2014 Three Cranes "0207" Liu Bao Tea Cake * Wuzhou

It seems that I’ve been falling behind on reviewing tea lately. Work has been quite an adventure. There are many shipments sent out during this time of the year due to post-Thanksgiving and Christmas; therefore, my shifts have been starting at 3 P.M. and ending around 1-1:30 A.M. And to be quite frank, a cup of tea can make one unable to sleep…heh.

Anyway, this has been a daily drinker for me this week. I love the depth of flavor that arises from the liquid. It’s a dark tea, with many deep earthy/moss flavors. Fortunately, it’s fairly inexpensive, so using a lot of leaf (approx. 10g for 100 ML) for each session isn’t a problem. I must admit that I will push this tea with the temperature of water/amount used per session. This usually lasts me about 10-15 pots per session; which is a nice session before work.

I highly recommend this if you’re into the deeper earthy/mossy flavors. It’s quite nice.

The wet leaves smell of moss and forest floor. Dry I can’t smell much of anything. This tea cake is very, very tightly packed. I did two 10 sec rinses. Not sure what the recommended steep times are for this tea so I treated it like a shou puerh.

Steep – Time – Notes
1st – 10s – Very pleasantly surprised! The very first thing noted is a butter smooth sweetness. Sort of a jujube taste. (I had to go look up what else this was called as I’d only heard it called jujube the many times I’ve had it in Korea. It’s also known as a Chinese/Korean/Indian date). Very soft finish. No bitterness or astringency to speak of. Packs a sneaky, but fairly gentle bit of cha qi. Mind you, I"m drinking this tea 300mL at a time (I don’t mind not sharing :P )… er maybe not so gentle, LOL! Wow, OK… I’m awake now. If I wasn’t before… I’m definitely awake now! XD Awake and looking accusingly at my cup as if it emptied itself.

2nd – 10s – Much darker brew. A bit more moss in the flavor, but the sweetness and jujube notes is still there. Near the end of that cup I’m pretty sure I started to vibrate a bit. Going to go meditate now. No chance of dozing off, Ha!

3rd – 20s – A little more wet autumn leaves over the moss. Makes me think of shou puer now. I think this tea may know a bit of kung fu. Rather impressive kick. I’ll have to see if I get this effect again. Wondering if I just didn’t have enough to eat today. Still, damn good tea! Glad I tried it.

4th – 20s – Brew even darker, but taste is more mellow, round and sweet.

5th – 30s – Light and sweet. The bold body experienced in the previous steepings is now obviously thinning out. I have a few shou puerhs that I like well enough, but this is easily as good if not better than the best of those. (I do tend to prefer sheng puerhs). Next steeping should be 45s – 60s.

6th – 90s – The jujube flavor has pretty much vanished. There’s a bit of a toffee note showing up. The color is still fairly rich, but the flavor seems about done. I could probably extend the steep to 300s, but I’ll end it here. Very happy tea tasting this one.