Mengku Arbor Tree Ripened Puerh Cake Tea ZhenMu LingYa 2007

This was one of the free samples I received from Teavivre.

Writers’ Group meets at my house every other Thursday. On some of the first meetings, I hesitantly offered tea because I didn’t know if they would like it. They loved it, and now it is a very big part of group. We drink VAST amounts…so much that I got to use the new German phrase I just taught my daughter (we homeschool), “Ich muß pinkeln.” No translation needed, yes?

I asked one member if she had any special requests for tonight, and she said she wanted the tea that makes her tummy feel better. A couple of weeks ago she told me that she has a lot of digestive issues and usually has a lot of trouble eating meat as she just can’t seem to process it. Then she noticed that she could eat almost anything for several days each time we had tea together.

So tonight’s tummy tea was this! She and I sniffed the dry tea. She was a little scared as it had a really horsey smell. We both like shu puerh though, so she didn’t mind trying it. We actually steeped it western style in an 18 ounce pot, and I think we ended up making 6 or 7 steeps.

The liquor was dark, as in almost inky! It looked like I was handing out cups of coffee. Everyone looked a little scared at first, but everyone loved it. The horsey aroma was absent from the steeped tea and instead there was a nice, earthy puerh taste. The tea had a lot of body, which in a puerh comes across to me as a cedar flavored oiliness. It coated my mouth. There was little aftertaste, but a real sweet, smoothness following. The man in our group, whose wife is Asian and drinks more bitter greens that he doesn’t care for, remarked on the sweet, smooth taste of this, and said he liked how there was no bite at the end.

The first steep was about one minute but the second went much longer as I got distracted. The remaining steeps were all between one and two minutes. Even the forgotten steep did not get bitter or unpalatable. This is a very forgiving, very nice puerh, and I am glad my friend (Hi, Marshain!) is going to have a happy tummy for a few days.

Thank you, Teavivre! This was lovely, and I look forward to the remaining sample!

Wow a Teavivre Pu Erh that no one else has reviewed. I feel honoured to be the first :)

I’m full of Chinese food now and I rummaged in my bag to find my sample of this. It’s in a rather large silver sealed bag instead of the usual Teavivre sample bags and I can feel that the tea is a large piece of cake. That sounds nice … a large piece of cake. It would see I have more than one stomach, one for Chinese food and one for puddings.

Anyway I opened the bag and pulled out this large piece of broken off cake. It weighs 21g so I’m going to have to half it. There we are I now have 10g in my Gongfu. It’s a mixture of dark and medium browns in colour with a rich and slightly smoky fragrance.

Tea:10g 5 steeps:30s,1m,2m,3m,4m 100ºC/212ºF

The table above was taken from the Teavivre website so I will try following those rules, if it’s too strong then I will lower the steeping times.

Steep 1 – 30 seconds
The colour is reddy brown similar to mahogany and it smells sweet, woody, earthy but fresh. The flavour is actually quite subtle, it’s fresh and light but it has a mature sort of taste.

Steep 2 – 1 minute
The colour now is almost black and looks like cola. It tastes earthy and thick, a little sweet and woody to. Despite it’s strength it’s still fresh and smooth. The quality is starting to make itself known and I’m impressed so far.

Steep 3 – 2 minutes
It still keeps increasing in strength but remains smooth and rich but fresh. For being ripe there is still a sweetness there and no harshness at all like some lower quality Pu Erh has. This is smooth all the way with that sort of caramel finish. Smoky, woody caramel.

Steep 4 – 3 minutes
The caffeine has made me a little tea drunk, it’s pretty awesome. It’s still the same colour as cola. The sweetness is increasing but not as much as some Pu Erh, this really has balanced perfectly.

Steep 5 – 4 minutes
In a few words this tea is: rich, sweet, woody, earthy, smooth, light, fresh, mellow, smoky and a little fruity. The strength has weakened a little in this steep but I think it would easily hold for another few.

I think this is the best ripe Pu Erh I have ever tasted. It’s not heavy or bitter which is what I was expecting and it was also very consistent throughout. Delicious.

Another fine sample from the folks at Teavivre :)

The dry leaves are small and tippy with lots of golden buds.

The initial infusions come out very dark, the little leaves are very potent. Despite the dark brew, the tea is extremely smooth with an almost marshmallowy texture. It has flavors of oak and milk chocolate, with a very slight smokiness.

Around the fourth steep the brew gets a bit lighter, with more sweetness and a mellow flavor like yellow squash on the rich, woody background. Flavors begin to fade at the sixth steep. This is less than I usually get, maybe because of the tippy-er leaves giving off most of their flavor early on?

This is a mild and mellow pu’erh with a sweet, friendly taste, but to me it didn’t seem to have a whole lot of depth.

My husband made this up and found it to be very tasty but unfortunately, I wasn’t around. Fortunately, I have one more sample, so will review it soon.