Sanhetang Company

If you like the classic Menghai 8582, you will LOOOOVVEEE this one!

An update to this tea after almost 10 years. Mushroom and leather aroma. Thick soup, with a touch of sourness up front, middle steeps give distinct plum, and generate saliva nicely. Late steeps have fantastic, long-lasting huigan. Best part is the strong, calming happy qi. My drier storage has left this tea with some astringency and punch that I think make it feel full bodied and rich. This cake has also struggled with sourness in the first 3-4 steeps, I think due to colder, drier storage (something I’m trying to gently remedy), but it doesn’t really compromise the tea. So lovely…

This tea is excellent. The 25g sample I ordered had big flaky leaves that easily fell of the chunk of beeng I received. Nice long supple leaves on the edges of the cake. The first steeps brought a spicy and woodsy musk out of the gaiwan. Leathery, with golden tobacco, a bit of moss, and plenty of earthy spice. The flavor was similar, but buttery smooth. Velvet on the palate, with just enough astringency in the back of the throat for balance. This tea puts me right in an Alder bog amongst the Balsam Fir trunks, heavy with lichen and moss. A wet late spring morning in a copse of poplars flows into my mind. This is a beautiful tea.