2008 Ancient Aini Nannuo Maocha

Every once in a while you find tea in an unexpected place.

 So today I took my son to the Monarch Festival here in downtown Waukegan.

And after walking around and my son getting into some of the kids activities I came upon one of the vendors, and the first thing I hear is " would you like to try some tea?" and of course I reply " do you have any raw puerh?" which is the same thing I ask every tea merchant I happen upon. And so the lady was very kind and right away grabs a small bag of green puerh, called Ancient Aini from Nannuo 2008. Now she did not have samples of it and so I buy the bag, but I do have a small cup of pouchong which was very good. 

This vendor is Napoleona Tea and is an online vendor who I had not heard of before but they are local and looks like they do some classes and tastings also, so I was glad to see them here and look forward to trying more of there teas. 

She also said she has a 99 vietnam puerh that is very good, but was sold out at the fest so maybe I will try that one later.

So after a few hours of fun at the festival I head home and strait to warm up some water.

 First off the package is very nice.

 The dry leaf looks very good with a nice dark color and is quite large.

 The dry aroma of the leaf smells of flower and citrus. The first infusions are a bit sweet and woody but have a pronounced astringency in the aftertaste. The mouth feel is cooling and gentle. After a few infusions it develops a very mellow smooth sweet orchid sugary flavor with a bit of the astringency holding, and some good bitterness. It does get strong when I overbrew so I keep the brews short. I will throw some in my glass tumbler tomorrow for work and see how it does.

 The infused leaf is mostly large full leaf with very few stems and buds.

This maocha is better than the other 2008 nannuo maocha I have had from Puerhshop which was a bit empty. It definitely has some full sweet flavors and lasts well over the 6 infusions the vendor mentions.

All in all it was a good decent tea and a great day.

Now to finish off some Wuyi I was having earlier.

Enjoy your cup of tea!