2006 Jingmai QiaoMu/Arbor Pu-erh Tea Brick (50g)

This little tea surprised me. A very smooth and sweet little brick. Zero bitterness.

I added these to an old order about a year or so ago from Puerhshop Canada just to sort of pad out the costs (it’s only a couple of bucks for a little 50g brick so I got a bunch). I noticed it was a bit on the dry side when it arrived so I just lined the wall of my puerh container with these little guys.

Compression isn’t super tight so it’s quite easy to break up.

I placed the dry leaves into a steaming pot and they have a slight green-wood and camphor/vanilla note which is promising.

What you get is clean, simple and sweet. It loses the sweetness a bit after steep 3, and heads into the milder sort of ‘sweet pea’ territory.

There’s zero detectable storage funk. Clean.

The scent from the first few steeps and the pitcher is close to the crispy caramel on a creme brûlée. Along with the hints of vanilla custard. A little of a eucalyptus or camphor note, but this fades toward vanilla and sugar pretty quickly.

I’ve brewed this in a few pots. Right now, it’s in a larger (130ml) Qing Hui Ni pot – and it’s fairly plain and sugary. I tried it in a smaller Zhuni (90ml) earlier and the eucalyptus/camphor note was stronger but there was probably a higher leaf ratio.

I get a bit of a numb tongue afterwards.

Would definitely recommend it. Extremely good bang for the buck.

I’ve put 85 because it’s just got one main note (definitely not complex flavour combo) and it doesn’t infuse much past the 4th infusion. But what it does have is very nice.