Moonlight Beauty Raw Pu-erh Loose Tea

I was really excited for this puer but I am pretty disappointed, it is extremely mild, nearly tasteless to me. I get a hint of jasmine, but not much else.

An immediate, surprising note of jasmine in the aroma.

Almost clear liquor.

Light, smooth, crisp white tea flavor. Not particularly strong at a 3 minute steep, so I’ll probably try brewing again for longer in the future.

ETA: a 5 minute brew is equally mild, but the jasmine aroma is not as pronounced. The brew becomes slightly earthier as well

From the looks of it, this tea is a silver needle white, but it has a depth to the aroma of the leaf and aged character toward the end of the session that seems more along the lines of a puerh or aged white.

I prepared this sample from Kawaii433 gongfu using 7.3g in a 150mL gaiwan, 200F water with a rinse and unknown number of steeps starting at 10s. The calming energy of the tea hit me pretty hard drinking it the morning, so I brewed it over the course of two days.

Aroma escaping from the cup was butter creamed with sugar and oats. Light and mineral on the sip, fruity and citrusy-lemon, thickening up greatly midmouth with a creamy quality. Combined with sweet flavors of dried mango, apricot, cantaloupe and oats, the theme early on reminded me of Quaker instant peaches and cream oatmeal. There was also a sort of tropical quality to the taste. Daylon R Thomas jogged my memory of jackfruit in one of his reviews in the past week and I would also ascribe the flavor of a jackfruit smoothie to this tea. It had a good astringency, plenty of salivation and strong huigan to keep things interesting. The coating, lingering aftertaste seemed to perpetuate the instant calm that overtook me. My notes after that were “Aw geez” and something illegible.

The next day, the tea moved from creamy and fruity into a more herbal, earthy, pungent tone that reminded me of the scent of the dry and rinsed leaf. There were notes of herbs, cooked vegetable, cooked mushrooms, hay, oats, skunky cannabis, thyme, mineral soil and cantaloupe.

I haven’t had time to read about the processing of this tea, and, not to dive deeply into semantics, but by tastes alone I wouldn’t classify this as a puerh. Regardless, it’s a tasty brew with plenty of depth.

Quick note to add to my previous review that this is my go-to raw Pu-erh after a heavy meal. Just love the stonefruit taste and the mellow cup of tea in the evenings.

Strong floral note which trails into the aftertaste. Dull snap-pea sugary sweetness at the end of the sip and trailing into the aftertaste. Characteristic white tea note in the middle of the sip.

I purchased a sample myself when I last ordered. The leaf amount in the packet ended up being 5.1g rather than a rounded 5. I prepared this is a 120ml gaiwan. Gave it a flash rinse to wake up the leaves. I followed the infusion times on Teavivre’s website: 60 seconds, 65, 70, 60, 65, 70, 80, 90, 120.

A Moonlight White with only buds is certainly pretty! It looks like Silver Needles. This is only me second Moonlight White, and I totally taken aback by the dry leaf aroma since it’s incredible different from my first. It smells like a cooking herbs mix and tomato sauce, which is what I sometimes get with Dianhong. But once the leaves are washed and steeped, the wet leaf aroma is what I remembered: blueberries and cream oatmeal, very fragrantly fruity, barely sour. Aaaaaaah.

The liquor – also notably fragrant – is pale yellow, medium-bodied, and clean. This takes a bit to warm up, but from the third infusion onward, it tastes much like the wet leaf aroma: sweet and blueberry-like. The texture is thick and silky.

I didn’t quite like this Moonlight White as much as the first (that one was more powerful), though this is good quality and I enjoyed drinking the more flavorful infusions. I love tasting fruits in unflavored teas as opposed to fruit-flavored teas – they’re so much more like the real McCoy. Surprises my brain every time (“Wow this is really happening???”) Moonlight Beauty is no exception to this. And I have to note again that the liquor is so fragrant that even my cups smells after I finish drinking! I don’t get that much from non-oolongs. I recommend it for those who are interested in trying it for themselves.

This pu-erh is similar to a white tea and is light amber in color. This tea has a light and sweet quality to it with flavors of cucumber and apricot. It is a very interesting tea.

Another sample from Angel at Teavivre! Thank you! I should preface this by saying this is my first white puerh ever! This is an all new experience for me.

The tea itself is gorgeous — long, perfect silver leaves. They’re fuzzy and remind me of the antennae of the giant moths we see here in the summer. <3 The aroma is very sweet and stone-fruity. It doesn’t really smell like puerh at all! Just apricots and spring-like perfume. There is no mustiness or iodine smell like I’m used to with puerh. (The things I sometimes find off-putting.)

The tea brews up to a very light tan. The flavor is mild and clean, not musty. If anything, the aging process of this puerh removed any sharpness that might have been there. I get delightful notes of apricot, maybe peaches. Very fruity and smooth. Mellow and understated, but lovely. There is a distinct note of “puerh” in the scent of the tea before I sip, but nothing like that in the taste. This is truly unique (to my experience) and elegant. I highly recommend it.

Thank you Angel from Teavivre for sending me this sample. When I had first saw this, I expected to see a different type of leaf. Then again, I am not very experienced with pu-erh tea. The leaves were silvery-pale green and fuzzy. It looks like white tea. The smell is very faint. The steeped liquid is a pale gold color and a slightly floral scent. The first sample of this I brewed it western style. The second sample, I used a small gaiwan. The flavors are different. I did enjoy the western style flavor better. Maybe because it muted the flavors a bit and was less astringent.

Additional notes: Thanks so much for sending a bit of this one a while ago, Kawaii433!  I have tried it before but it’s a lovely and unique tea to revisit now that I’ve tried oodles of other teas since this one.  It’s always a tea that I can’t decide if it wants to be a white tea or a raw pu-erh.  The flavor likes to waver between the two with it’s lightness and sweetness and it’s a tough one to wrangle in terms of flavors.  The next morning, the remainder of the cold tea looks black in color, which is very odd!