I’ve tried it since, I have found a greater appreciation for it. After rinsing, the leaves have a slightly camphorous aroma, with some fruit and maybe just a bit of leather as well.
The first couple steeps can be a bit sour, especially if overbrewed – kind of that leather note coming out of the tea. Thankfully that doesn’t last long, and if managed properly, isn’t really present at all. The highlight of this tea in terms of flavor would have to be the fruitiness. I have a lot of trouble identifying what sort of fruitiness it is, but it’s present throughout the majority of any given session with this tea. I at first said it reminded me of Dates, but I’m not sure it’s quite that dark/low. Another person who got this tea told me they tasted strawberry in it, an assertion which seems out of place for an aged sheng (in my experience anyways), but which I have a hard time disagreeing with.
The texture is pleasantly thick, but I wouldn’t call it oily or creamy. There is good longevity to the session, in part I’m sure because the tea was pressed rather compactly into a brick. This is also slightly frustrating, because I find it near impossible to get my chunks to break all the way apart without some added assistance from a puerh pick in the teapot. I haven’t really picked up much qi from this tea in any of my sessions – a bit of a gentle buzzy feeling maybe, but could just be a day I was drinking multiple teas back to back.
This tea seems to have seen pretty clean storage, as I don’t taste any hint of humidity or funk. I definitely enjoyed this one more in my Jianshui clay pot than in a gaiwan. Not sure if it was just the forced longer steep times (due to slow pour) or if the clay tempered a bit of the sourness I experienced in the first few steeps, or what. I’m still figuring out what kind of an effect this pot has on teas. It often seems to give them a thicker mouthfeel, but again that could be a result of the slow pour-time. After tasting this one, I’m pretty excited to get into the rest of the teas which Toby included.
