Pure Ancient Trees – Tier 5

ed storage case. This is well worth the price because it comes with everything you need for gong fu cha.
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s late-70s small sheng bricks I was lucky enough to enjoy. In short, it's extremely satisfying (yes, it may be a bit aggressively aged, but honestly that doesn't spoil the experience at all) and the price removes any doubt about the number of stars.
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joy we look forward to in our tea journey! I would agree that the session is best started with lower temperature water. Off-the-hook phenomenal quality! 💕
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ut the younger tea notes. Thereafter focused and spiced depth, some grip and tertiary notes, sweetening and cooling the whole mouth and throat. I like how this tea evolves, sweetening, turning milky from around 8th steep, accompanied with some mild polyphenol stoniness, and then a sweet aftertaste carries on in the throat. A few twists and turns makes a this a feel good and interesting tea session. A cake to drink slowly over the next few years as it becomes more expansive with the resolving compounds.
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. It seems to me, with this kind of balanced aging, right around that 8-12 years of age the tea can reach some sort of a peak, when the tea still fully retains the kind of signature why you have acquired it on the first place, after that, the tea is starting to becoma something else. Nontheless, this is just perfect as it is, a true representation of natural, foresty kind of yiwu.
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acts as a counterpoint to the more mature characteristics of this already very complex broth. I feel lucky to have a cake of this and wish I had 2!
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loped tertiary flavours in the early running, milky and sweetening as the session progresses followed by a mildly cooling, cleansing mouthfeel. Over the first 6 or so brews, there's a mid palate intensity that makes it a lively, layered soup despite its fully mature stage of life. There's comfortably 11-12 steeps from a 90ml clay pot, with slightly longer than average brew times according to preference. Comforting and very enjoyable.
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ompanied by musty storage notes. The silver lining in my experience has been a deep, centering qi. Imho as other CYH teas from this era have done this tea for me exemplifies what teas from this area can be…however it is still an acquired taste and it took several sessions for me to understand this tea. Firstly, like many other CYH teas, this one benefits from flash steeping early steeps. The early steeps are unsurprisingly woody. My dad likened the character to the smell of sitting under a willow tree after a thunderstorm. Yep. Also, the soup is thick but not particularly sweet. The qi is pretty immediate and powerful yet refined. If Banzhang qi is a canon, this qi is a silk hammer. After about 6 steeps I start to push the tea a bit longer and sweetness emerges and the woodiness gives way to notes of cherry, not actual cherry but like the cherry esters one finds in particular English Olde Ales. In fact other than it’s relative dryness this tea reminds me of certain vintages of Fullers Vintage Ale…sorry I’m from the Michael Jackson school of beer nerds and although I no longer drink beer I will likely always find a comparison between certain beers and puerh tea as there are so many parallels, probably related to the byproducts created by the fermentation process, the oils contained both in the camellia and hops and the malty character inherent in many teas. Sorry for the long review. The shorter version is if you like woody teas this is a must try. If you dislike strong woodiness and prefer florals , skip this one and try the Yiwu blend.
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Smells good, tastes good and feels good! Indeed this a pungent tea, and it is still young, but I like it as it is. There is complexity and the tea keeps evolving, in the cup and with the huigan. Nice relaxing qi.
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