Year of the Monkey 2016 Spring Mengku Raw Puer

Goal: Try all pu-erhs in my house – #1
6.6g 100ml shibo, 212F
I rinsed this – and the drank it. Creamy, with both a hint of bitterness and sweetness.
The wet leaf smells overwhelmingly of citrus. Hopefully this isn’t too bitter!

Steep times: 6/10/10/15/15/20/25/?/re-boil 20/25/30/45s
Creamy, citrus, thick. Aftertaste was citrus and floral. There was some drying in one of the early steeps. Sourness was present in the 2nd to last steep. The last steep made my teeth hurt!
I liked this tea. Consistent creamy and citrus notes. I’ll just remember not to push it so hard at the end. No real bitterness that I could taste.

1st steep (10s): Mild nose. Taste is very sweet and approachable straw, with floral notes and a hint of spice. This isn’t terribly complex, but is VERY enjoyable. Pretty good texture as well. (10s): Similar to first steep. Moderate cha qi snuck up on me. 3rd (10s): A bit more to this one. A bit of a meaty flavor, with some tobacco. Good finish. 4th Mostly wood and tobacco. Long finish. Overall, I liked this tea. Very approachable at first, it gained interest in later steeps.

Sipdown

I had received this sample a while ago from CWarren and have finally finished it off yesterday. I noted that this was a complex tea—it started out woody, but moved onto a nectar/fruity/sugary flavor—however, it was never consistent with any one flavor. I found this to be enjoyable.

I received this as a sample from Bitterleaf .
The tea has a lingering sweetness which was enjoyable.
It’s nice enough, I feel their description is accurate, “low on bitterness and roughness, and a good starting point for those new to raw puers.”

I prefer this tea to the Yiwu of the 2016 Year of the Monkey.

The tea is nice and long with sweet floral and grassy high notes. I am noticing that most of bitterleaf teas smell alike with the perfume-y thick sweet scent with nectar. I warmed my pot up and tossed some inside. The scent opens further into warm maple syrup and fruity tones with some light florals. I washed the tea and prepared for brewing. The tea is sweet and smooth with a grassy/veggie base along with a delayed huigan. The brew goes down quickly and smoothly with some bitter in the back. This tea is pretty decent, and I feel it fits its price quite well. The tea is nothing extreme or dramatic, but its a good no fuss sheng. The tea is light, but it carries some buzzing tones that follow around my body.

Also, this tea does superb grandpa style. I often brings this to the office and just throw some in a mug and sip at it.

Thanks to bitterleaf for this sample

The first steep or two have very noticeable notes of vegetable broth, wheat, thick in the throat, grass, bamboo, medicinal, || after that it’s not super flavourful, it’s thick and brothy but ….. my tongue feels tickly.. it’s oatmealy, and there’s a pretty noticeable qi, it’s hard to find notes honestly, I mean.. pu’er is usually hard for me but this is like expert difficulty, I mean it goes down easy and has really nice mouthfeels, but the flavours are really muddied and too medicinal and light for me, I’d only drink this for the qi and that’s not really the main thing I’m looking for in my tea when it comes down to it.

This is a good, inexpensive sheng for the new pu drinker or daily drinker. In the youngness I’m drinking it at now, it is pretty green tasting. It’s got a nice slick creamy body, with well balanced notes of fruity sweet, mineral, and light floral. I got 10 decent infusions. There is a light dryness, but I think you can steep this a bit lower temperature to avoid it.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/year-monkey-2016-spring-mengku-bitter-leaf-teas/

Trying another Bitterleaf Sample! This tea is quite sweet. Unfortunately, that was about all it was. The dry leaf smelled like candy, and the flavor lived up to that aroma. The whole session was about the same except for some bitterness in the first few steeps. A light vegetal or greener floral flavor (slightly bitter in first 3-4 steeps) with a sugar sweet finish. It was pleasantly thick for steeps 3-6 or so. I didn’t notice any qi from drinking this one, even on an empty stomach.

I wouldn’t describe this tea as nasty or unpleasant, it’s simply boring. Between Bitterleaf’s two budget cakes this year (The two Year of the Monkey cakes) the smoking monkey Yiwu blows this one completely out of the water.

For a key to my rating scale, check out my bio.

Another awesome value from Bitterleaf ($0.10/g). Very, very floral (as an Yiwu should be), with a really aromatic 回甘 (sweet finish) that is quite persistent and develops nicely. Slight mineral astringency but no bitterness overall. Very smooth for such a young tea.