Palace Ripened Pu Erh Brick Tea 2007

A rich, warm, woody and earthy ripe puerh. Had a sample from the Puerh Assortment sample pack, but I’m not sure if I would buy it over some other teas.

rinse, 15, 20, 25, 30, 60, 90
First brew: aged taste, thick body
second brew : aged and smoky , less thick but still reminds hot chocolate, very little bitterness
third: very similar to the second brew

Something about this tea is really comforting to me, like noodle soup on a cold and rainy day. The main taste I am getting is a compilation of old wood, wet earth, coffee, leather and smoke. Below that, there is the tiniest bit of bitterness aswell as sweetness which balances the flavours beautifully. Also I really like the silky mouthfeel of this shou.

The only downside is that the tea doesn’t really develop during the session, so you can get bored fast. But comparing it to the few other shou I have tasted it is quite complex and pleasant (Teavivre ripened aged pu-erh mini tuocha, Teavivre ripened rose pu-erh mini tuocha and Heuschrecke Pu erh-Tee).

Preparation: 2x short rinses, 10/12/10/15/20/30

Dry leaves smell nice, rich, mellow. After two rinses, I steeped for 8 secs in a 100 ml gaiwan with 4 gr of leaf. Color is dark amber on first infusion. Wet leaf smell is earthy, mulchy. Taste has a tiny amount of chocolate note but subtle, musty, earthy, and has a nice sweetness. It’s very smooth, no bitterness and no astringency. It’s a very pleasant drinking ripe pu-erh. Long lasting smooth and thick mouth feel and aftertaste. By the third infusion, liquor is now dark with red tone. Leaves have expanded to reveal — no leaves. It’s all small chopped pieces of 1 cm or less.

This is a reasonably good tea with a lot of fermentation flavor let to it. It had notes on dark bittersweet chocolate in there. The bitterness gradually faded to a more sweet note. Overall this was good tea. It was very thick tea in the early infusions.

I steeped this tea ten times in a 150ml gaiwan with 13.2g 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, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min.

additional notes: enjoying this one today. This doesn’t pertain to this ripe pu-erh in particular, but I have noticed that Teavivre’s website seems to be taking a couple of my reviews from older ripe pu-erhs and sticking them on matching pu-erhs, but for different years/harvests of the pu-erhs that I have never actually tried. I have noticed this twice. For example: My note for the Fengqing Ripened Pu-erh Cake 2018 moving over to the 2022 year. I’m not sure how I feel about this, as not only is it confusing to me, since I never actually drank the 2022 (and if I believe I already tried it and it wasn’t a Must Buy then there would be no reason for me to buy it again, when really I never tried it to begin with)… but essentially Teavivre is saying it is the same puerh? Are they just replacing wrappers? Why would they do that if older puerh is more valuable than new? To me, all harvests/cakes should be thought of as different if it’s labeled as a different year….

Also, it looks like they still have THIS cake in stock, labeled the same year 2007, but it is definitely a different wrapper than the original.

This is tasty. I like ripe pu, more than raw, so far. It’s earthy and a bit sweet, and had no barnyard or fish taste that some can have. I got about 8 good steeps before I got bored. I love that I’ve never been able to exhaust a pu like this.

That said, most taste very similar to me.