Menghai Tea Factory(jastea)

Thanks to MrMopar for the sample! Haven’t ever tried the 7532 recipe yet, so this should be interesting.

2008 Menghai 7532 <801>
9.4g, 110 mL gaiwan (yes, this is pretty high ratio, but it was late and I was too lazy to break up the sample), Brita filtered tap, boiling

Dry leaf has the fruity aged sheng smell

20s rinse

Wet leaf is smoke and dark dried fruity

7s: slight mushroomy and smoke taste, very fruity high notes, slight cooling and sweet aftertaste. Pretty nice texture even from the Brita filtered tap here which usually doesn’t give great performance in this area.

9s: a blander, more floral pea-like vegetal taste and similar lingering coating aftertaste. A slight bitterness.

12s: bitter and slightly astringent. Slight sweet aftertaste that lingers

12s: a dark fruity bitterness. Astringent, though not unbearably so. Warming in back of neck.

15s: a dark floral and bitter taste.

15s: slight floral and dark bitter, slight drying. Slight warming.

20s: crisp slightly fruity bitter. A slight sour note.

15s: a light smoky floral, like late steeps of some oolongs

24s: A generic sheng taste. Light sweet aftertaste.

30s: similar to before, mainly light smoky taste, slight fruitiness.

1 min.: a sharp smoky, almost metallic fruity bitterness.

3 min.: bitter and astringent, light fruity

Untimed several min.: general aged sheng fruity and slight bitter taste

Thermos the rest since it was getting late. Had to take melatonin to sleep because of the caffeine but this was better than I expected, though also more floral, so less in line with what I usually opt to drink, though whether that’s due to age or what I suspect is not as heavy of storage I’m not sure. I know this is an oft-mentioned topic and beating a dead horse, but given the relatively low cost of factory teas with nice aging and profile like these, one wonders why some of the young puers in the Western puer circles are as popular as they are.

Trying this one out today. First a 10 sec wash, 1st steep about 10 seconds a little grassy taste slight bitterness. next 3 steeps tang of a green tea some smokiness light sweetness at the end. into steep 5 still a touch of the smoke almost no bitterness almost a drying taste on the tongue. Still learning the ‘sheng’ thing but finding out that I am beginning to like them more. I can’t wait to see how this one ages in the “pumidor”.