Diving into another loose-leaf sheng from Tao Tea Leaf today. I normally don’t get hung up on costs, but as this is the only place where I can locally buy aged pu-erh, it’s hard to look past this 15-gram sample being short by 6 grams. I paid $4.20 for the amount of tea they withheld. Not cool. Has kind of left me wondering about all the other times I’ve ordered expensive teas from this place… will definitely be weighing out everything else I ordered this time around.
That being said, at least there is enough for me to have one solid gong fu session. As with all the other loose-leaf shengs from this store, it has impressed me and exceeded expectations. This sheng has been aging since 2009 and its really developed into something delightful. A strong muscatel aroma after the wash was hard to ignore, sweet and pungent! The subsequent brews started off slightly bitter and smoky leaning more into hay and leather than grapes. This mellowed out quickly though into a mixture of grapes, cherries, roasted tomatoes, and something kind of like shiitake mushrooms. Little to no bitterness or astringency. The soup was surprisingly thin, quite lubricating, and dark. Very lovely aftertaste. I would love to have more of this in stock, but not if I’m going to be shorted again.
Flavors: Cherry, Hay, Leather, Muscatel, Mushrooms, Smoke, Vegetal
