"Heart of the Old Tree" Sheng Pu'er 2012

I chose four puerh teas for Christmas from my hubby. Three were shu puerh, and one was a sheng.
Furthermore, this is a very young sheng. I chose it because I thought it would have tons of potential for aging based on its origins, and I confess also because the paper wrapper is beautiful and I love that a friend of Garret lent her talents and designed it!

I think the papers wrapped around puerh are beautiful. Perhaps they also look exotic to me because the language is completely mystifying! There are no letters we can pick out similar to ours, so no hope of finding a word or two similar to English or other languages we may speak. The message on the wrapper is a complete mystery to me! I save my wrappers because I hope to one day cover a tea chest in them.

Concerning wrappers, I also will probably never qualify to be a puerh con artist. You know, those people who buy expensive puerh, keep it, and wrap the nice wrapper around a cheap puerh and sell it for a lot of money? Well, I wouldn’t, but I also couldn’t, because I can never get the wrapper back on the cake with the beautiful tight pleats that it had to begin with! Deft and nimble hands wrapped these cakes! Maybe with practice….

I took Garret’s suggestion and poured some boiling water into my little pot. After the pot had warmed a moment, I poured out the water and added the leaf to the empty pot. I put the lid on for a few seconds and then lifted it and sniffed. Root vegetables! Rutabagas, I think! I am going to try this with a lot of my teas.

I gave the leaves a thirty second steep. There is still the root vegetable aroma, but it is milder and it isn’t “biting” at all. The liquor is a pale golden yellow. The flavor matches the aroma rather well. I am drinking the third steep now and there has been no diminishing of flavor. I think this would also be great with food.

I am really excited to be moving forward in my puerh journey. I hope to live a long time so I can try this tea over many years and see how it matures. I must say it is a well-behaved child, though. :)

Thank you, Garret and mrmopar, for helping me choose my Christmas tea!

I’m by no means a sheng expert but this is a really nice raw pu-erh, down to the lovely paper it comes in.

I did a quick rinse and then ended up steeping this for around 45 seconds. I’m getting a very vegetal taste, kind of bold and assertive like a gunpowder tea but with a slightly effervescent or fizzy taste on the tongue. It does have the slight sourness I’ve come to associate with young shengs and also has a woodsy flavor.

My second steep, I meant to steep it for a short period of time but I ended up forgetting about it. It was a little too strong to drink!

My third steep is a little bit better, it’s now starting to get kind of mellow and sweeter but still with the vegetal quality. I think it has a hint of smokiness too. I think this will age really well but don’t know if I will be able to keep it long enough to age!

I notice Garret’s tasting note claims this tea is good for stagnancy and the heart meridian, it definitely seems to be waking me up and helping me to feel calm and entered. I am not a morning person and suffer from sleepiness a lot so this has gotten me right and chipper!

I need to go but will enjoy a few more steeps of it this afternoon. It’s a lovely sheng.