Grizzly Brown 2006 Meng Hai Tu Si Ripe Puer

Got a sample of this thanks to Liquid Proust. I found it very smooth and enjoyable. Another reviewer has it pegged when they said topsoil. The longer you steep this, the more earthy flavors come out. I was able to get about 12 infusions before the flavors faded. For the price this seems like a good value.

Got this tea as part of a sampler from LiquidProust. I really liked this one.

The scent had a lot of wet hay/damp soil notes, which I have come to associate with pu’erh.

The flavor is delicious, with a silky, full body.

This is the last of my Liquid Proust puerh sampler, and I have to say that it’s been an interesting ride. Thank you so very much LP!

If this experience has taught me anything, it’s how to identify a shou and a sheng by sight, taste, and smell. This one’s definitely a shou. Its fermenty flavor seems to have mostly aged out. The flavors I am getting are slightly tangy, a little old leather, and wet, earthy leaves. Actually, it tastes pretty similar to how it looks, which is a first for me.

Quoting haveteawilltravel here, because I can’t get any closer than this:

The flavor begins dry and with a drought earth flavor. This taste progresses to an old leather and top soil. The flavors keep a consistent smooth dry bite with some wet clay and rainwater flavors arising later on.

First shou for me! Thanks LP!

I’ve been interested in this company and this puerh made its way over to me. The brick is loosely compressed and very twiggy. I can pick up a heavy wood tone with some sweet earthiness. I warmed up my gaiwan and placed a chunk inside. The scent deepens to a smooth petrichor and some intense leather scents. I washed the leaves once and poked around to help expansion. The soup was thick but light crimson. The flavor begins dry and with a drought earth flavor. This taste progresses to an old leather and top soil. The flavors keep a consistent smooth dry bite with some wet clay and rainwater flavors arising later on. The leaf is very large and is pretty durable for a huangpian. Later steeping reflect a sweet dark fruit taste. This brew lasts for quite some time, but it was a little to dry for my tastes. This is a typical run of the mill Menghai Shu. It wasn’t terrible, but it was nothing too impressive.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEMrT6pTGba/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Quick Review, Via Dark Matter 2016

I had had this tea for two days. Despite my attempt to write whilst drinking, I had spent a majority of the first session reading a book. The second session was spent on the phone with school and preparing games for my students’ last day of school….However, as always, I had written a few words on a piece of scrap paper.

Light, woody, wet earth, reminds me of the Fall season (I’ll have to remember to grab some of this then), and a touch of hay(?).

Now, the first day, the tea seemed to be pretty light in flavor and color.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFm84iqg-3O/

Yet, on the second day (longer steeps), I could look at the liquid and say that I thought it looked like coffee (but it hadn’t tasted nor smelled like coffee. Heh) because it was so dark.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFoZ9gkA-xN/

Overall, it was pretty good. Not the absolute favorite of the group, but I was happy to have it for two days.

Fresh wood, brown sugar and honey on first steep
A little added smoke after a couple of steeps
Also a slight amount of tartness after a steep or two, which quickly went away
Fresh Dough flavor on the later steeps
Mineral aftertaste became more visible on later steeps
Brown sugar again on the last few steeps
Silky mouthfeel
Very Pleasant overall
3g 60ml in 110ml gaiwan 205F-Boiling No rinse, Flash steeps for the first few, then increased. Somewhere between 10 and 15 steeps, didn’t count.

From 2016 Dark Matter:

Had this in a gaiwan, eyeballed amount, boiling to slightly under boiling water, 1 rinse.

This tea came as a nice large flake. The leaves seem to be in larger pieces. This brewed up with a dark red/orange hue like a red tea and not the dark tea sort of compost brown.

1st couple of steeps was pretty much standard earth flavor I expect from shou with no outstanding funk that I could tell. There’s some brine there as well. Later steeps continue to be mellow and have a bit of mineral bite at the end. The ending steeps once they started to get pale actually had a sweet flavor along with the minerals.

This was pleasant. Lots of flavor without being weak and nothing objectionable. It would make a good everyday baseline ripe.

The leaves in this tea were huge, it seemed to me, once they opened. I brewed this gong fu the first several steeps (maybe 5, I lost count), and thought there was a bit of an earthy medicinal taste to these steeps. Still rich and smooth, but with an after taste. Then I put the large leaves in my go cup and steeped for 20 minutes on the way to work (removed the leaves when I got there, I’ll see if there is another steep in them yet). Is this a different tea? Now it is mellow with a smoky campfire note at the end. I’ve had this kind of different brew experience with one other puerh when I brewed it grandpa style in a different go cup.

So, I have been trying a lot of new teas lately, and though some of them have been very good I am a little behind on tasting notes. Between work and family tea always seems to find its place but writing about it sometimes gets left behind. This tea however made me stop to get the computer so that I wouldn’t forget to make note of it.

I have been drinking tea for years now and up to this point I hadn’t found a shu pu erh that I had cared for. I have never been opposed to them, but with so much great tea out there to spend time on none of them ever grabbed my attention enough to make me want to pursue the style. I wouldn’t have bought one now but I received this tea as a sample with a recent order of a sheng from Bitterleaf Teas.

This tea is wonderful. It completely caught me by surprise. It brews very clean and the flavors that come forth are distinct and clear. To me it tastes like the smell of a clearing in a forest when the dew breaks late into the night. It reminds me so clearly of walking around sleepy campsites after long nights at the music festivals I went to when I was young, of the smoldering campfires and wet earth just as early morning light begins to break. It is sweet and deep and woody and wet. This flavor combination is crossing some wire in my amygdala that is deeply nostalgic and gives me a great sense of anticipation.

It is late and I have a suspicion this review may not be very clear when I read it in the morning, but I am sure that the emotional impact of this tea will stay with me. And now I am considering purchasing a kilo brick of a ripe pu erh…