2016 Bulang

(July 2022 tea club)

2016 Bulang – 100g – this tea has been in our possession for years, aging as maocha in Menghai. I realized after I wrote the paragraph below that it’s full of tainting, biased information—probably stop reading here and drink the tea first, take a few notes, then come back for my ravings. (READ NO FURTHER, GO DRINK TEA) It’s a simple little raw Puer tea from the Bulang mountains. What do I mean simple? Not overly intense, complex or mind blowing. That’s not to undersell it as a tea, but often times the marketing speak around read makes every tea somehow need to be an elaborate 18-layer wedding cake, when sometimes all you wanted was an apple. And to blather on further about this topic which nobody asked about (I get to do this, it’s my letter) if anybody says they’re sending you an (aged) 18-layer wedding cake for under $30 with shipping included, you’d better start to doubt them as a trustworthy cake source. So, all cards on the table, this is an apple of a tea. It’s nice, sweet, enjoyable, fragrant, and light. Nothing overly dramatic, but a lovely little snack in the middle of the afternoon. For some of you Bulang aficionados you might be thinking “I thought Bulang was all brute strength and bitterness!” I’m glad you thought that, because it allows me to rant further: Bulang is actually a huge mountain range with many, many villages and a very wide variety of teas, varietals and processing. We Puer folk often get trapped in reductivist thinking that pegs one giant region as one specific profile when there’s usually more nuance than that. While it is true that Bulang is known for those burly brawler style teas, there is also plenty of sweetness in those hills as well. If you’re looking for a more intense Bulang style tea, I’d recommend 2018 Ghosts (lovely underrated tea, going on 5 years old and I’ve barely nudged the price). Last note on this little cake, I may have done a disservice by writing everything above as it was all gear towards you raw Puer heads. If this is your first month and first Puer, this tea may in fact punch you directly in the face…welcome to the white2tea tea club!

Brewing instructions: Gongfu style, with roughly 6g per 100ml in your vessel and fast steeps. Use boiling water for the 2016 Bulang raw Puer, drop to 95C or 90C if you find it too intense.