2004 Dayi First China Tea Expo Commemorate Cake Review (Sampletea.com)

 
When I first started drinking puerh, I read somewhere that you do not want to buy any celebratory teas. Those are the teas that are usually sold to commemorate a special event opposed to the usual branded cakes. I do not remember what the exact argument against this was, probably that they use leaf material of lower quality or that the cakes are not as prized as other ones.

Following these instructions I have rarely tasted any fancy celebratory teas. That is why I was pretty doubtful about a sample of this 2004 Menghai tea cake created to commemorate "The First China Tea Expo". Apparently only 12 004 cakes were created.

Well, it turns out I really liked this tea. In fact it is probably the best tea from my latest order from Sampletea.com.

The tea is supposed to be made of high quality spring material, and I can really see that. For example, the fragrance is very aromatic with notes of bitter fruits and a distinct tippy/wheaty scent. Even in the taste that tippy note usually found in white tea is clearly present. Otherwise, the taste is very lively and clear with a strong fruity taste and a smoothly fading bitterness on the edges.

I cannot stress enough the powerful aromatics of this tea. It lasts well for many infusions and has a pleasant strong aftertaste. The tea is probably right at the peak of its semiaged cycle, and if I had the opportunity to buy a whole cake, I probably would.

Link to the product on Sampletea.com

2000 Macau Hua Lian Qing Zhuan Review (Sampletea.com)

 
This is a pleasant semi-aged puerh starting to get some really aged character. It is just a basic aged sheng with balanced properties and nothing fancy, just the way I like it.

The fragrance of the tea has notes of forest foor, toasted nuts, and dried fruits. At times perfumy scents or the comforting aroma of warm wood can be detected.

This Macau brick still has a lot of power in it. The taste has an energetic up-beat vitality that is immediately apparent as soon as one takes a sip. It is followed by a dark, heavy and musty textured mouthfeel, a slight velvety bitterness, and a strong astrigency. It is not often I have noticed bitterness and astrigency to be as clearly separated as here.

All in all, really tasty, and a good drink to have now if you want something powerful and refreshing.

Link to the product at Sampletea.com

2004 Dayi Yiwu Ming Qiang Chun Jian Review (Sampletea.com)

The leaves have a strong scent of round, fresh fruitiness, very characteristic of Yiwu tea, it seems to me.

In the fragrance one can distinguish yothful tippy/wheaty and floral notes as well as some fruit. In the later infusions the tippyness fades and the fragrance focuses on very rich and mature fruity scents with a floral edge.

The taste is very youthful and quite bitter, with a strong tippy flavor which later gives room to more fruity notes. In the following infusions the bitterness tones down and acquires a pleasant citrusy character.

It took a couple of rounds for this cake to reveal its age, and after a couple of infusions, the flavor faded pretty quickly. Those couple of good brews were delicious, but there are better cakes out there also. For a puerh pressed this loosely, the cake was also surprisingly youthful.

Link to the tea on Sampletea.com

2003 Dayi 7212 Yi Pian Ye (301) Review

The tea brews surprisingly dark and clear, looks promising. The fragrance is aromatic, woody and foresty but not earthy. There are notes of dark fruits and brown sugar, later infusions also reveal a classy aromatic profile.

When it comes to taste, the tea wins my heart right from the first sip. The mouthfeel is silky smooth, thick and refreshing with a bit of bitterness to give structure to the taste. Most of the flavor comes from the amazingly long aftertaste and follows the fruity character of the fragrance. At times the aftertaste seems almost flowery.

So far this has been the best tea from my latest order from Sampletea.com. The 7212 is a nice complex semiaged tea with still some youthful bitterness. Really good now and will probably still keep for years.

Link to the product on Sampletea.com

2003 Tian Di Ren Jin Si Dai Lao Banzhang Cha Da Su Review (Sampletea.com)

Pretty much all I know about this tea cake is it was bought from Sampletea.com (link) and shipped from Malaysia. As much as I love the product range and service Sampletea provides, it would be nice to get to know this tea cake a bit better.

The fragrance of the dry leaves is woody, mature, bold and spicy. Fine big leaves with a lot of tips.

The infusion has a nice clear and dark color. However, the aroma is not as semiaged-fruity, as I would have expected. There is a strong tippy scent here, that is to say the wheaty aroma often found in white tea.

The taste seems closed and a bit dissappointing at first. But slowly a perky but not too astrigent bitternes comes through, and gives the taste a certain citrusy character. The tippy white tea flavor is also there, and with subsequent brews some fruity notes develop as well.

This was the first banzhang I have ever tasted. It was interesting and nice, but the white tea taste was a bit distracting for me.

2003 Macau Hua Lian Qing Zhuan Review

The fragrance is dark and semiaged with some soft earthy qualities, but all in all the scent is not too damp and aged, but retains a sweet character. The aroma is powdery and slightly perfumatic, but not as strong as I'd like.

The taste is sweet and velvety soft with notes of warm wood and nuts, maybe almonds. There is only a hint of bitterness left and very little earthy taste. The apparent lack of taste and aroma is proven wrong as a strong aftertaste slowly creeps in after the first couple of sips.

In the second infusion some weird off tastes appear, which might result from using too little leaves and not brewing enough. The taste was distracting enough to make me stop the session there.

All in all the tea was interesting and surprisingly aged (probably because it has been in Malaysia). Not the best I've had, but good nonetheless.

Link to the tea on Sampletea's website

2001 Xiaguan 8653 Iron Cake Review (Yunnan Sourcing)

The fragrance of the rinsed leaves is very generic: hay, warm wood and sun-bathed stone, mushroom broth.

Once the stream of the hot brew first hits the walls of my teacup, it becomes quickly apparent that this is no ordinary tea, howevery. A complex and strong fragrance with notes of vanilla, oak, chocolate, beans, and dark fruit immediately puts me in a reflective mood.

The taste is very clear and lively with a a pleasant amount of bitterness. It does not get too powerful or dry the mouth, but provides a nice frame for all that flavour. A side from this slight bitterness, the mouthfeel is very soft/powdery and clear.

As I sip the tea, new aspects of the flavor and fragrance seem to appear all the time. It is pointless to waste any words on this tea. It is delicious, has a clear, well-defined and lingering character. Just amazing tea, and surely still has miles to go!

For a iron cake of this age and Kunming storage, I feel the cake is surprisingly aged. It does not have any earthy aromas and has not yet entered the third stage of its maturity, but all in all this 2001 Xiaguan 8653 Iron Cake is a very high quality semiaged sheng.

Link to the Yunnan Sourcing product page