One of the joys of pu’er is exploring the various terroirs of Yunnan. Hekai is right in the middle of all those regions in Menghai county that tend to be overpriced, and perhaps even over harvested. This tea seems to defy all of that—it’s inexpensive relative to 2015’s maocha prices (still at $36 for 200 g!) and quite pungent. Really, Hekai is where you can get the pu’er version of quality dry chardonnay.
The leaves on this cake are mostly highly fragrant, silvery plump buds. The aroma is dynamic and evolves with each steep—making it hard to place initially (perhaps sweet pistachio?). Around the 5th steep I smelled roasted peanuts. This is wonderfully full-bodied with a pleasurable mouthfeel, potent qi, nice huigan, and a bittersweet, dry chardonnay-like aftertaste that stays for quite some time.
Key flavors are cotton candy, moscato grapes, broccoli rabe and mustard greens, and in that order. It starts to fade at steep 7, but the leaves still give tasty cups of tea until they fade completely at steep 13 or so. What a great value!
