Essence of Tea 2010 Manmai

I do not have an entire cake of this tea, I got this sample through the Official Teachat Tasting Initiative #5 Young Puerh.

The Dry leaves have a wonderful sweet aroma of dried fruits and leather.

I've actually had a hard time getting through the samples, due to the fact that I go through times of craving young puerh, and when I do not crave it, it often feels rather uninspiring. As I may cause a bit of uproar with this statement, but even the best young puerh teas are somewhat secondary in quality due to the very nature of production and the variety of tea plants growing in Yunnan. I mean think about it, the bitterness in puerh, which often gets praised, would be considered a mortal flaw in Long Jing or just about any other Chinese Green tea.

That being said this tea has a pleasing color, with a nice mellow aroma of straw and wildflowers. But as I was saying the taste has a distinct bitterness which is praise worthy in young puerh, and the flavors lying beneath are strong tropical flavors (which in my theory would probably taste drastically different if the bitterness was not there).

I think I will reiterate here what I said in the Teachat post.... While this tea is a definite cut above the big factory Puerhs, today I can not identify anything of particular note, which screams out and attracts me to this cake.

That being said it while this is not a positive mark for this tea as a drink now tea. If you subscribe to the belief that a very bitter cake with a good bit of underlying complexity makes for a puerh that will age wonderfully. Then this tea would be a great tea to check out in ten or more years.