Fengqing Ancient Tree Spring Chun Jian Raw Pu-erh Cake Tea 2012

My favourite tea for now! Such a nice, honey taste, it’s the tea that got my gf into puerhs :)

117/365

I can smell menthol, and I can just about taste menthol, and that was the first surprise for me with this tea. If it’s subtle in terms of menthol flavour, though, it certainly posesses the effect in quantity – my lips are tingly, and it has the same cooling effect mint tea has for me. Who knew?

In my head, I was expecting this to be a bit like the other Fengqing raw pu’erhs I’ve tried, none of which I’ve particularly enjoyed. This one, though, is more than a little different. It has the underlying brassy flavour I most associate with raw pu’erh (at least of this variety) but it’s also somehow fresher and cleaner. The menthol plays a large part in creating that effect, obviously, but it’s more than that too. It’s like spring leaves as opposed to autumn leaves – it tastes greener, less earthy, brighter.

As ever, this probably isn’t something I’d want to keep around long term. I think on balance raw pu’erh just isn’t really my thing, but this is one of the more palatable I’ve tried.

Brewed at 203˚F this time. Much smoother, mellow taste with no astringency. Flavour remains very subtle but it’s much more enjoyable. Still not as memorable as the 2007 Palace Ripened Pu Er, but much better than my first experience with this tea.

Updated Rating: 80

Rinsed once for 2s. Unfortunately I didn’t read the instructions and brewed this with boiling water. It tasted astringent (not burnt) but the flavour was very light after brewing for 30s. Tasted slightly herbal, not objectionable. This tea smelled better (more mellow, more soothing, less sharp) than the 2007 ripe Pu Er I tried previously, but the taste is nothing special.

Second infusion at 212˚F, 50s tasted horribly bitter and astringent. Probably overbrewed it badly. I will make sure to brew the remainder of my sample at 203˚F.

Initial Rating: 72

Short infusions of 10-15 secs in a clay pot produces a light amber liquor that is sweet, mildly earthy, mildly bitter, and woody with a slowly developing astringency. Long infusions of 30 secs+ produce a liquor that is not intensely flavored, but sharply bitter, rosinous, and drying. This sheng evokes a damp forest atmosphere.

Edit: I revised the rating up. I am getting some nice cha qi from this.

Beautiful raw pu erh, with a wonderful smell and sweet taste. You can feel honey aftertaste.

My first raw pu er, so I don’t have anything to compare but I like it. I steeped it at least 12 times, from 10 secs to more than 3 minutes. The leaves are beautiful. At the second and third step the astringency is quite strong, but then it gets more soft. It was a day home working and kids watching and this nice tea gave me all the required energy !

I put 10g of this into a gaiwan to steep. That was a bad idea – I should have just stuck to using half that.

Here’s why:

http://booksandtea.ca/2015/07/tea-review-fengqing-ancient-tree-spring-chun-jian-raw-pu-erh-cake-tea-2012-from-teavivre/

Tastes great but i cant stomach it. This stuff is rough for me

This was a very strange tasting for me. I previously brewed this and I remember it being a delicious experience. This time around it wasn’t as enticing. The dry leaves have a beautiful appearance. With full twisted stems and leaves, this forest green tea had me hooked. It was speckled with blonde tips and silver hairs. With its aging it had deepened and became a darker colour. I was very excited to steep this in my sheng Yixing. I used less grams because of the size of the leaves. Upon being steeped, the aroma of spinach and wet sage filled the air. There were undertones of lychee and artichoke inside the pot. I began my first round and the flavor was very nulled. The only consistent prominence with this brew was the sheng mouth feel. It had a very dominant menthol sheng flavor each steep. Other than that flavor though, it was mostly a faint grassy taste. I could hint at a light earth taste but otherwise it was nill. This brew was flat and I had no more success each steep. The qi was rather weakened. The soup was still pleasurable but the flavor was very lacking.

I haven’t had many “raw” puerh teas, but I think that I don’t care for them.

I’ve done 2 steeps and a rinse, and even though I’m keeping the times shorter (10-30 seconds), there’s a bite to the end of the sip and a weird smokiness to the taste.

TBH, it smells REALLY good. Like wood and a green forest. The dry leaves smell amazing as well. But the bitterness is just not something I ever want in the teas I drink. This is why I prefer lower temperatures for steeping my black teas. Astringency? Fine. Bitterness? Milk, please. But milk would really not go with the foresty cedar mineral flavour of this.

I’ll do a couple more steeps, but I don’t think it will (by my tastebuds) improve.

http://instagram.com/p/w2-oQKx5BF/