Highlights:
- Really strong sweetness and strength
- Very powerful Qi
- 100% pure wild-growing old and ancient trees
- Stored as maocha from 2015 to 2020, before pressing, gives it unique characteristics
A truly exceptional tea, the Qi is super powerful and so is the taste, there’s tons of sweetness and strength at the same time, with little astringency. Very well balanced strong tea. For these reasons, I nicknamed it “The Beast”.
Imagine you’ve been in puerh for over 30 years, making your own since 10 years, have nearly unlimited resources and want to make one great cake to mark your retirement and legacy: this circumstances are the result of this cake being made.
The maker calls it “Legacy” (or “Inheritance”). It’s a tea he created for his 60th birthday to share only with his students and friends, his legacy left to them and I’ve been lucky enough to be offered to buy a few tongs of it. He is also the maker of our 2014 Puerh.uk Green Mark Meng Sa
While beginners will probably like this a lot, I particularly can imagine more seasoned puerh drinkers being wowed by the refreshing strength of this tea and its uniqueness (due to aging as maocha before pressing, which gives it strong sweetness even though it’s relatively young). I certainly was.
This is a steal given the very high quality. It’s the only younger tea I bought a big quantity of to age myself.
Note (March 2022): Upgraded the rating to full T5, this will be really thick and interesting once aged, but the more I drink it, the more I can’t imagine something better even at this age.
357g cakes.
Nick M. –
Captivating floral aromas with frankincense-like aromatics without any woodiness. Ignore the pressing date being from loose Macha that’s older. Light to mid amber soup.
The soup has great thick texture, fresh high notes that are mouth-watering without any astringency, and the expected cooling aftertaste.
Great intensity and Qi.
Really gets going from 4th or 5th brew on, when the previously relatively unevolved, primary tea flavour starts to pick itself apart and show more of its make up.
Very powerful, needs serious time, albeit without the bitterness (to my receptors) I was expecting. Still, one for the distant future for the taste-to-come and layers that will reveal, effective already for its considerable mind stopping power!
Colin M (verified owner) –
I’d buy this tea again.
After going through several brewings of my first potful, what I noticed was
– the initially powerful taste
– how quickly I noticed the Qi
– that over successive cups, the effect of the tea’s Qi built up. It was very centering and grounding. I had cups before meditating and before Qigong sessions and loved the synergy.
If asked I wouldn’t have said there was sweetness in the taste. But after 4-5 cups, I noticed a smoothness taking over from the initial powerful taste.
It left my mouth feeling refreshed.
Also the first thing I found I wanted to do after finishing a cup was…make another brew 😉
Anonymous (verified owner) –
good tea, was hoping for walloping bitterness
Gideon Taylor (verified owner) –
What can be said of a tea of this quality, it has a powerful ineffable quality which best lends its self to stillness to observe the blurry lines between self and the tea. I love this tea, have never had another Gushu Yiwu cake like it, glowing colour and sweet bitter on the palate, extraordinary Qi. I can see it transforming magnificently with age. Bless you for sharing!