2010 Dayi Gongtuo Pu-erh

I brewed this in my Yixing with boiling water for between 30 seconds and a minute. It is a rich, smooth and very robust young Shu. Hints of Mother Earth that will undoubtably improve with age. This tea is great on a rainy night. I would assume this would be a decent investment. The liquor is a dark red with a strong flavor. It satisfied this Shu drinker. The 3rd steep is more alive. It has a slight effervescence while numbing the mouth oh so lightly. It is getting cleaner and crisper.

I know a 2010 ripe puerh is a bit young to be drinking but I am greatly impressed at this quality and how it compares to a 2009 tuocha of the same label. This tea has no trace of any wo dui odor and off tastes in the brew and has a equally clean test to it. The only real notable difference from the 2009 version is that the smoothness is not as strong so I wonder if smoothness tends to develop more with age in ripe puerh. Anyway a great tea at half the price as the 2009 version which might be just as good as the 2009 version is now come 2012.

I thought I should finally get around to reviewing this shu as I’m half way through the tuo. The leaves I am using for this session are the bits and pieces that have collected in the wrapper and the box from breaking apart the toucha. Smooth and creamy is the first adjectives that come to mind. The smell of the dry leaves also has a sweet cream scent, which is accentuated when adding the dry leaves into a warmed yixing. After an initial rinse the warm leaves now have an essence of a library or or a used book store. The surprising thing to me is that even using the bits and broken pieces of the remnants of a dozen session the brew is still smooth and clean, the liquor is not a translucent red as with usual infusions, but cloudy. The infusion is every bit as fluid and viscous and flavorful as usual. Later infusions have a less creamy and more mineral quality, almost stone like not earthy so much as a quality of a glacial cirque filled with boulders, and granite escarpments with hints of moss and lichen. Not that I’ve ever hiked into a glacial cirque and eaten rocks or lichen, but that is the essence I feel as I drink. Wonderful.