Palace Ripened Pu Erh Brick Tea 2007

A rich, warm, woody and earthy ripe puerh. Had a sample from the Puerh Assortment sample pack, but I’m not sure if I would buy it over some other teas.

rinse, 15, 20, 25, 30, 60, 90
First brew: aged taste, thick body
second brew : aged and smoky , less thick but still reminds hot chocolate, very little bitterness
third: very similar to the second brew

Something about this tea is really comforting to me, like noodle soup on a cold and rainy day. The main taste I am getting is a compilation of old wood, wet earth, coffee, leather and smoke. Below that, there is the tiniest bit of bitterness aswell as sweetness which balances the flavours beautifully. Also I really like the silky mouthfeel of this shou.

The only downside is that the tea doesn’t really develop during the session, so you can get bored fast. But comparing it to the few other shou I have tasted it is quite complex and pleasant (Teavivre ripened aged pu-erh mini tuocha, Teavivre ripened rose pu-erh mini tuocha and Heuschrecke Pu erh-Tee).

Preparation: 2x short rinses, 10/12/10/15/20/30

Dry leaves smell nice, rich, mellow. After two rinses, I steeped for 8 secs in a 100 ml gaiwan with 4 gr of leaf. Color is dark amber on first infusion. Wet leaf smell is earthy, mulchy. Taste has a tiny amount of chocolate note but subtle, musty, earthy, and has a nice sweetness. It’s very smooth, no bitterness and no astringency. It’s a very pleasant drinking ripe pu-erh. Long lasting smooth and thick mouth feel and aftertaste. By the third infusion, liquor is now dark with red tone. Leaves have expanded to reveal — no leaves. It’s all small chopped pieces of 1 cm or less.

This is a reasonably good tea with a lot of fermentation flavor let to it. It had notes on dark bittersweet chocolate in there. The bitterness gradually faded to a more sweet note. Overall this was good tea. It was very thick tea in the early infusions.

I steeped this tea ten times in a 150ml gaiwan with 13.2g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min.

Always a pleasure to try another pu-erh from Teavivre, as I know it’ll be good. I ended up using an entire sample for a mug (10 grams), which probably wasn’t necessary but half the pouch didn’t look like enough. I think I should have used 2/3 of the sample. The flavor wasn’t too much as ripe pu-erh never is anyway, but I know I would have had more nuance from the flavor without using so much tea. It was tough to tell specific flavor notes from this one. It has a deep, dark flavor though while being smooth with almost a creamy quality to it. Not the most chocolate of the pu-erhs. None of those unwanted pu-erh qualities about this one though. The dry leaf had a nice sweet dried grass fragrance. After steeping, the brew basket is very full but the leaves aren’t as large as some pu-erhs I’ve had lately. All three steeps were solidly the same. But there are so many special pu-erhs from Teavivre that this one doesn’t seem to have enough uniqueness for me (again, probably because I overleafed this one and just got a very deep flavored cup.) If I steeped this the way it should be, I would imagine it would be even better. I love my pu-erh strong anyway, so this was delicious.
Steep #1 // one sample pouch (10 grams for mug) // 20 second rinse // just boiled // 1 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 2 min steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 4 min steep

This is tasty. I like ripe pu, more than raw, so far. It’s earthy and a bit sweet, and had no barnyard or fish taste that some can have. I got about 8 good steeps before I got bored. I love that I’ve never been able to exhaust a pu like this.

That said, most taste very similar to me.