This past weekend a friend of mine Jose came by to swap some tea samples and talk about tea and bonsai. As he is also a puerh and bonsai aficionado. So I took out one of the cakes he had not tried yet. Put on the kettle and we had a long gongfucha session.
This is one of my favorite cakes with a little age. It is was a gift from my wife for my last birthday as she had asked me what teas I had liked from some samples I had at that time. The cake looks good already showing signs of age. It looks like it had a bit of semi humid storage but not too much, just enough to keep it kicking.
The aroma on this cake is very heavy giving off a nice woody camphor smell.
The leaves come off the cake semi easy, but it still has a bit of heavy compression getting into the layers of the cake. I still manage to get some leaves apart with a little breakage.
The brew stays true to the cakes aroma giving a woody camphor straw like sent. The first few infusions are a bit strong holding on to a heavy spicy wood, camphor, leather flavor really coating the mouth. After about the third brew it starts to smooth out giving many changes in its flavors, and continues thru around 15 infusions ending with a smooth honey sweetness. As this cake is said to be a mix of old and young trees the spent leaves are large and small leaf pieces with stems giving that woody aroma. Although it is not a pure gushu cake it does have good characteristics and seems like it will continue to hold on to its aromas and flavors. Jose and I both get a good clear chi and he leaves with a few chunks of puerh for later.
Yatsubusa elm bonsai 7 tree group in training, coming along nicely I think.
Hi, having this right now, it's rather nice I'd say! It ages quite nicely, methinks.
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This one is one of my favorites for flavor, age, price ratio. I am glad you are enjoying it, maybe I will brew some up tomorrow as I haven't had it in a good while.
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