Mei Leaf

Second tea tested in my sample pack!

~3g, 110mL, ~185F. + Wash

Wet leaf aroma: Very fruity and a tad bit smokey. You can definitely smell those peach notes!

Texture: Very smooth but also rather thick. Another reviewer said it has a umami note to it, but for me personally there is no umami notes in this tea. It’s just very smooth and thick, which can seem to be that very “savory” taste that one would associate with umami.

The flavour is rather interesting. Again, very strong peach flavour as well as a perfume flavour on the initial ‘hit’. The aftertaste manifests itself strongly as peach with more fruity notes.

At first I was wondering why someone says this has a celery note, but that would be another way of classifying that initial “perfume” note that you can taste.

Following the first steep, the main flavour body tastes like peach and now like a bit of applesauce as well. What’s neat is the empty cup smell, smells pretty much just like butterscotch… It really almost smells like sugar is really in that cup but it’s empty, it’s just the aroma!

For those tasting this tea, I would say you have to be very attentive of steeping time. Too much and you get strong perfume and celery notes, which eclipses the peachy and fruity notes,

As a summation, this is a rather decent dancong with very strong peach notes, with accompanied applesauce + roasted apple taste, with a strong perfume and celery flavoured front. Like fruity oolongs and want a peachy one? This is your tea.

19th March picking. Hay, vanilla, osmathus, papaya, crème fraîche.

Got this from the mei leaf sample box. Despite it being green tea, lots of the leafs have been kinda crumbled and I thought that would be detrimental, but damn this tea is great.

Prep: 5g to 110mL, @200F

No wash.

The wetleaf aroma is an absolutely amazing roasted hazlenut. I made some very unmanly sounds smelling it, absolutely fantastic.

First steep tastes like hazlenuts with roasted seaweed. Lots and lots of umami. A bit of a dryness on the tip of the tongue, but none of the astringency in the back of your throat. Really delightful. In fact, my whole room also now smells like roasted hazlenuts!

Oh man that second infusion, it literally gave me shivers. The umami is so incredibly strong, it’s just incredibly savory. This tea excites the salivary glands massively!

I haven’t tasted any particular change in flavour on further infusions, just that this is a tea for umami lovers. Really, just a stimulating experience all around

This is my first tea from mei leaf and I have to say that their description on their page is perfect, all the way down to the amount of infusions you can get from gongfu. I find this to be pretty rare from most tea suppliers, but their description is practically perfect. You can expect 7 infusions from this tea.

Very good tea and an absolute must-have for a umami lover. Well done Mei Leaf, well done.

May 2016 picking. Blackcurrant, clover flower, banana, cream, sage, mint, pumpkin, walnut, wood resin

4th April 2017 picking. A pleasant, warming, autumny tea.

24th March 2017 picking. Well balanced. Gooseberry, elderflower, butter, savoy cabbage, umami, nutmeg.

Brewed gong fu style in a gaiwan, 205F, 20 seconds initial infusion. Dry leaves heavy on the cherry notes. Gaiwan lid sniff after first infusion came back with cherry and toasted almond flavors. Very brisk and astringent in initial infusions, it mellowed out to a smooth, rich nuttiness over time. I probably could’ve gotten a couple more infusions out of it, but I felt myself hitting the caffeine wall.

Amazing thing about this tea is the aftertaste. An hour later, I’m still breathing through my mouth to savor it. It’s like walking though the woods in autumn, kicking up dead leaves with each step. This is the kind of tea you want to drink when you feel lonely, disconnected or anxious. It embraces you.

Spring 2017 harvest.

It is not often that I drink sheng as mao cha, in fact this is only the second time I’ve done so. As the ‘young’ in the name of this tea suggests, it is aimed specifically for drinking young, so I was very interest to try it out. Because of being targeted in such a specific manner, I’ll be evaluating it based solely on its merits right now without taking into consideration any aging potential like I would normally do.

I’ve had the open bag hydrating in my pumidor for a few weeks. That’s not necessarily as much time as I typically give other raws, but since this is aimed at immediate consumption one would expect it to perform at least adequately. I used 9.35g in my 140ml gaiwan and gave the leaves a ten second rinse followed by a ten minute rest. This was followed by nine infusions, the timing for which being 6s, 6s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s and 2 min. respectively.

