2004 "Millenial Old Tree" Big Snow Mountain Mengku Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake

5g in 100ml gaiwan

- Dry leaves smell slightly musty like an old room, but no fishiness, can tell it’s cleanly aged.
- Rinsed once. Wet leaves strong whiff of tobacco, someone just lit up a cigarette next to me. Like being at Gong Gong’s house. Upon further smelling, heavy sweetness like dried longans or red jujubes.

- First infusion (91˚C, 0:15)
- Liquor is the colour of brown citrine, reminds me of cheng tng. Tastes sweet, slight fruitiness, slight smokiness and some mushrooms and umami. But texture is thin and not much body or aftertaste.
- Rating: 80
- Second infusion (96˚C, 0:20)
- I’m very impressed by how intact and unbroken the leaves are, no small pieces.
- Darker orange colour, a bit more full-bodied, with a sweet-sour aftertaste on tongue.
- Rating: 83
- Third infusion (99˚C, 0:20)
- Whoa mushrooms! And more dried fruit and pleasant light smokey flavour. A tingling sensation on the tongue like menthol (similar to what I experienced with the 2018 He Tao Di yesterday). Now I feel like I’m getting the full flavour of the tea.
- Rating: 90
- Fourth infusion (100˚C, 0:20)
- Very drinkable, a bit bitter but although the thought popped into my head: do I really want to drink such a smokey-tasting raw pu-erh all day? I like the sweet aftertaste though.
- Rating: 85
- Fifth infusion (96˚C, 0:25)
- No sweetness in the liquor but some lingers faintly in the aftertaste. Quite a bit of astringency dryness on tongue afterwards but still decently pleasant. Cha qi is not strong for this one, which is fine for me.
- Rating: 83
- Sixth infusion (100˚C, 0:25)
- Rating: 86
- Seventh infusion (100˚C, 0:30)
- This is very enjoyable drunk with my quinoa salad lunch which is a bit dry.
- Rating: 87
- 8th to 10th infusions: Did not rate, but this powered through the afternoon to pair with my 6pm snack

Verdict: At $95 for a 357g cake this seems like good value for an aged sheng. I wanna taste the other aged raw pu-ers I bought in upcoming order before deciding whether to purchase a full cake.
Rating: 85

This is the oldest (as in aged the longest) tea I have tried to date, although I just got some older ones recently. It is very interesting for me in the sense that different aspects of it resemble various teas like shou, aged white, sheng, oriental beauty and dianhong.

The smell is initially similar to a lot of ripe pu-erh, but very clean. It is sweet, earthy and nutty with notes like camphor, peat and prunes. It is very complex and later throughout the session becomes more woody and medicinal. There are aromas of spruce, oak, forest floor and chlorine.

The liquor is super clean and its colour is located between dark orange and red. The taste is also clean and inoffensive, but definitely enjoyable even though it may lack some pungency. It starts off sweet, spicy and nutty with light bitterness. I can taste coffee and hazelnuts in particular. The second half of the session (steeps 7 to 10) is a bit more herbaceous, while the very end (steeps 11 to 13) is fruity with notes of apple, apricut and walnuts. These last few infusions remind me of aged shou mei a fair bit. Even better than the taste itself is probably the aftertaste, which is very long. It doesn’t really have much extra complexity over the taste though.

The body is full and the mouthfeel is slimy, buttery, mouth-watering and a touch dry in the finish. I didn’t really notice any cha qi, apart from some caffeine effects in the chest around infusion 10.

Overall, I got 13 infusions of about 100ml and one final simmer of 200ml. Getting 1.5l of tea from 6g of leaf seems like a lot to me, especially given that this is not likely to be made from old trees.