2015 Sheng Pu'erh-Autumn

I was given this tea some time ago as a gift from Misty Peaks. It was a decent tea and I should really have saved some to age as I believe it would have done very well over the past few years.

Unfortunately I did not save any leaves and instead drank them all, so I imagine the tea was palpable and worth a purchase had I not received it as a gift.

My main concerns for this tea was not the taste itself, but the lack of brewing information and the cost (in Canadian bucks it was pretty pricey).

I ended up brewing about 6-10 grams and was rewarded with 8 infusions. The tea ended up being a mixture of sweet and bitter. Notes of raisins, plum, and apricot made themselves apparent.

Good tea? Yes, but the packaging was much better. I figure if you have the time to purchase a sample, go ahead and give it a try.

My full video review can be watched here!
https://worldteapodcast.com/videos/misty-peak-tea-puerh

This was an interesting experience courtesy of Liquid Proust’s grab bag, one that reminded me I needed more training on how to break up an especially tight chunk of cake. The dry leaf smells nice—like raisins. After the rinse, they smell like honey, raisins, and hay.

I alternated 190º and 170º with different steeping times from 30 seconds down to a straight pour through. As the steep time got shorter and shorter, the flavor developed from a honey-hay with slight bitterness and astringency to toasty to completely vegetal with no bitterness. I would say that the last, shortest, lowest steep had a velvety quality, but at that point, the back of my palate had begun to tingle, so that might have had something to do with it. Is that qi that everyone is talking about?

This was a pleasant tea, but I still think it was a little greenish for me to truly love.

I should preface this with the fact that I am probably not a good person to get advice from regarding shengs. I’ve only tried a handful and have only found one or two that even agree with me. Having said that, I’m not a quitter and I keep trying new shengs to see what I might enjoy.

I sampled some of this from the Beginners Puerh TTB. I drank some of it with my wife while we were playing cribbage. There was definitely an apricot/stone fruit type of scent to the dry leaves. The wet leaves exacerbated this effect.

The flavor on the first few steeps was light and slightly sweet. However, it turned a bit bitter near the 3rd or 4th steep. Not overpoweringly so, just enough to let you know it was there and detract from any of the lighter sweetness present. We did not see this one through and ended our session fairly early on with it. It just didn’t speak to us. For the half session or so that I did have with it, it provided a warming energy that I imagine would have gotten stronger if I had drank more. Also (and take this with grain of salt as I have a temperamental tummy), I noticed it made my stomach a little sour. Nothing too horrible but again, I only drank half a session and the stomach pangs were present.

Overall, I can see how this is a quality tea and many people would enjoy it. But, with my unrefined sheng tongue, it didn’t do much for me that was worth it. Having said that, I do have a 4 or 5g sample left if anyone would be interested.

First tea from the Puerh Beginners TTB!

This Tea Box arrived just two days before the start of a ten day vacation from my job. We are not going anywhere this time but just relaxing at home, so this is perfect! There is so much tea in here so I did the scientific thing and just grabbed the big bag on top and put it in my gaiwan.

I hadn’t tried anything by Misty Peaks yet, although it seems I put this on my wish list some time back. Of course I read all of the ‘controversy’ a while back, so I was curious to try this. It was immediately obvious that the leaves were of a high quality. The taste was mild but still had a lot of life force to it. I am really enjoying the later steeps. It just seems to be getting better and better. The bitterness and astringency is always accompanied by a mild sweetness. I would definitely buy some of this.

Finally, the passage of time has allowed me to out aside the drama that MP had going on earlier this year. While it is hard to drink this without a bais now due to the damage done in social media, I’m always fair in my assesment of tea reviews.

The dry leaf, just like many others, was very faint in scent to which I didn’t care about because I’ve had tea with no scent become the most aromatic offering. Upon brewing it the sixth time I was excited to open some of the lead to see it’s conditioning. These are very similar looking to that of a dancong. The viens are healthy and the lead is mostly intact, both clear signs of a nice picked harvest that was handled gently. As for taste, I’m kind of in between as the first few steeps prior to the lead opening has a semi sweet note to it but once the flavor came out I began tasting some tart notes. The liquid isn’t as clear or light as I like my sheng, however the first few steeps were quite enjoyable. The slight bitterness coming through with a tart note after the 5th steep may be something that will disapaite as this tea rest for a little. Apparence alone: This is a beautiful product worth showing off and sharing. Taste wise: I really think this tea can become something fantastic if treated right over a year to help reduce that slight tartness that I personally don’t like.

I can see why others enjoy this as it is easy to brew, not much regarding broken leaf, and the taste is in the mediocre level to which almost anyone can taste and not need much of a background in drinking sheng to critique it.

She was lovely and measured out 7g for me, which made it super easy. 7g tea, 145-ish ml water.

This is actually better than I was expecting! Yes, a little bitter, very fresh and green tasting, but it’s a sweet green rather than a spinach/kale green. More like green grape skins, actually. I’m brewing it with the lid off, since it’s such a green tea. I don’t want to overheat it.

