The Mandarins Tea Room 80's 8582 Loose Puerh

While I am far from an expert on tea, and in many regards am still just a beginner. I would say I am where I am today thanks to several people, who have played a major part in "shaping" my enjoyment of tea. In essence it is surprising I am here compared to where I was a year and a half ago. But for my great advances down the rabbit hole of the tea world, I owe several teachat members and "tea thugs" who I converse with often. One of which I have had the chance to meet in person, is "Toki" who happened to open up his own online tea room, so naturally I jumped on a chance to order a few things that really piqued my interest.

This tea is one of them, rumor has it, that it this the same phenomenal tea which Toki gifted me this past Christmas. So here I am going through another tasting, which may read similar, or it could read completely different.



So I'm brewing this in my 60 ml gaiwan, with 3 grams of leaf. The aroma is powerful and full of camphore, but the taste is subtle, I do not think I am brewing it as strong this time.

The second infusion is much darker more of a mahogany. I detect a nice hint of grass in the infusion, this tea is odd in the sense that I want to describe its taste as "clean" but I have to clarify as "clean" for aged puerh, which usually has a slight hint of decomposition and fresh dirt.

Many infusions later, and its starting to lighten up, and I realized that there has been a slight hint of roses in the aroma, among the light lemon flavor.

This tea is a joy to drink, but I think even using a "teaboat" my gaiwan was loosing heat way to fast. Or perhaps I just need to brew it slightly stronger. It was still a great tea, but everything seemed rather subdued.

I have a yixing for aged puerh comming so perhaps I'll season that a bit then give it a try.