Ancient Tree Dragon Ball Raw Pu-erh Tea

From Meowster a while ago!  Thanks so much!  I haven’t had any sheng in ages.  It was time to steep this up.  Raw pu-erh rolled into the shape of a ball, wrapped in something like tissue paper.  After all these years, sheng is still tough for me to describe but I’ll try.  There is a drying effect. The second cup simply tastes like MINERALS.  And more MINERALS.   The third steep is much of the same.  It certainly isn’t getting bitter at all. The basket infuser is almost FULL of unraveled leaves.  I like this, I just feel like I’m sometimes bored with sheng as my palate isn’t doing well enough at finding these flavors , or probably I shouldn’t be steeping them Western?  Luckily Meowster only sent me two of these babies, so much wasn’t wasted on my palate.
Steep #1 // 1 dragon ball for full mug// 33 minutes after boiling // rinse // 30 second steep
Steep #2 // 30 minutes after boiling  // 30 second steep   
Steep #3 //  32 minutes after boiling  // 40 second steep

More tea packages rolling in. Free sample from TeaVivre. Happy days hehe.

I love their sample packaging, the tiny bags with detailed instructions, even recommended storage instructions. When I opened it, it was a single dark green tightly hand-rolled ball, wrapped with cotton paper with ribbon. Cute :D. The ball weighed 7 grams.

I followed TeaVivre’s suggestion, and glad I did. That odd decrease in time in the 4th steep, probably helped with controlling the bitterness in the 4th and 5th steep. I used a porcelain gaiwan, 110ml, ~203℉, 1 pc, 10 steeps: 5s rinse, 80s, 70s, 60s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 110s. The bright yellow liquor with green tints had an aroma of pekoe and hay. It was smooth, good mouthfeel, very little astringency throughout the steeps. The 1st and 2nd steep was nice, extremely mellow, hints of stonefruit notes, similar to their moonlight raw pu-erh… Then the 3rd steep was strong bitter with very little sweetness, but then as I journeyed on, the 4th was less bitter and by the 5th steep it was very pleasant because the sweetness entered, bitterness really subdued and balanced, the 6th-10th was enjoyable. Recommended if you don’t mind a bitter phase, otherwise, hard pass.

It was complex because I felt like the tea was leading me on a journey to find that perfect balance between the honey sweetness, stonefruits, light floral and the bitterness. The sweetness would linger on my tongue after the bitterness enters and leaves quickly. Interesting tea.

1 tea ball used.

Deep apricot tone in the flavour which trails into the aftertaste. Light floral and grassy notes.

Review long overdue as promised…. Sample provided for review, which is based on the second of the two balls. I used my own parameters rather than the website’s. Brewed the 6.3g ball in a gongfu session, using 105ml zitao jianshui pot, at boiling water. Rinsed for a few seconds, rested for a few minutes. Steeping times: 10 seconds, 20, 15, 20, 20, 30, 40, 50; 1 minute, 5.

The dry leaf has a very light floral and sweet aroma. After letting the ball sit in the pre-heated pot, I smell more complex aroma that is buttery, sweet, and youthfully bitter. Again, not very strong. The wet leaf aroma, in contrast, is much more fragrant: stronger youthful bitterness, sweet, tart with citrus zest, and herbal-like with oregano.

The soup has a dark gold color, surprisingly dark having been presumably pressed in mid-2017. This sheng – made out of Jinggu material, fyi – is difficult to brew. The odd steeping times from the website didn’t work out for, but my personal familiar parameters didn’t work out either. It probably could have used longer and fewer steeping times in spite of the ratio not being that low (about 1:16), though 10 infusions is fine.

The first three infusions are somewhat cloudy. It took till the fourth infusion clear up completely and to really get on the ball with flavor and texture. The young bitterness is medium – not soft, but not a punch in the face. Young sweetness is also present. Good balance. I also taste lemon/citrus. The texture is creamy. The soup itself smells like mandarins. Huigan is at its strongest in infusions four through six, the last of which also fills the mouth with a minty flavor. The sweetness becomes an under-flavor in seven and eight. Bitter, vegetal notes take over. Huigan decreases in intensity. Texture loses creaminess but is still thick. The ninth infusion has nearly lost all flavor. A final five-minute steeping produces a heavily bitter soup with light huigan.

As for qi, my head felt stuffed early on in the session. Couldn’t concentrate on reading… I had to take a break to eat something.

Not the most enjoyable young sheng. The wet leaf aroma was complex and lovely, and I liked drinking the very middle infusions. I might be curious of how this could age 20 years down the line.

Received a sample ball of this probably over a year ago but forgot about it. Rediscovered it today and decided to give it a try. I placed the full 6.5g ball into my 90mL jianshui and brewed it up.

I gave it two rinses steeps to let the leaves open up. Once open, the leaves brew a medium yellow and tastes slightly bitter but moderately sweet. Light apricot taste alongside green wood and generic “sheng-y-ness.”

This is a decent tea; above average for balls/mini tuos but not particularly special

Received from the 2016 Black Friday sampler box. Very cute and very pretty, but as the tea opens up, there are many broken leaves. There is the hinting of an apricot sweetness, but a heavy and somewhat bitter body and aftertaste tends to mask it. It is quite astringent and unfortunately, not quite my cup of tea :)