Bai Long Xu Gong Cha (White Dragon Whiskers)

Tea type
Pu'erh Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Butter, Cream, Floral, Smooth, Vanilla
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Puerh_Addict
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 30 sec 4 g 4 oz / 110 ml

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  • “Haven’t made a review in quite some time! This wont’ be terribly in-depth like my others, but it should give a pretty decent overview. I’m using about 4g for 110mL, at 205F. Forgot to check out the...” Read full tasting note
    95

From Seven Cups

Sheng Puer Cake 200g 2016

This puer is unusual compared to other puers. The buds are fresh, silver, and fuzzy. They yield a rich, sweet, and complex brew, like a bunch of fresh-picked flowers, due in part to the high concentration of amino acids. The color is a bright, light apricot color and the aroma will accompany you through the last cup. Puer tea drinkers of all types will find something to like about this cake.

The original mother bush used to make this tea grows at an elevation of 1,700 meters (more than 5,500 feet) in Yang Ta village. The mature leaves are large — 13-17 centimeters long and 5-8 centimeters wide. The tree itself grows from 3 to 5 meters tall and is easy to cultivate by cuttings, which has contributed to its spread.

The tree is strong and robust even through harsh winters, and produces unusually fat and evenly sized buds with lots of white down early in the spring. Since the Qing Dynasty, these buds have been picked and given to the Emperor under the name Bai Long Xu Gong Cha, or “White Dragon Whiskers Tribute Tea.” Buds for this cake are picked before the Qing Ming Festival around April 25th, just like high quality green tea.

This puer cake is unusual compared to other puer teas. The buds are fresh, silver, and fuzzy. They yield a rich, sweet, and complex brew with an aroma like a bunch of fresh-picked flowers that is due in part to the high concentration of sweet-smelling amino acids in the tea buds. The color is a bright, light apricot color and the aroma will accompany you through the last cup. Puer tea drinkers of all types will find something to like about this cake.

To compress puer into cakes, the tea is weighed with a scale. The traditional weight was 357 grams, but now many factories use 400 grams. This year we requested the non-traditional size of 200 grams per cake. A piece of cotton fabric is placed inside a special 1 foot deep tin bucket that has holes on the bottom. The weighed and dried tea leaves are placed inside the fabric, enough to almost fill the bucket. The leaves are steamed for about 3-5 seconds at first, then a worker places a one inch square piece of paper that is stamped with the company’s logo on top of the cake, with a few leaves on top of it to adhere it to the cake. The next worker sits in front of the steamer, and after about 5 seconds they will remove the fabric and wet leaves from the bucket. The dry tea leaves are transformed from being very puffy to a condensed 3 inches thick. The next person will quickly tie the fabric, making a knot at the end. They compress the knot into the center of the cake under a compression machine. It takes the perfect amount of pressure to push the wet tea leaves tightly into about a 1 inch thick cake. If you look on the back of a puer cake, you will see the indentation from the fabric knot. Some producers still use the traditional way of compressing cakes. Two stone molds, that are curved to match the shape of puer cakes, are used to flatten the cakes. Someone will stand on top of the mold and evenly shake their body to mold the cake into its shape. Factories that use this method will have one worker whose job is to compress these cakes. They must be a specific weight as to not over compress the cakes. The best cakes will have every leaf stuck together. They are not too loose, but are still easy to remove chunks of tea from them. The minor amounts of space will allow air to move through and naturally ferment the cake over years. After a few hours, the wet cakes are removed from the fabric and placed on wooden shelves. The cakes slowly dry for a few hours at a temperature of about 40 degrees celsius. Once the tea is dry, the cakes are sent to the packaging room. A skilled tea worker will use cotton paper to quickly wrap the cakes. They will fold the squares of cotton paper so there are exactly sixteen wrinkles. Clean, dry bamboo shells wrap 7 cakes together at once. Bamboo string is used to tie the shells together to secure them for transportation. This is the traditional packing method that is still often used. The bamboo shell will cover the tea from rain, but will also allow the tea to breathe. Bamboo is a very neutral scent, and will separate other scents from reaching the tea.

About Seven Cups View company

Seven Cups is an American tea company based in Tucson, Arizona. We source traditional, handmade Chinese teas directly from the growers and tea masters who make them, and we bring those teas back from China to share with people everywhere.

1 Tasting Note

95
47 tasting notes

Haven’t made a review in quite some time! This wont’ be terribly in-depth like my others, but it should give a pretty decent overview.

I’m using about 4g for 110mL, at 205F.

Forgot to check out the dry aroma :P but the wet aroma is nothing too special. It’s a bit musky and ‘sandy’, but also subtle hints of sweetness and vanilla.

As for the taste, very neat and very interesting. It comes within two ‘stages’. The first stage gives the “standard” taste of sheng puerh, with the combination of white tea notes such as bai mudan and silver needle combined. Tastes like a strict combination of the two without any of the astringency, nor any hint of bitterness at all. Which is rather neat considering than sheng is normally categorized by those two characteristics.

After about 5 seconds (or less, if you can’t help to swallow the tea), the second “stage” comes in. This is where the sweetness hits and it’s absolutely sublime. It’s like adding a drop of vanilla to your tea and having it combine with the flavours perfectly. The sweetness spreads throughout your mouth and remains rooted as a strong aftertaste presence. Very delicious.

As a summary, if you had silver needle before, imagine silver needle infused with vanilla and the two live in absolute harmony with each other. This is how this tea tastes to me, and it retains its flavour for a very long time for multiple steepings.

I am primarily a shu puerh drinker and I normally dislike sheng, but as funny as it sounds, this is actually my absolute favourite tea from all the teas I’ve tasted. It’s great.

Flavors: Butter, Cream, Floral, Smooth, Vanilla

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 30 sec 4 g 4 OZ / 110 ML

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