2006 Little Gold Melon Shu

From the Puerh Beginners TTB.

After trying a shou that was included as a sample with an order from Bitterleaf Teas, my interest in this style has been reinvigorated. I plan to include some of that tea in this box when I send it out, maybe someone else will like it as much as me and split a brick down the road. Since I have a bunch of ripe teas sitting in front of me here, I thought I would continue my education.

Now, I am a sucker for packaging so these little wrapped balls immediately grabbed my attention. Plus, someone had already broken some off of one leaving 10g which was perfect for me. The first infusion went instanly dark. I drank this last night and I don’t even remember how many 5 second steeps I gave this. I know I gave it even more 10 second steeps. The deep flavorful infusions just kept coming and coming. When it was all said and done I probably steeped this at least twenty times and could have kept going.

The flavor was deep, sweet, earthy. Clear memories came to me of the wooden shelters on rainy days at camp as a kid. There is a hint of cherry and wood. It is reminiscent of a full bodied wine. This is a great tea. Looks like I just needed to try a new pair of shous…

Solid little 25 g tuos. I enjoyed these more and more after airing them out for several months. Perfect trade off of quality to convenience that mini tuos strive for. The cake/tuo under 100 g that I see myself returning to most of any I’ve tried.

This was a very interesting brew for me. I unwrap the paper to reveal this little “melon” shou. The compressed dry leaf has a slight fermentation scent. I break it in half (7g of the 14g whole) and pop that into my warmed gaiwan. I gave it a shake and then let the chunk relax for a bit. The scent that emitted from my gaiwan was deep and sweet. It was a dark savory scent with an earthen background. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The leaves took two washing sessions to fully depart from the melon whole, and they gave off a dry cherry dusty scent. The flavor was fairly good, but it was somewhat lacking. The initial sip was filled with deep cherry notes, but it plateaued at only the fourth steeping. I then decided to pop the other half in. This made the liquor amazing. The flavor was deep and powerful. The taste was of cherry cordial and a deep fermentation flavor. The brew was smooth and warming; it made my ears burn red hot. The pour from my gaiwan was incredibly dark and blood red. This session lasted fooorever and continued with a smooth and rich red wine taste. The finish of each sip included a candied huigan that was sweet and tangy. This sensation would slowly drip and follow me throughout the session. The qi was only present with a light head buzz. This session did incur a heavy tea drunk and slight slurred speech. I really enjoyed this melon. I highly recommend just throwing the whole thing in the pot. My melon was short (14g instead of 20g), but it was still perfect. This is an amazing value, and I will definitely be getting more in my next order.

https://instagram.com/p/8grjw8zGW_/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #11

I made the same mistake with this tea as my first taste note… I didn’t even know I drank this before until I went to add this. http://steepster.com/Proust614/posts/310341#comments
Tea addict problems: Not even sure what you have drank or not :/

My first note got eaten by Steepster…:(

This shou is friggin’ awesome, and I believe I got the parameters down perfect. I aired out this shou for six months. My tea pals can tell you how long it took me to learn that aged offerings need airing!! I’ve learned that the aged teas from white2tea require this kind of patience but to trust TwoDog on his choices, if it ain’t good then I didn’t air it long enough or I didn’t brew it right. The longer an aged tea has been stored in China, the longer it really needs to rest and air out after arriving to really be the best.

I brewed up this 20 g melon in 180 ml Zhuni clay teapot to let it expand but then I used about half the water! So about 100 ml water after doing four rinses. The lump of shou sticks up above the water line. I’m on day 3 STILL flash brewing past 15 steeps. Smells earthy in the pot but the taste is the reward, mushrooms, dates, cherries, cacao, thick port wine flavored brown brew of goodness and double happy dance. Brew it thick and thicker with less water, this tuo is 20 g for a reason and the makers knew what they were doing when they made these! Oh yeahhhhh….

Might as well at least add something short on this one. While the qi was very potent and goes a way toward redeeming this tea, I found it to have way more shu “funk” than I’m comfortable with. Maybe I’ll revisit it someday — it’s certainly cheap enough.

I don’t think I could properly give this a rating. I was so disappointed by the way the meeting went that I could not remember enough to put a number to it. I hate to admit it, but all of the steepings were awful. The bitterness and astrincency were so prominent that not much else was trying to get through. We did discuss it’s potency and earthiness, we even agreed on the strong black coffee and tobacco notes. The other teas we tried went the same route. sigh.

http://miss-tea-rious.tumblr.com/post/113255134405/little-gold-melon-shu-tuocha

I really liked this tea. It was very well compressed and I almost had to break out my tea awl for this one. It is sweet with subdued notes of either dates or plums, not sure which is a better description. Cocoa notes are in the ball park too. This tea was a bargain at only $17.50. This is one I would definitely consider buying another of if putting in another order. It was much smoother than the 1998 White Tuo, at least I thought so. I kept this to six steeps tonight because I don’t want any more caffeine but you could certainly get twelve or more steeps out of this tea.

I steeped this six times in a 120ml gaiwan with 6.5g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, and 20 sec.

Not bad but seriously overshadowed by Pauls’ other offerings.

These are a little under 20g mine turned out to be ~ 17g but super compact I did a double check on my scale when I saw the reading, as I am used to tuos being either 5-6g or 100g+. I broke off 5g and threw it in my gaiwan, after two rinses we were off. I did not sense any pile taste which is to be expected being a few years old. The liqour was black so I am guessing heavy fermentation the tea had decent body as well. The flavor profile was woody but unlike others I have tasted all I can remember is smelling and tasting incense not smoky per say or super woodsy just light and delicate incense flavor if that makes sense. While it was pleasant, just prior I had steeped one of paul’s other ripened that blew my mind in the sweet coaco flavor profile so this gold melon was overshadowed. As a result this tea didn’t get much of my attention as I was still in astonishment at the previous session.

My tea cache is starting to become obnoxious, mostly in part because of puer so I am very picky about my raw and ripe these days. I received this as a sample with my last order and while it was not bad and I will gladly drink it down, it was not worth a spot in pumidor.

Dry Leaves: It took me a while to break a chunk off this little tuocha; I started off trying to break a fourth of it off, but I ended up sawing it with my puerh knife. The tuocha didn’t have a strong smell, but it smelled a little smokey.

Temperature: Boiling (Subsequent infusions at 190oF)
Brewing Time: Fifteen seconds ( + five seconds for each subsequent infusion)
Aroma: Slightly Fishy
Flavor: Sweetly Smoky, Earth, Woodsy and Licorice
Tasting Notes: I started with two thirty second rinses, since the item listing recommends a long rinse. Immediately I knew this was way too dark for me, but I soldiered on. I was surprised by the licorice taste I could distinguish in later infusions, although this doesn’t have a lot of staying power, I got eight infusions out of it. I was kind of surprised by the aroma, while it wasn’t fishy enough to be off putting, there was a slight smell, although this might have been caused by the thin wrapper.

I probably wouldn’t buy it again, I am not really fond of Shou Puerh, but I was surprised at how creamy it was. Maybe if I used half as much tea or brewed at a lower temperature I would consider buying this, but for $1.99 for a 20g mini tuocha, it isn’t a bad deal. I just happen to like teas on the greener side.

More at http://rah-tea.blogspot.com/2014/12/white2tea-2006-little-gold-melon-old.html