This tea is 22 years old! Ancient…well in the context of tea definitely, right?
This puerh is shaped like a tuo/mushroom. Although I only have this sample I could already see the characteristics of the original shape due to the compressed and round part I got as a sample.
Some of you might ask yourself, does the shape matter. To be honest: I don’t know. I’ve asked myself the same whether puerh pressed into a brick-like shape is different than tuo-like shapes. I think there is a subtle difference. Since the tuo shape offers more surface, it will presumably also age differently.
But lets not get caught into details. We have a pretty old sheng on the table today. This is not the only thing that makes it precious, also Bulang usually lets the puerh price spike a little upwards. Being a analytical person I would actually be interested in doing a little cluster analysis on what “features” are most commonly pushing the price of puerh tea (age, origin, make,…). Something like this might come in the future, so stay tuned! ;)
The first steepings of this tea start off quite mild (I’ve the feeling that this is quite common for my descriptions - but I assure you I don’t copy & paste! :) )
As usual, if the tea starts off too mild (using 8g also as usual) I let it sit for a little longer. The result is amazing!
Some strong minerally notes are now present. A very subtle and pleasant astringency came into play too, which adds up to a interesting character: minerally/astringent, mild/spicy - yin and yang!
In later steepings some smokiness shows up, but its nothing that I found disturbing. Also some medicine-like notes show up.
Qi might be quite present. Although I am a little biased here listening to this wonderful piece Bach Cello Suite (no. 2 in D minor).
Is it a great tea? Yes! Would I buy the whole tuo? Probably not.
I actually forgot how “expensive” the tea was. And surprisingly it’s not so much 125$ for 250g. For Bulang and 2000 this is surprisingly cheap.
Still. For these “big names” it is not really what I expected.
Rating
3.5/5
Tasting Diagram
Statistics & Reference
- Brewing time
- Purchased for 4
- Vendor & Link