Nice looking cake with consistent leaf size on the smallish side, plenty of silvery tips in it. It is lightly compressed, and a breeze to break off a needed quantity.
The first thing that jumps out at me in the wet leaf is an intense savory, meaty aroma, almost like some luncheon meat or salami. There’s a whiff of leather in there. Visually the wet leaf looks respectable with a good mixture of leaf sizes.
The liquor is light orange with a greenish hue. On the mouth it is slightly thick, nothing near a satisfying, velvety liquid, but it is there.
Not big on aroma but also with very little bitterness. Quite minty on the throat with a fast and big hui gan and appropriately big and fast cha qi.
Later infusions get flower notes criss-crossed with wood and smoke leaving a puckery aftertaste for a long time.
All in all a very nice cake, slightly better than the economy grade tuos of Xiaguan or Haiwan but I’m not buying the Ancient Tree moniker. Looks like a plantation tea, perhaps blended with a minuscule amount of old tree leaves. Nevertheless it is an enjoyable plantation tea and a cheap one for an 2006 produced cake.