I do prefer the ridiculous honey notes of the moonlight cake that I have. So while I can enjoy this sample, it’s not something I’d ever consider buying – and not just because of the terrible marketing tactics. (And shezza, I’m actually drinking most of every cup tonight. :D )

Derp, I put my note in the spring 2015, moving it over to Autumn 2015

Alright. This review took awhile. Lots of hype on this tea (so many fellow bloggers love it) and some weird “how’d this come out so soon?” drama, but I finally drank this tea. Twice. (only twice, I only had enough for 2 sessions).

Using a standard ratio I use, and temp I like for young sheng, 1g to 15ml 200F, this is super light. Lightest sheng I’ve had so far in my tea drinking days. The texture is very nice and thick, with nice floral cherry notes, wood, vegetal, avocado and butter – but super delicate light notes. I only got 10 steepings. I was unhappy.

So I came back to this tea and went insane. 1g to 10ml, so 9 grams to a 90ml teapot. Boiling water. I dumped all the leaf I had left and steeped it like IDGAF. Much better – the intensity is ballzy, an excellent sweet bitterness, nice avocado notes, and it melted my brain in 7 cups. I got 16 infusions, probably could of gotten 18 or so, but I got hungry for burritos. It’s nice, but expensive.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2015-autumn-misty-peak-sheng-puer-tea-review/

I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying a tea from Misty Peaks at a friend’s tea gathering before, but this is my first time sitting down alone and brewing one myself. Thank you to the staff at MPT for sending a sample to try!

The dry leaves smell abundantly like an old forest during the wet season, hints of bark and moss, flowers, fresh green leaves and hints of decay.

The wet leaves smell like roasted chestnuts and flowers in bloom. I am brewing these in a gaiwan and gave them a quick rinse infusion that I didn’t drink. The first infusion is very clean tasting with subtle dried-fruit notes, hints of orange tree flowers, and a slightly peppery, woody finish. There’s a touch of bitterness that lingers at the end of the sip, but it is subtle.

The second infusion yields a more fruity taste, like golden raisins or golden apples, something slightly tart, then I taste wood (a friend said sandalwood, and I think this is just the right descriptor), then again a lingering peppery finish. The next infusion has similar flavors, but smoother and more clear-tasting, less lingering bitterness. The fourth infusion is even more apple-tasting and the lingering taste not so peppery, more woody.

I was able to push, many many infusions out of this tea. The stand-out quality of this Puer for me is its clean taste. While some of the flavors and the balance of flavors are a bit on the woody side for my tastes, I can’t dispute how clean this tea tastes, and the bitterness, even for a freshly harvested sheng, is very low and mild throughout the infusions.

Many many thanks to Nicholas for sending me a sample of this tea. Just a tad over 4g in my 100ml gaiwan. Initial wet leaf aroma of cooked green vegetables, apricots and white grapes. (I know that sounds like a weird combo, but that’s my nose!) Initial steeps are smooth, soft, no smoke, no bitter, slightly sweet, lovely, & delicious. I found that I needed to push the steep times a bit after about five; later steeps are still ok but it does fade a bit and the first few steeps are the best.

This is a good starter sheng I think, because it’s so mellow. For me, not much in the way of qi, but that’s ok. I don’t need to get ripping tea drunk to enjoy a nice sheng. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked and lost count at my number of steeps, but I’m guessing I got to at least 12. This last one I steeped for 3 minutes and it was just ok. I have to say that if I had a tea friend that was interested in trying pu’er, I would recommend this tea; while not overly sweet, I can’t say enough about how easy to drink it is. I will probably purchase a bing. It would be interesting to see how it ages.

EDIT: I have a good amount of the sample left, and I think I will try brewing more like 6 or 7g in my 100ml gaiwan for my next session and see what happens.

This is without a doubt among the very best sheng I have ever drank. It was sweet with very little bitterness, just a little bitter aftertaste. It had the commonly found notes of young sheng apricots and stonefruits. In there I’m pretty sure I detected notes of green grapes too. It is my understanding that this comes from quite old tea trees. Why Nicholas doesn’t advertise it as Gushu I don’t know. I am just now starting to feel the effects of the qi of this tea after some sixteen steeps. Even in the sixteenth steep the tea was not watery. I I had the patience for five minute and ten minute steeps I’m pretty sure I could have taken this to twenty steeps. I put his in the catalog as Yiwu sheng because previous years Misty Peaks were described as such. I hope I am right and it is Yiwu sheng. I don’t think that is actually on his website. Throughout all sixteen steeps there were no negative notes, no smoke and no sour notes. This tea was processed by a master, that is for sure. I seriously wish I had bought two or three bings but at the price of this I bought just one. If these go on sale again I may find myself picking up another.

I steeped this tea sixteen times in a 60ml gaiwan with 4.5g leaf and 200 degree water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 second rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min, 2.5 min, 3 min, 3.5 min and 4 min. Again the leaves were not spent. If I had the patience to steep it for five and ten minutes I am quite sure this tea would have gone twenty steeps. I cannot remember a raw puerh that I liked as much as this tea. I think it is better than his Spring 2015 tea.