2011 Menghai Dayi 7562 Pu-erh Tea Brick Ripe

Rinsed once.

First infusion brewed at 208˚F for 12s
Dark rust-red colour. Aroma is nice and earthy, what you’d expect from a Pu Er. But flavour kinda bland, mellow. Goes okay with banana bread but nothing remarkable. Goes very nicely with milk.

Second infusion 212˚F for 18s
Liquid is BLACK in the 公道杯 and dark brown in the cup like coffee. Still very mellow flavour, nothing bold but very smooth and drinkable. Goes really well with food. Again, really nice with milk. Nothing special on its own but really addictive when pairing with food. Given the affordable price point, I can see this being a solid everyday Pu Er but this is the first of many samples I have to try.

Rating: 75 on its own, 80 when taken with food
Overall Rating: 77

tl;dr: Woody shou with pungent, sweet presence. Dominated by notes of dry wood and bark with a leathery finish in a clean, mid-mouth feel. Easy to overbrew at first at the cost of a very, very mild astringency, but also easy to make too thin if underbrewed.
4/5, easy to drink, but not “full” enough for my tastes.

5g leaf. 75ml gaiwan.
98C, 5s rinse.
Smell: Extremely sweet, like sweet potato.
98C, 5s steep.
Smell: Less sweet, more forest floor with some subtle tobacco notes.
Light mouth-feel, clean, thin.. No bitterness. Brown, brown-amber color. Taste of clean, dry wood. As the leaves cooled, the smell went back to full strength pungent/sweet from before as opposed to immediate post-steep clean/wet wood.
98C, 10s steep (wanted 5, burnt thumb)
Smell: Even less sweet than after first steeping.
Mid-mouth lingering, mild astringency, otherwise similar to before. Color is now dark as night, and was so as soon as the water hit the leaves. Some forest floor flavors, some mild cooked flavors. Definitely oversteeped.
Curious about the smell disappearing with the higher temp water.
80C, 15s steep
Smell: Sweetness didn’t stick around much more than first steeping, but returned more quickly.
Flat, thin flavor. Probably understeeped at that temperature. More decayed wood than previous “wet forest” flavor.
80C, 1min steep
color definitely didn’t appear as quickly when the water was added, so extending the steep even further than normal.
Scent was still the same as the 98C steepings, so I guess my experiment didn’t go as planned, and it took 1.5min+ to reach the the same color/viscosity as before.
Mmmm. Strong earthy flavor in a medium, mid-mouth feel, relatively viscous liquid complimented well by the mildest of sweetness and woody notes. Best steeping so far. Some after-taste of leathery-ness, not quite astringency I think.
98C, 45s
Smell of sweet potatoes is still accessible, but I have yet to taste it in the tea itself. More leathery notes in the smell the more steeping I do. No leather in the flavor, however. Hint of leather in aftertaste, but dominated by woody, bark notes.
…
After three more steepings it sizzled out into a generic, mild shou.
It could definitely have gone more than 10 steepings, but I had to get to work.

This started out as a bittersweet shou. There was a fair amount of fermentation flavor, noticeable into the fourth or fifth steep. The bitterness lasted about two steeps. What was left afterward was a mildly sweet ripe puerh. This is a good quality Dayi brick and tastes like it.

I steeped this eight times in a 50ml gaiwan with 4.2g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. It would have gone quite a few more steeps but it is late and this is too much caffeine already.

15sec and rinse. /96ºC The leaves smell like sweet potatoes. (Dark amber colour)

15sec /94ºC No bitter. Smooth.Slight sweetness at the end. Forest/wood. Mid-low body. (really dark colour).

20sec. /90ºC Really slight bitter aftertaste. Remembers me like some wood or something simmilar. (really dark colour). No bitter. Earthy

20sec /97ºC Sweet. Less wood flavour. Still not bitter. Is not as strong as the 2 first brews. It has lost some body, now is lighter. In my opinion it has improved. Still not bitter. Earthy

20sec /92ºC The leaves still smell like sweet potatoes. lighter than the previous brew. Not bitter. Sweet. Earthy

30sec /85ºC The leaves lost the strong-medium sweet potatoes smell. Now is really soft. Still dark. Really light bitter aftertaste. Now its more like leather. It has lost the strong earthy-forest flavour and some sweetness.

I don’t know how to describe this brick. I like creamy, cocoa and sweet pu erhs, with no bitterness, but I enjoyed this one. It has some earth/forest/leather flavour, not too strong, but still not weak flavour. It also has some light earth flavour.

At the begining the weat leaves has a strong sweet potatoes smell that has lost in the last one.

The first steeps had a medium body, with some sweet aftertaste that has lost at the final steps, becoming a really light bitter aftertaste.

This has been the fisrt time I reviewed a tea while I was drinking it. It’s been a nice experience.

PS: I bought it in dragon tea house.