From
Yunnan Sourcing US $16.90 for 357g
This was the first of a few things I recently got from Yunnan Sourcings new US location. This is really nice since the warehouse location is only a couple of hours drive north of me and shipping is cheap and fast, about $6 instead of the approx. $30 from China. This is the largest cake that I have bought blind before, I had gotten a few 100g tuo's and such, so I was cautiously anticipating a bing that might get immediately downgraded to work tea. Work tea is tea that I make and drink western style in the lab, so aromas and the like are not important and sometimes accompanied by faint solvent smells. This is mainly tea that I do not want to necessarily throw out, but it is not good. The smell of the tea left me a little cautious, the soup could easily be terrible, however I was very pleasantly surprised by what was a very solid ripe puerh. This was nothing exceptional, but roughly in the top 20% of ripe teas that I have had.
This bing also highlighted the conclusion that I have slowly been coming to: Menghai ripe teas are way overrated. Of the 15 or so types of ripe tea that I have had there was maybe 1 that was palatable without the young sheng fishy/swampy undesirable aromas and plain liquor. When I started venturing into trying other teas Menghai was my go to since it seemed a large reputable source for puerh, however I have found that there is a much higher percentage of smaller name ripe cakes that are really good. This would fall into that category.
This sample was included for free with my most recent order from Yunnan Sourcing. Thanks! Now, I have not had a tea that I did not at least infuse a few times in a long time. Let me explain further, usually if I get something that I do not like I can at least apprecitae why someone else might like it and will plough through several infusions in the gaiwan. Sadly this was not one of them. The aromas were strangely muted, a very tame smokyness with a touch of 'wet forest', and did not offer much insight to the taste. There was nothing that would indicate a something I would not like from the smell. After a brief (~5 sec wash), still no indication from the aroma. The first infusion was on the lighter side, since I like to get acclimated to the subtleties, the taste and smell of this was alright. Then on the second infusion after the leaves had opened up it hit. This tasted like someone grated an old crusty tanned leather boot into shreds and brewed it up in boiling water. That was the end of this tea, it was dumped, and now I am on to the next sample. I respectfully disagree with the descreption on the YS page for this one.
