Yunnan Palace Ripened Pu-erh Loose Tea 2005

For the sipdown prompt, “a tea you’ve never tried before.” This is one of my oldest teas, from the final “Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox.” Thanks for sharing, tea-sipper!

I brewed the 4g sampler in 12 oz. 205F water with a five minute steep.

It tastes like shou… it doesn’t seem to matter the type or age, it all tastes the same to me. Musky wet, swampy earth, and a little smoke. Still not a flavor profile I care for much, but as an occassional cup on a rainy day, it’s okay.

I was surprised at how much I liked this tea. I seldom reach for puerh and my experience with most sheng has been rough to say the least. But this tea was a different story. It’s super smooth without any funk and a mild earthiness that doesn’t overwhelm. Really nice and clean taste. It’s not quite sweet but it’s not bitter either. I’d describe the flavor as a hearty dried prune with a little earthy kick.

The tea brews to a rich, dark cherry wood red liquor that quickly stained my gaiwan brown (note to self: don’t steep this in white porcelain again). There’s next to zero fermentation flavor here. The flavor is quite mellow and aside from a hint of woodsiness and slightly tamer earthiness later, it changed very little in 6 or 7 steeps.

This is a mild ripe puerh that’s great for easy sipping. I enjoyed this one a lot and would recommend it as an introductory tea for puerh newcomers.

Yunnan palace ripened puerh loose tea 2005 by Teavivre review

Happy Canada day my fellow Canadians!

Using my new Engraved dragon teapot gongfucha.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHSGj7Ahhsb/

Dry leaf: slightly musty.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHVWre7BYj7/

Wet leaf: light earth.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHVZx5DB42p/

1x short rinse.

Light steep: I taste/smell; slight —→ cream, toasty, earth, old books, autumn leaves. Little to no fermentation.

(Forgot to take pic. Using pic of light steep after review) —→ https://www.instagram.com/p/BHVZoEkhjBc/

Medium steep: I taste/smell;
slight —> berries(unknown), fermentation, cream, toasty. Light -→ earth, old books, autumn leaves.

Heavy steep, I taste/smell; slight —>
Berries(unknown), cream, toasty. Light fermentation. Medium -→ earth, old books, autumn leaves.

All in all, this is one of the the best shou I have ever tried. So mellow, however, not much of cha qi. so i rate a 100. definately reccomend

Many tanks to Teavivre for selling me this sample.

Enjoy your Canada day my fellow Canadians. I certainly have!

http://www.teavivre.com/yunnan-palace-loose-ripened-pu-erh/
http://www.teavivre.com/dragon-head-yixing-teapot/

I’ve been really wanting to get into straight pu-erh after having fallen in love with more than a few flavoured pu-erhs. Apologies to the gong-fu aficionados out there, I brewed this lazy-style with my new teapot*, as outlined on the bag. Plus a 30ish second rinse to begin with.

Which maybe explains why my experience with this tea is so very very out of line with what I’m reading from other reviews…? This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s going to sound like a bad thing, but steeped this smelt like… a barn. Like hay, leather, dust, and, yes, vaguely of manure, which might be more to do with association after thinking it smells like a barn. Sipped it still evokes hay and leather, and oddly enough, I really enjoyed this. It was a very relaxing cup, quite unlike anything I’ve had before in my thus far short relationship with tea. It reminded me of playing in the hay loft at a neighbour’s house in the summer, watching the same goat get his head stuck in the same section of fence repeatedly and requiring constant human intervention.

*new teapot is a 15oz Bee House that I absolutely adore! It’s weird how having a teapot you love makes preparation all the more enjoyable. Teaware hoarders are making more and more sense to me by the day….

2005….where was I? I was a kid trying to succeed in the radio business, no kids, single, and trying to make ends meet. I guess you would call this my Throw Back Thursday Tea. Ten years later I wonder if I’ve still really made it in this biz, 2 kids with one here anytime now, on my second and last marriage, and there’s a whole lot more in between. First I’ve never met a Pu I didn’t like. Erh that is. This one is no different. Dark. Smooth. Earthy. Everything that you would expect from a great Pu-Erh. Good tea is a part of a great daily trifecta. A good cup of coffee, good tea, and a good BM. That’s really all you need to have an excellent day. I am now remembering why I need to take the time to make good tea. Pu-erh has a balancing effect on me. It may be real it may be in my mind. I feel more relaxed after having this tea. I never worry about the quality either. I have not had a tea from Teavivre that is not top quality.

