2006 Longyuan Hao Shu Tuo

Haven’t reviewed a tea in a long time, now.

Mostly because I’ve been just drinking the same old leaves that I love. Life has been far too complex to try new teas.

But pu-erh is a fickle world and what you can get changes all the time so you always find yourself moving on.

This tocha is packed very, very tightly and is a somewhat awkward medium size. It makes picking it very tricky. But, I have a well seasoned yixing for sweet shou pu-erh so we’ll get good results, regardless. I used a long rinse (even though I rarely do rinse at all) because the leaf is so densely packed it needed time to open up.

There’s nothing I’d call unexpected here in terms of flavor, but this isn’t a 1990 Kumming, is it. The tea shows its relative age in the long finish and pronounced hui gan.

I definitely remember finding the previously available 1999 much more exciting. At 23 cents a gram this is an excellent daily drinking tea provided you have a good system for picking apart tea this tightly packed.

I admit, as the world of sheng seems to explode, I lament how increasingly difficult it seems to be to find top shelf shou. The sheng snobbery seems to be squeezing out any apparent market.

Tasting #1 – Steep Time 1 Minute
Heavy in aroma but light in taste at this point. The flavor is like a dark sobacha and has an amazing mouth feel. The tea is a beautiful amber color.

Tasting #2 – Steep Time 4 Minutes
There is a hint of sweetness in the aroma now, but the overall aroma is still of ripe meat. The flavor, its not roasted garlic but the satisfying flavor roasted garlic leaves that makes you want more. Just to clarify, the tea tastes nothing like roasted garlic.

I find no changes in aroma or flavor after this point. This tea is delicious. Not many teas have exceptional mouth feel, and beside from the aroma, I love this tea. And its perfectly good for unknowable resteepings!

I’m enjoying this, randomly steeped throughout the day.

this was a sample in my last verdant order that i thought i’d get around to today since if i effed this one up, i know cavo has a ton coming her way haha. I’m not sure if i’m getting vanilla off this one…but it IS a smooth tasting shou and a nice reminder of why i DID like some of verdant’s offerings (but please don’t get my started on intelligent nutrients…) After a few steepings, this has become a thicker tea…deepending in taste and leaving me with much more of a woody sort of taste with something else that i can’t quite place.

Final Count yesterday: 152