Known for its gentle and mild character, I am a fan of most teas from Yiwu (like so many people). This cake is rather dark and mysterious and it holds a special place in my collection. The raw material is from purely Yi Wu old-growth tea trees (reported to be over 1000 years old). The giant whole leaves are clearly hand arranged and wrapped to form the cake – unlike anything I have seen before and when I opened the cake wrapper I was reminded a little of the grapevine wreaths you buy from craft stores.
The cake has a lovely loose compression of large dark leaves and I found a rather pleasing damp yet light aroma of sweetness (perhaps a bit like fresh hay). The wet leaf produces the scent of sweetness mixed with roasted grains and a clear gold tea soup. This is certainly not the most flavorful YiWu tea I have but with a bit of age on them, the leaves produce extremely smooth, sweet and buttery sips with decent cha-qi. This is not a particularly thick tea soup and I have enjoyed eight quite pleasant cups today. There is definitely a dose of caffeine in each cup but the tea leaves me calmed and comforted. I like this one!