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“Gongfu! A nice Friday morning/afternoon session at work to round out my day – I brought this one in from home because I was craving shou (and I don’t keep any in my work stash) and when I opened up...” Read full tasting note
There are a few things a good shou puer should be: clean, thick and especially smooth.
Pressed before we existed (as a company), this re-wrapped shou puer is made from 2012 Jingmai material that was originally labelled as “gushu”. You can look at the price and decide if that makes sense or not, but in the meantime we’ll just drop that and call it 2012 Jingmai.
Gushu or not, we don’t care. This tea is smooth as smooth. It has a pleasant flavour with no off tastes, as any good semi-aged shou should. And while fragrance is not always a standout quality for shou, this one performs very well in that regard, giving you something to grab onto in all ranges.
Company description not available.
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Yunnan SourcingGongfu!
A nice Friday morning/afternoon session at work to round out my day – I brought this one in from home because I was craving shou (and I don’t keep any in my work stash) and when I opened up my shou sample drawer this sample was sitting right on top. Serendipitous, I thought!
Overall this was a very nice session, but I don’t think I like this shou as much as some of the other BLT offerings that I’ve tried. However, it simply must be said that the name they’ve selected for this shou is spot on! Right from the start, and throughout the whole session, this was a very smooth shou without any off notes to it – I think it’d be incredibly approachable to even the most new pu’erh drinkers. I did find, when I pushed the steep time a bit longer in the middle of the session, that infusions had a light bitterness hanging off the end of the sip. Much like a car teetering on a cliff’s edge, my impression was that with this shou one would walk a fine line between smooth, silky notes and a deep plunge into bitterness if the tea was oversteeped or, perhaps, over leafed.
What ultimately stops me from really enjoying this one as fully as I’d like to is that, smooth as it is, there isn’t really much substance to the tea’s taste. I would like some type of flavour note to bite back at me a little bit in the body of the sip – either a sweeter brown sugar or fruity type note or a more robust earthy/woody characteristic. As is stands, I found this rather pleasant – but simple.
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B3PDiSFAg_K/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qritXcYLg4g