A huge thank you to Angel at Teavivre for this free sample! I received them earlier this week and am diving into this one tonight. Yes it is a bit late for pu’erh, but it’s shu, which is warming, cozy and sometimes very relaxing for me. So we will give it a go this late! :D

The dry leaves smell oh so good, musty, damp wood, a log in the forest. I love that smell, and immediately said to my bf’s brother “I will like this tea, it smells like a damp, musty log!” LOL, you know you like tea too much when…anyways, I was a bit unsure of parameters for brewing this one, so I did 2 short 15s rinses and then a first steep of 30s. I am using about 1.25 tsp in approx 9-12oz water (not sure on the cup’s capacity, it’s one of my smaller mugs though). The steeped scent was heady and rich in the rinses, and has now given way to an actual sweet aroma! Sweet, with hints of must and chocolate. Interesting, haven’t had a noticeably sweet aroma in many shu puerhs yet!

As for the flavor, mmmm this is mellow, lightly earthy and a bit sweet in flavor. Yum, it is like my beloved Noble Mark, but with a bit less mushroom flavor and more sweetness. There is a noticeable sweet aftertaste. It is rich and full bodied, but not harsh and not overly strong either. Just yummy! I am feeling a tiny bit of cha-qi from this, a slight alertness, but hoping this fades into that pu’erh calm that I enjoy immensely.

Overall, this is a rich, satisfying brew. Notes of caramel, earth, mushrooms and a bit of chocolate prevail. Tasty, with a slight tea buzz coming on, but nothing crazy yet. Happy to have tried this, and as I taste this tea more, it might be a contender for my top shu. It has a lot of notes that I am enjoying! Thanks again to the lovely Angel for sending me this tea to try!

ETA – the energizing cha-qi did drop off and lead into a more relaxed feeling, I am very happy about that as I will be able to sleep good tonight! :D

Thank You Angel at Teavivre for this free sample. This is a very tasty, good quality ripe puerh. It has lost most but not quite all of its fermentation flavor. All but the most sensitive to fermentation flavor would be fine with this tea. There were some sweet notes to this tea. The Steepster writeup describes them as caramel. This is certainly a possible viewpoint but I could not pin them down while drinking it. This was a great way to start my day with a rare morning gongfu session.

I steeped this six times in a 220ml gaiwan with 6.7g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 10 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 30 sec, and 1 min. I would say that I would only have gotten a few more steepes out of this tea but then again I probably should have used more tea but wanted to save my second sample of this tea for another time.

Another sample from Teavivre! Thank you! I’ve only tried a few loose pu-erhs in the past — these leaves are on the smaller side and have hints of reddish gold to them. I used an entire sample pouch of this. This sample was a loose three teaspoons. With the robust flavor, I could have used 1 1/2-2 teaspoons, but three is perfectly delicious! The flavor is sweet, hints of marshmallows, smooth yet deep (the cup is VERY dark.. very coffee like). The other steeps were just as good. The perfect pu-erh, as usual from Teavivre. I could describe most of Teavivre’s ripened pu-erhs the same way but they never fail me! They might be similar but most of them are so delicious, with none of the disagreeable pu-erh characteristics that might scare someone away from pu-erh. You can’t go wrong with any of the ripe pu-erhs I’ve tried from Teavivre. Teavivre is the PERFECT shop to start with pu-erh for beginners.
Steep #1 // 8 min after boiling // rinse // 1 1/2 min steep
Steep #2 // 5 min after boiling // 2 1/2 min steep
Steep #3 // 5 min a. b. // 4 min

little out of it today but i’ve been drinking this over the course of the morning. I’m still undecided about it..but i think it’s falling in to that category of teas that i like, but don’t need to repurchase. :) more to come later i’m sure as i have another package of this to drink later.

What with one late summer thing and another, I haven’t been tasting too many new teas and certainly have not had time to write ’em up over the last few weeks. I’ll try to rectify that over the coming long weekend and moving forward. I’ve got a whole box of teas that are crying out for some attention.

I’ll start with Tea Vivre’s Yunnan Palace Ripened Pu-ehr 2005 (with apologies to the pu-ehr mavens who could no doubt do a much clearer analysis). So far, I’ve done four steeps: 30/30/45/60 at boiling; I used about half of the sample package in my small gaiwan. The wet leaves are very mushroomy and earthy, as I’d expect a pu-ehr to be, but . . .
1: dark caramel color, almost a sweet nose, with a much lighter and dryer flavor than I’d expected given the odor.
2: much darker liquor, slightly caramel odor. It had the more familiar shen flavor – really earthy – but it was smooth and not heavy at all.
3: do I smell steak?! That would be particularly weird, considering I’ve been a vegetarian since my teen years, but it really seems like that’s the odor (though I have to wonder if it was affected by the onions I was sautéing as I was sipping). Still very smooth texture.
4: again with the dry taste and somewhat flattening out. I’ll let it rest now till tomorrow and see what happens then.

Altogether a fine brew, though it doesn’t knock my socks off. I’ll enjoy the rest of the sample, but I don’t think this is one I’ll stock.