Wild Jungle Green Pu-erh “Maocha” #5801

The dry leaf has a smoky and bitter scent with hints of floral sweetness; but when wet, the smoky bitterness becomes more apparent, the only thing I can compare it is to the smokiness that would come from a campfire that uses wild wood.
Gong fu gaiwan 5oz
1st Steep (2secs) – Sweet and clean with smoky body that becomes floral. It has a smoky, floral and sweet aftertaste that turns refreshing; slightly astringent.

2nd Steep (2secs) – Clean sweetness that turns slightly bitter with a heavy smoky body with strong but pleasant floral notes. It becomes refreshing after the flowery aftertaste with slight astringency.

3rd Steep (2secs) – Smoky and flowery bitterness that becomes sweet and floral without loosing its smokiness. The aftertaste is floral and smoky but it becomes refreshing/camphor like.

4th Steep (4secs) – Smoky and flowery with sweetness that accentuates the wood smokiness with slightly bitter floral notes. This steep had very refreshing/camphor feeling.

5th Steep (5secs) – A Cleaner sweetness into slightly smokiness that becomes more apparent as it washes down and it becomes floral with faint sweetness and it feels refreshing on the throat.

6th Steep (6secs) – Clean feeling that becomes smoky and floral with some bitterness. This steeps wears a bit more astringency but is not unpleasant as it becomes refreshing once again.

7th Steep (8secs) – Clean and refreshing and it slowly gives hints of the smoky and floral notes that become more apparent as it washes down and seem to last longer on my mouth. Once again becomes very refreshing as the smoky and floral notes fade.

8th Steep (10secs) – Very clean start that becomes smoky and turns floral with some bitterness(almost bittersweet, in a good way). This steep become slightly more astringent and later more refreshing.

I did 14 steeps of this tea and I’m pretty sure I could have made more (late and too many bathroom breaks), but to me its an amazing tea just because even though it might be a ‘basic’ Puerh, it is well aged and it has all the characteristics of the Maocha but subtle like a fine aged Sheng. And frankly love the smokiness, is like straight out a camp fire.

Went to the Phoenix Collection/Tea Museum this weekend with some friends and did tea tastings with the owner, David Hoffman. It was such a cool experience and I wrote more about it a in a tea room review. This was one of about a dozen teas I sampled and wrote quick notes about on my phone.

This had a very light airy earthy taste to it (can something be both air and earth?) and was also buttery at the same time. I’m not drawn towards oolongs and this one wasn’t captivating enough for me to want to take it home, but it was very nice.

A remarkable tea. This is the smokiest tea I have ever tasted but there is still a depth and complexity that make each brew a tangible experience. This is a tea that most people hate frankly, it is very smoky and the raw leaves are quite bitter. It brews to the typical sheng dark yellow and I haven’t exhausted the leaves yet. This tea is hard to classify and it doesn’t play well with it’s neighbors in the tea cupboard. Another distinctive pu-erh from DLH. I’ll be intrigued to try it again in ten years and see what more aging does to tame it some (and I’ll keep drinking it, if only occasionally, in the meantime).