Tasted and reviewed this one a few weeks ago, but I’ve only just got around to logging it on Steepster.
I read Derk’s tasting note before trying it. Got to admit, it really got my hopes up for delicious stone fruits and brown sugar. But I didn’t get that at all. I’m mostly putting it down to inexperience (my first puerh), which is why I’m not rating it either.
I got a mix of steamed green vegetables, mostly.
Steep 1, 10 seconds, medicinal pak choi flavour and steamed veg aroma.
Steep 2, 15 seconds, complex cruciferous veg flavour with a hint of sweetness and strong camphor aroma.
Steep 3, 15 seconds, the same as #2 but with a gentler flavour and saltier aroma.
Steep 4, 20 seconds, no change.
Steep 5, 20 seconds, weaker but still that distinct, leafy green cruciferous vegetable flavour.
Steep 6, 50 seconds, less vegetable-like, more green tea-like and more mellow in flavour with a hint of bitterness.
Steep 7, 2 minutes 30 seconds, the vegetable flavour has turned almost grassy and astringent with an unusual sweetness that reminds me of unripe melon. It’s the flavour of the thin slither of green right at the edge of a slice of honeydew melon.
Steep 8, 6 minutes, mellower vegetable notes – predominantly green beans – with the unripe melon notes and a sweeter aroma. The texture has become quite drying.
Steep 9, 10 minutes, the same as above.
Steeps 10 through to 15 gradually weakened out and didn’t reveal anything new.
I appreciated it as a tea. I’m not sure I liked it though.
https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/king-tea-mall-yi-wu-ma-hei-sheng-puer-tea-review/
Flavors: Green Beans, Melon, Vegetables
Preparation
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Sheng was an acquired taste for me, much like beer and coffee. Trying a wide variety of samples — different ages, different mountains, blends — from a range of vendors opened up my appreciation for a tea that can have immense complexities. It took a while to get used the range of characteristics but something clicked one day and I was hooked. Western-focused vendors tend to offer sheng that are immediately drinkable for inexperienced palates; maybe this tea isn’t one of them. It’s still young, too, in the timeline of puerh aging. Maybe my tastes have developed in a way such that I can look past a lot of the ‘greenness’ in young teas.
Sorry your experience wasn’t what I described mine to be! If you have a large sample, stash it away and come back to it when the time feels right.
A first pu-erh is bit different than others. I had Waffles from W2T, which was quite good, but I noticed different notes a bit too.
Just keep trying.
Thanks, both of you :) I’m not giving up, I’ll try and find some more small samples to try. This one was just a 5g sample included in a King Tea Mall teaware order.
I did a little research before drinking it so I had the idea that it would be vegetal and green in my mind from the start. I’m wondering if that also impacted my ability to taste any subtler notes.
I agree with derk, puerh takes some getting used to. Even though I love green tea and green oolongs, I’ve yet to acquire a taste for sheng…the bitterness is off-putting. But I do like shou puerh, which has a darker flavor. Like black tea without the maltiness.
Sheng was an acquired taste for me, much like beer and coffee. Trying a wide variety of samples — different ages, different mountains, blends — from a range of vendors opened up my appreciation for a tea that can have immense complexities. It took a while to get used the range of characteristics but something clicked one day and I was hooked. Western-focused vendors tend to offer sheng that are immediately drinkable for inexperienced palates; maybe this tea isn’t one of them. It’s still young, too, in the timeline of puerh aging. Maybe my tastes have developed in a way such that I can look past a lot of the ‘greenness’ in young teas.
Sorry your experience wasn’t what I described mine to be! If you have a large sample, stash it away and come back to it when the time feels right.
A first pu-erh is bit different than others. I had Waffles from W2T, which was quite good, but I noticed different notes a bit too.
Just keep trying.
Thanks, both of you :) I’m not giving up, I’ll try and find some more small samples to try. This one was just a 5g sample included in a King Tea Mall teaware order.
I did a little research before drinking it so I had the idea that it would be vegetal and green in my mind from the start. I’m wondering if that also impacted my ability to taste any subtler notes.
I agree with derk, puerh takes some getting used to. Even though I love green tea and green oolongs, I’ve yet to acquire a taste for sheng…the bitterness is off-putting. But I do like shou puerh, which has a darker flavor. Like black tea without the maltiness.