Dayi 2006 Classic 66

I’LL POST FULL TASTING NOTES WHEN I DIGITIZE THEM.

TLDR: My heart broke when I couldn’t buy a full sized cake. If you can get your hands on this shou, do it!

2006 Classic 66 Dayi from Liquid Proust
It’s a delightful Shou Pu’er from Yunnan.

8.17g per 150ml gaiwan, 195°F
Rinsed for 10 seconds and then I did a 10 second infusion with +5s on each consecutive infusion.

I’m currently on infusion 6 and I’ve been drinking it all day. I’ve felt energized, yet calm the entire time. I’m assuming it has a nice theanine to caffeine ratio given how it is affecting me.

Overall, it is woody, sweet, and smooth. In the beginning it had notes of licorice and dried herbs. Over the infusions that was replaced with a savory nature with strong wicker notes and a hint of grains. It had a light nutty (almond?) taste on the 3rd infusion. But as time has gone on, the tea has tasted brighter with a pleasant crispness. The astringency has been building, but it adds a nice mouthfeel.

I ate a few meals today with the tea.

I had a bacon, havarti, and salami sandwich on brioche with the second infusion. It brought out a mellow sweetness in the tea, which I enjoyed.

With the 5th infusion I ate a salad (walnut, apple, cranberry, blue cheese, chicken, with a sweet and creamy dressing). I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but it was fantastic. The contrasting tones highlighted the sweetness of the fruit/cheese with the savory qualities of the tea. The smooth woody notes added a lovely touch that tied everything together.

I want to experiment more with food pairings that are more targeted towards the tea’s profile.

Either way, I’ll probably continue drinking this one for a while. I might save the leaves in the fridge to see how they do in later infusions. I bet I could get 8-10 decent infusions from these leaves (and I didn’t even use a tea knife to loosen the leaves) even though I broke some of them whilst removing them from the main cake.

-For picture:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTir_qeHlSp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

2006 Dayi Classic 66 (sample purchased from Liquid Proust Teas)
5.2g, 100mL gaiwan, 212f, Brita filtered tap
1x 5s rinse
dry leaf has clean woody smell
wet leaf is the dark spices & shou kind of smell
5s: tastes like it smells. Classic Shou profile & taste
10s: stronger woody taste. Just the barest touch of sweetness. Less of the light peppery shou note than previous cup
18s: basically the same as before.
20s: stale bread and woodiness. I don’t dislike, but it’s not like I’d be fighting to have this
in my collection or whatever either… Also a bit of shou peppery note, and just the barest hint of sweetness
30s: Lightening in depth, but noticeably sweeter, perhaps because other notes are gone.
40s: same sort of muted sweetness.
1 min: sweeter again, sort of in a papery sticky rice sort of way. Improved thickened mouthfeel.
2 min: Same bready Shou taste, almost a hint of sour too.
2 min. 30s: A sweet medicinal that leaves throat a bit dry.
3 min: similar to before, but less medicinal so sweet is more forward
4 min: very light medicinal sort of taste, again leaving mouth a bit dry. Slight hint of some dried fruit that I can’t place in aftertaste, maybe dried persimmon?
overall: Nothing too noticeable in terms of body effect. If slight warming, hard to tell if it’s due to the tea or just how warm it is inside rn since the dorm traps a fair amount of heat. Tried this since LP mentioned it was a shou w/ lighter fermentation. It still has that distinctive shou backbone, but it’s definitely lightened in comparison to most shou I’ve tried before. Was this alright? Yes. Would I repurchase? No. I still don’t love shou in general, and a cake of this being 660g just sounds painful. That being said, I’m starting to appreciate shou more on its own merits as it’s meant to be. Shou is a different game/ballpark than Sheng, and trying to evaluate them on the same playing field like I had generally in the past is just invalidating, so I will admit my own mistake in that aspect.