I was very surprised by how light the first infusion was. It wasn’t necessarily weak, but the flavors were very light and thin. I’m not sure if the tea was actually watery per se, but the flavor profile at least was very close to water. There were some young sheng flavors present and the tea was hinting at bitterness and astringency without actually being there yet. At this point I wasn’t really sure what to think of the tea so far. The second steep was still very light, but not very pleasant. The tea was losing body now. Up to this point I’d been using my standard boiled water that I always use for sheng, but starting with the next steep I decided to switch to the vendor’s recommended 95°C to see what that does.

The change in temperature didn’t bring much change in the third steep. The tea was a bit softer, but it was starting to taste nasty to me, which can happen with some raw pu’ers this young. The taste was generally quite mineraly, with perhaps some very minor underlying sweetness. Once the tea cooled it started to taste bitter. The next steep didn’t bring much change. The taste was starting to be quite metallic albeit overall the tea was less nasty than before. Although subtle, I noticed some cooling in my airways as a result from this steep.

Sipping the fifth infusion, I noticed this tea doesn’t really have the green and astringent character often prevalent in young raws, but instead it features a dominantly mineraly character with a slight tinge to it that I personally find unappealing. After extending the steeping time a bit more for the sixth infusion, the tea now had a soft texture to it. Taste-wise it was virtually identical to the last steep. It did however have a slightly mood-elevating effect.

Pushing the tea again just a bit harder for the seventh steep, there was now finally some more body to the soup. While the tea was still very mineraly, I noticed that it was beginning to taste less nasty, or perhaps I was just starting to get used to the taste. The issue is that I’m not generally a very big fan of mineral tasting teas, so it wasn’t really doing it for me. The tea was however beginning to put me in an elevated yet calm state. I also started feeling some tingling at the back of my head and behind my ears.

The eighth steep was a lot thinner than I’d expected. It had an interestingly bright taste. While it was slightly metallic, it also hinted at perhaps some fruitiness and maybe even some slight sweetness. At this point the tea started to be a bit drying on the tongue. The ninth infusion was the last one I did. I perhaps pushed the tea a bit too far too early and the resulting soup tasted a bit nasty. It wasn’t that bad but still. Still, I decided to call it here. I’m sure the tea could have gone on for likely several more infusions, but I felt I’d seen enough and wasn’t interested enough to see what else the tea had to offer at this juncture. Strength-wise the tea was still going strong, so I expect it had many infusions in it still. I’ll be getting a smaller gaiwan (~60ml) very soon, which should make sessioning these teas a lot easier and faster. Hopefully for the next review I’ll already have it.

My thoughts on this tea are mixed. I didn’t really see much reason to be drinking it for the taste, but perhaps there’s a way to brew it that makes it tastier than the way I brewed it. The mouthfeel was rather disappointing for most of the steeps, but when pushed a little it did improve in a couple of the steeps. The longevity seems excellent, but the real saving grace for me is the calm, gentle qi. This tea doesn’t have any of the intense rushiness that many young gushus tend to have, instead it is very pleasant and subtle. I could still feel the tea affecting me some time after the session and the sensation was rather pleasant while it lasted.

I’m glad I didn’t abandon this one halfway through, but I don’t think the qi alone is enough to salvage the tea. Despite how it’s marketed, I am going to save the rest of the bag for later and give the tea a few more months before I try it again. I think at least right now the tea is rather dull, but perhaps I was expecting too much. Had this tea cost more per gram than it does or not had the qi, I would have given it a negative rating, but for now I’m rating it as barely neutral. Perhaps there’s a way to brew this tea that yields better results or perhaps it will improve with some more time in the pumidor. Either way, if I manage to brew this tea in a significantly different way, I will do a follow-up review. If not, then I won’t.

Edit: I’ve had another session with this tea and changed my rating from neutral to not recommended as a result. See the comment I’ve left below for more.

An intense black tea with the taste of cooked apple, yellow wax beans, toffee and a hint of smoke.

Interesting but somewhat incoherent taste.

Nicely delicate but somewhat weak tasting tea.

A March 2017 harvest from Xinchang, Zhejiang. A deliciously fresh and somewhat savory green tea.

A beautiful fresh Tie Guan Yin.

A delicious and comforting black tea.

Beautiful complex but still coherent aroma with a long aftertaste.

Very mineral rich and interesting tea. Drinking this is like a roller coaster in your mouth!

Beautiful leaves with a pleasant but somewhat short taste

Very pleasant sheng puerh for a beginner. No bitterness, gentle astringency, fresh notes of hay and camphor. No complexity.
I’ve done many steeps, all were pleasant and refreshment.
I can highly recommend this tea both for a newbie to puerh world and experienced one whose quest is in fresh puerh in ‘green tea’ style