2 Tasting Notes
When I had brewed this 16 year old tea what I noticed was that it had a sort of ‘sour’ fruity flavour that I hadn’t experienced with shou pu-erh before. There was also a hint of pine. After several steepings it turned into a sweet licorice kind of smell. The taste was fairly sweet, smooth and creamy. The qi was powerful enough to give me an alert and awake feeling, but it wasn’t over-powering. It was very enjoyable to drink. Aftertaste was the sort of dark chocolaty woody taste that people who are familiar with shou pu-erh will probably recognise.. I could get quite a number of steepings out of this tea, it was only after 12 (large) cups that the strength of the tea started to diminish so much that it wasn’t enjoyable to me anymore (I must say that I like my tea quite strong, so people who enjoy their teas lighter may even get more steepings out of it).
This tea has definately made me interested in trying more tea of this hei cha ‘style’. If you like shou pu-erh you will probably like this tea as well.. Even though this is my first Liu Bao, and therefore I don’t know how this tea holds up to other teas of the same style, I am fairly confident to say that this is a good tea in general for the price and as such I can recommend it to all people who are interested in post-fermented tea, especially those who are interested in older teas of this type.
Flavors: Berries, Dark Chocolate, Pine, Pleasantly Sour, Spices, Wet Wood
First time I tried the Jingmai Shengtai Maocha, harvested in February 2018, from Farmer-leaf.com was two weeks ago. It had just arrived and been in a closed off bag for quite some time (took one month or so to arrive). The smell was very fruity and the taste was fresh, like it was just picked.
That freshness and also the fruitiness has muted a bit. Had it again today and if I hadn’t known what it was and someone had told me it was a green tea I would have believed it. Grassy, steamed vegetable flavours that most people traditionally associate with green tea were abound.
According to William from Farmer-leaf, these ‘green flavours’ should go away for the most part after several months and should be replaced by more ‘sheng-like’ flavours. Also, he said that the later harvest (of March 2018) was actually more fruity and flavourful. They didn’t produce this maocha for it’s initial flavour but they wanted to focus more on creating a tea with a powerful qi and a long finish, because those are more important when creating sheng-pu-erh for aging. I must say the tea has indeed some powerful qi, however not in a way that it overwhelms you, it gave me a feeling of calm alertness and ‘well-being’ and I could drink quite a number of cups without getting ‘tea-drunk’. The maocha also has a nice finish that gives a lingering sensation of sweetness in the mouth.
It will be interesting to see how this maocha will develop in the coming months, so expect another review a couple of months from now.
Flavors: Fruity, Grass, Sweet, Vegetables
