240 Tasting Notes
Oh the sweetness of this tea, how it lifts my day. The first two steeps of this tea are pure, viscous and sweet silvery delight. Downright juicy. Bright, clean strawberry and white sugar, mingled amongst orchid and lily floral notes. Not as grassy, hay-like, or complex as certain sources I’ve sampled, but incredibly clean, dazzlingly bright, and with a superb level of sweetness on the forefront. My only real criticism of this tea is that it thins out in the third and fourth steeps a bit more than I would like. Gives a glowing, warm, fresh qi.
I’m nearing the end of the final steeps of a multi-day session with this tea and I must say I’m impressed. While the Bada forgettable, the Bulang smokey but cooked, and the Menghai static, this cake came across as rich and deep. A clean bright yellow soup gave a sumptuous texture of fine linen, soft peach fuzz, and cooked apple flesh. Bright grassiness danced between unripe strawberries and peach pits. Light, airy, and full of clean fruits and dry pithy grass. This tea seemed very alive, complex, and mature. It would seem a quite apt candidate for aging, I believe. Fine work.
I’ve had this tea for a while now and have never taken the time to put some thoughts behind it, perhaps because my experience with this particular tea has been difficult and somewhat vapid. The occasions on which I brewed this tea properly were sparse and despite persistent cold storage, the tea lost it’s edge over the winter. When lively, it did give an electric yellow-green soup, dry, with lots of grass, kelp and mineral presence. Theanine was particularly strong. With age, it gave a resinous pine character and became more bitter. In the end, this tea may have been too finicky for my attention or experience level and not deep or juicy enough to warrant a re-visit.
My sample was from the core of the bing, so it was compressed tighter than steel and composed, seemingly, of dust. This was not an appealing cake from the get go. The first few steeps were scattered and blurry, with plenty of green bitterness, some light melon, and a dapple of honey. It produced one of the paler soups I’ve seen in sheng and had light aromatics. Smoothing over towards the middle of the session, the confusion ebbed to blandness, with a plain white sugar and cream of wheat character dominating. Unexciting.
I think this tea might be a good example of my naivete when it comes to pu’er. Others have reviewed it quite favorably, but I found it expressionless. Certainly, my palate will continue to calibrate. Perhaps this cake is to the strong, more intense cakes, as a cool fresh pint of Mild Ale might be to a dense Barleywine, quieter, but nonetheless enjoyable and wholly thirst-quenching and satisfying.
A completely different beast than Bada, the Peacock of Bulang is a very thick and robust creature. Immediately, smoke comes through. A hint of the pine-scented Lapsang shows up in the first steep, and unlike the often coarse cigarette-like smokiness of the Xiaguan teas, this is cleaner, richer, and more enjoyable. As someone who appreciates the hearty Bambergian rauchbiers, I find the rustic hill quality of this tea enjoyable. As the leaf opens up, it yields a really dark orange soup, a bit murky. Normally, an associated strong oxidized hongchaesque tannic bitterness would dominate, but it’s subtle and not unbearable. Otherwise the tea is clean, complex, hearty, and satisfying. The chaqi is smooth, settling, and warm.
Mmmm… raw pu erh! But the one raw pu erh I’ve had tasted nothing like Lapsang Souchong and was not murky. Interesting.
They all vary. The Peacock of Bada tasted nothing like Lapsang and was very clear and pale. It all depends on the batch to batch processing.
Hmmm… That worries me…
I have an unsteady relationship with this tea and I think it has to do with its’ delicate brewing nature. For starters, a good cup with this one requires a mountain of tea. Piling on the leaf, I get a good juicy cup with a brief steep at the traditional 180F mark. Straw, banana skin, apricot, and dry leafy greens come through. It gets a nip fishy in the back of the throat, but I like that in certain teas. Play nice with this one and you’ll get a decent soup.
A perplexing sheng, for sure. The cake had intense, iron-fisted compression that made flaking new leaves difficult. The opening aroma was a stellar display of fresh strawberries. Unfortunately, this character quickly faded. The first three steeps were thin, dry soups of green-tea-like grassiness, a faint hint of bile, and some raw grains. Around the fourth steep, the soup thickened up and gave a very generic sweetness, losing raw edges, but not gaining much depth. I’m not in much hurry to return to this one.
I’m really impressed with the leaf quality on this tea. Wonderful, whole fuzzy buds twist nicely and yield a succulent brew. Very juicy and sweet up front, with grassier dry notes developing in a few later steeps. Strawberry, yellow plums, and pumpkin butter are all good descriptors. This tea carries some endurance and should be steeped briefly many times. A tea that’s just a bit nicer than a solid daily drinking green.
