1980s Xiaguan 8653 Traditional characters
Pu-erh Tea by The Essence of Tea
This is a well stored example of Xiaguan’s famous ‘Traditional Characters’ iron cake. The storage has been good – not too dry and not too humid, with a shiny surface on the leaves of the cake & just the slightest of white specks. The taste is smooth and rich with a clean flavour and good huigan. The chaqi is also very nice.
I recently tasted another of these cakes that, although slightly cheaper, had been stored too dryly – there was still some astringency in the unmistakable Xiaguan taste. This cake, with slightly more humid sotrage has lost all this astringency, but retained a complex flavour profile that changes well during the infusions.
