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I got the lost of my moonlight teas in the mail today, so I’m starting the quest to find my favorite. Or at least favorite of the ones that I have. I’m starting with two cakes that I got from different Aliexpress dealers.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/GRANDNESS-2012-YR-Chinese-Yunnan-JISHUNHAO-Moonlight-white-Pu-Er-Puer-Pu-Erh-RAW-tea/896777300.html
I’m calling this Grandness for simplicity sake…..

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/White-moonlight-puer-raw-tea-100g-yunnan-pu-er-sheng-cha-organic-chinese-puerh-brick-qizi/1883686482.html
And I’m calling this Teatime….

https://instagram.com/p/26pBIAOE-7/?taken-by=dex3657

The grandness leaves look larger and have a more distinct black/white quality to them. Both though do look like what I would expect from a moonlight cake. The Teatime cake isn’t as compressed and breaks apart easier.

I’m going to try to keep the parameters as similar as possible. For theses ones, I’m using 7g in my glass teapots – 80C water – rinse – 30 second first infusion.

https://instagram.com/p/26pQA5OE_S/?taken-by=dex3657

Interesting – both leaves don’t seem whole once they are steeped – broken mush is how I want to describe them. They looked so good in the cake but not once steeped. I don’t think I mutilated them that bad when I was breaking the cakes.
The teatime is significantly darker than the grandness.

Grandness is a little sharper, almost bitter – but does have the sweetness that I associate with moonlight. I’m not getting any earthy/musty pu’erh at all.
Teatime is smoother, gentler, sweeter and I’m not getting any pu’erh at all from it either.
At this point I’m calling both of these WHITE rather than PU’ERH….

2nd Steep – I upped the water temp to 85C and kept the time at 30 sec.

Same result the teatime one is still darker than the grandness.
Upping the water temp might have been a mistake, I don’t think it improved either of them. Both have some bitterness now and the sweetness isn’t as obvious. Putting it back down for next steep.

3rd steep
80C 45sec

80C is for sure a better water temp
These are both mellower at that temp.
I’m not getting much of a difference between them. Teatime might be just a hint deeper more flavor but not enough to notice unless drinking them side by side like this.

4th Steep
80C 1 minute

Both are getting more grassy, less sweet – disappointed should be getting more honey notes.

I’m quitting on both of these. I’m sure you could get a couple more decent steeps out of them, but they just aren’t changing enough, aren’t interesting enough to continue. Both are ok but neither is special. I’m forcing myself to choose a “winner” and that would be teatime, but it’s not going to win this contest. Interesting experiment, but I have more to try so I’m moving on.
https://instagram.com/p/262hvYOE3N/?taken-by=dex3657