2011 Yunnan Menghai Dayi Meng Song Teardrop Raw Puer Tea

Price: £27.80 ($42.53) / 250g in box.

5g in Gaiwan.
75/100
On a good day: 82/100
On a bad day: 65/100

Hot gaiwan: Smouldering wood.
Wet: Dry, dusty, smokey, dark fruit.

Summary: Clear, swelling raisin sweetness is joined by honey sweetness to give a floral profile. Not concentrated herbal here. It does have a stimulating grip. The number of steeps it gives is fairly limited.
The problem with this tea is it’s a bit hit and miss when brewing. Some days it has an excellent honey sweetness I’ve not come across, then other days it is flat and fairly plain and mildly astringent. However, it was worth buying to taste that honey sweetness.

5s – Med orange; slightly cloudy. Mild raisins; very gentle bitterness; light body. A bit thin.
15s – Med orange/gold. Thicker. Raisin sweetness swells, and a honey sweetness sparkling returns.
20s – Med orange/gold. Not so much honey sweetness this time. I think it wants brewing longer for that.
30s – Med orange/gold. Honey and floral. The returning sweetness is there.

https://instagram.com/p/7svP9EIDsVIbVDF9_w_lvnJPDbkk3XFUasAwc0/?taken-by=tea_1234
https://instagram.com/p/7swl0ioDudXsMjeziLcM_5N82CGyAFyxXZYSU0/?taken-by=tea_1234

This tea is an interesting sheng. The color of the leaves were dark black. The tea liquid was light orange in color by the second steep. Perhaps you would describe it as dark yellow. There was an initial bitter character that took a while to disperse. Even in the twelfth steep there was some bitterness. The tea did develop some sweetness to it but I would not describe it as apricots or stonefruits. There was also a smoky character to the tea, deep but not biting. This smoky character remained to some degree even in steep twelve. I also believe I detected the beginning of an aged flavor if that is a good way to describe it, or perhaps I was just tasting the smoke, I don’t know. This was an enjoyable tea that had aged a fair bit, despite being only a 2011 tea. This was also a strong tea, even in steep twelve it had a nice golden color to it. I think this one would easily go twenty steeps if I had any desire to continue past twelve. I don’t usually take a puerh past eight or ten. This is also the first Meng Song raw tea I have tried. I have not delved much into specific regions and don’t know if a smoky character is common to Meng Song teas or if that is from the processing.

I steeped this twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 9.1g leaf and 200 degree water. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min.