Country of Origin: China
Leaf Appearance: loosely compressed
Ingredients: puerh tea
Steep time: 15 seconds
Water Temperature: 212 degrees
Preparation Method: porcelain gaiwan
Liquor: pale gold
Jing Mai is one of my favorite puerh growing regions but this is the first tea from there that I’ve written about in almost a year. So much tea, such little time! The 2016 Year of the Monkey, also from +Bitterleaf Teas, was one of my favorite shengs in recent memory so I was really looking forward to diving into this one.
Life has been a bit crazy lately so I don’t have time to gongfu tea as often as I might like to. The one upside is that I tend to enjoy what I drink a lot more. This tea exactly what I needed in that moment. All I could say is “Wow, that’s good!” and pour myself another cup. This also led me to use up my entire sample over the course of a weekend. Several late night sessions even led to continued steeps in the morning.
I was struck by how sweet this tea was from the very first sip. Heady floral notes danced around a pleasant vegetal crispness. Although the taste was on the mellow side I think that the aromatics more than made up for it. The mouth feel was so thick and viscous that it almost made the tea seem creamy. There was very little bitterness or astringency, making this a perfect option for those that have trouble handling finicky young puerh. The leaves have had time to mellow out and it shows.
I love that there are so many options for purchasing this tea. I’m unlikely to ever commit to a full 357g cake but a “mini-tong” of 10g mini cakes is definitely up my alley. How handy would those be for traveling? A sample size is also available of just 30g for less than $10.
Hummingbird 2013 Spring Jing Mai Ancient Tree Raw Puer sample provided for review by Bitterleaf Teas.
