289 Tasting Notes
This tea is very different from your average ripe. It tastes strongly like bread dough. And I mean that in a good way. The fermentation is kind of on the light side, but the flavor is good, earthy and sweet, and packs a pretty good caffeine punch. A very interesting one to sample, though I’m not sure I’d want to drink it regularly myself.
Wow. This is the best young sheng I’ve tasted to date, though I am still fairly new to pu. I’m extremely impressed. The first steeping was thick and viscous, which is something I find very appealing and often lacking in shengs. The flavor was both very easy going, like “Whispering Sunshine”, but it also had a touch more bitterness and was more bold and aggressive. I think those are good signs, especially for aging. The flavor has pollen in the background, and honey sweetness in the foreground. It is very tasty. The steeps were very thick for the first five or so. I got quite stimulated and a bit tea drunk for about an hour. The next five were a little more bitter, still fruity, and of course less thick. I really love this tea, it is of very high quality. It’s not cheap, but I think it stacks up very well against teas of this price range. My strategy for sheng buying these days is to spend more per tea on fewer teas that are of high caliber. This fits the bill! Thanks for producing an awesome tea, Crimson Lotus!
This is an excellent “drink now” pu erh. Very aromatic, and heavy on the pollen flavor. No astringency and very little bitterness, just easy going to the max. It is a great example of this style. I’m not sure I would want to hold onto this for aging, as it is fairly light. But who knows, I think the jury is still out on how well these young easy drinkers will age. The leaf quality is excellent, and I got many many steeps. Later infusions were a bit lemony. All in all, a great tea.
I’ve been enjoying shopping for treasures at Streetshop88. I went hunting for ripes recently, looking for cakes under $20. To me, that’s my risk appetite for a cake that I haven’t sampled. This one was $20. It’s quite good. Fairly smooth, medium body, dark, with bittersweet chocolate notes. I caught some fruit in a couple of early steeps. The cake looks nice, you can see the golden buds. A good quality cake and I’m glad to have it!
I have bought a number of solid ripes from Streetshop88. I decided to give one of their aged raws a shot. This is a middle aged 7542 that sells for $33 a cake, so I had my doubts. That’s not much more than a new 7542 after all. Well, as far as I can tell, this is the real deal. It brewed a nice bronze color. The broth was clear, the leaves were in good shape, and I was able to get lots of flavorful infusions, as you’d expect from this tea. There was no humid storage flavors. It tasted its age. This is probably the best bargain I’ve seen for a quality factory tea that is more than 10 years old.
Has to be better than the one we got from Dragon. That one still burns a bit if you know what I mean.
I do.
This arrived today and all I will say, until I review it is, wow – I did not expect it to be this good. Reading your review and drinking it, I would say you are spot on.
I believe I found ripe pu-erh leaves in my sample of this. Have you noticed this too?
It’s possible. A few of us tried another aged CNNP from them that may have been a fake, shu and sheng mixed or wet storage.
