2007 Awazon "Meihua" Ancient Tree Rarw Puer Tea Cake 357g

Dry leaf looks nice on this guy. Smells good in a warm gaiwan. Wet leaf is a warm sunny fragrance with some hints of dried fruit. The warm cup after wash has a beautiful brown sugar and raisin fragrance. Reminds me of homemade oatmeal. I had this right before trying the lanhua. The tea has a nice subtle little aged flavor to it, of course at 10-11 years now it’s still relatively young. For a semi-aged puer it produces a very smooth drink, with pleasant aftertaste. I find that these teas are much more interesting after swallowing, which is something I quite love about them. Meihua’s liquor is smooth, carrying some astringency, and muted sweet taste in the mouth. It becomes more interesting with its brown sugary raisin huigan. This tea lasts in the throat and back of the mouth for quite some time. This tea claims to be bulang material, but for those that are worried about the upfront powerful stern characteristics that bulang often carries, fear not. Meihua has developed a pleasant and calm taste, despite its youth. A few more years will likely do it some good and I will likely sit on this for a while, but I would say this is ready to drink daily as an affordable and unoffensive daily drinker in a pinch.

This is in my opinion a tea one the brink of becoming an aged tea. It has not yet truly become what you can call aged. I, however, has lost that young sheng sweetness. This is not to say there were no sweet notes, just not as pronounced as a young sheng. It was strong and fairly smooth with only a little bitterness in the initial steeps. There is definitely a potent qi to this tea as I am feeling it now, quite energizing. There is one main note to this tea, unfortunately I am unsure how to describe it. It has a strong aftertaste and a potent mouthfeel to it. I will be interesting to see what this ages into.

I steeped this tea eight times in a 120ml gaiwan with 8g leaf and 190 degree water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. The tea was nowhere near finished. It is supposed to be ancient tree. I’m sure I could get another four or five steeps out of it. Not sure it would go twenty but maybe. This tea deserves a high rating in my book on the qi I am feeling alone. The taste was good but I’m not sure that everyone would like that one main note.