Manmai Puer Tea

Warning: placeholder review ahead. I have been scuttling around Yunnan the past few weeks and will be on the road for the next month. Having recently drank a lot of Manmai tea, I thought this post would do the trick of updating my blog and acting as a comparison to some of the tea I have had around Menghai this week.

This sample was passed along to me. Fragments from a cake I have never laid eyes upon.

Judging teas in fragments gets a little bit tricky. Where was this tea? How was in stored? Is it representative of the whole cake or production?

The first traits of this tea that struck me were it’s color and it’s scent. Both the light yellowish color of the leaf and the raw green smell of the rinse suggest this tea is less than 3 years old, or generally green.

After delving further into the session, the soup continued on with a yellow color. There was some huigan [sweet aftertaste], but the other characteristics were not typical of my impression of a three year old Manmai. I had a 5 year old Manmai in Manmai that was in the opposite direction of this cake.

I still have yet to get around to trying other teas from Essence of Tea, other than samples passed my way by friends and puer lovers. Hopefully I will get a shot at some others.