2005 Changtai Yun Pu Zhi Dian / Top of the Clouds

Tea type
Pu'erh Tea
Ingredients
Pu Erh Tea
Flavors
Apricot, Bitter, Bread, Camphor, Dates, Dried Fruit, Eucalyptus, Fruity, Marshmallow, Musty, Paper, Raisins, Smooth, Spicy, Tannin, Tobacco, Walnut, Wet Rocks, Anise, Autumn Leaf Pile, Biting, Drying, Grapes, Herbs, Honey, Kale, Lavender, Menthol, Metallic, Mint, Nuts, Plum, Rainforest, Rice, Stewed Fruits, Sweet, Tannic, Tea, Thyme, Pear, Peach, Stonefruit, Apple Candy, Earth, Forest Floor, Mushrooms, Floral, Jasmine, Smoke, Thick, Brown Sugar, Cinnamon, Vegetal, Mineral, Petrichor, Butter, Wet Earth
Sold in
Bulk, Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Medium
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Togo
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 6 g 10 oz / 307 ml

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27 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Honestly, I can’t smell anything or taste much right now. It’s actually a great time to focus on the general impression of a puerh and the way it feels in my mouth and body rather than my default...” Read full tasting note
    87
  • “I have been going through my CLT samples, thinking whether I should get any of the cakes, and I realized I never wrote a review for this one. It is among the better semi-aged teas I’ve tried, but...” Read full tasting note
    86
  • “Gongfu, 100C 5g 100ml The wet leaves look darker than a young sheng, clearly this has been aged. Smell faintly like dry fruit. Only one rinse. Steep 1-4, 20-30s: immediately i am hit with a thick,...” Read full tasting note
    80
  • “Have 25g worth of a sample that I just got around to breaking into. WHY DID I WAIT?? 5g in 70ml gaiwan. Water right off boil. Flash steepings x6-7 each friggn delish both in mouth feel and...” Read full tasting note
    85

From Crimson Lotus Tea

This tea was featured in the Serious Eats article Where to Buy Amazing Tea Online. Sample sizes are available.

This is a very special puerh prepared by the Yunnan Changtai Tea Industry Group. The blenders who work for Changtai are true masters of their craft. The leaves in this puerh are a blend of 15 mountains, Spring picked in 2005. The name for this cake “Yun Pu Zhi Dian” means “Top of the Clouds”. Since Yunnan means “Southern Clouds” this name has a double meaning. It refers to the heavenly experience and also that this puerh contains the best from Yunnan.

This is the one that I mentioned in our blog post from Lijiang. This is the first sheng puerh that really opened my eyes. That vendor was selling these cakes for $400USD/cake! We found a better deal with Changtai themselves. We bought as much as we could this Spring, but sold out of most of it quickly. We tried for a while to get more at a good price, but this tea has been going up in price every month since. We finally got our hands on some more to sell.

This puerh was aged since 2005 in Guangzhou, China. This hot, humid city was perfect for aging this puerh. This tea will brew smooth and mellow with intoxicating aromas and flavors. Apricot notes are often present.

Use 5-7 grams of leaves and brew with 6-8 ounces of water at or near boiling. Wash once for 3s, then start with a quick steep of 6-10s. With each re-steep adjust the steep time to your taste.

Enjoy!

About Crimson Lotus Tea View company

Company description not available.

27 Tasting Notes

709 tasting notes

So, this is one of the three samples sent to me more than a month ago by Crimson Lotus Tea. I’m sorry for my tardiness, but still grateful for the opportunity to try these out! Unfortunately my life hasn’t left me with the time to sit down and gongfu lately, but I carved out an hour yesterday to try this one out a bit. Glen billed this as a sheng that even shou lovers would like, which was very compelling as I am not very experienced with sheng.

I did four steeps back to back and lined them up for the beau and I to compare. I actually really liked this approach as we could see/smell/taste each one and compare it immediately to another. It helped us be sure of our impressions as it gave second chances. It still has plenty more to go and I hope to do that tonight if the leaves are still good.

The details: 7 g sample in 150 ml gaiwan (I finally measured it!). 95 degree water, 3 second wash.

Dry: The compressed piece is beautiful. Green/black/golden leaves all pressed together. Looks like camo but more attractive. Smells like light smoke and hay. Sort of like a roasty oolong. There were some broken crumbs along with the one larger piece and I steeped it all up. Those pieces inevitably slipped through into the steeps but they didn’t create any adverse affect.

1st steep: 6 seconds. Pale amber. Not bitter, but not much taste. Slightly dry tongue so a hint of astringency. We came back to this one repeatedly but there just wasn’t much there that we could detect.

2nd steep: 6 seconds. Slight smoke is emerging, and a bit more drying on the tongue. Sill no bitter. I mention it because all I hear about sheng is that it can be bitter (and that should be pleasant). I hate bitter, so I’m pleased to not be getting anything like that.

3rd steep: 8 seconds. Sweetness is coming in gradually and building with each sip. Not as sweet as I expected but it is starting to emerge. This is the first steep to really have an aroma. Increased astringency, and continued light smoke.

4th steep: 10 seconds. Aroma is shou-esque. Reminds me pleasantly of a barn. This one is less astringent but it can build up on the sip. There is a mineral taste and remaining light smoke. I made a note that this is “very sippable.” This was both of our favourite, by far. Hubby felt it tastes like a black/oolong mix at this stage which explains why we preferred it.

Unfortunately we had to stop here but I definitely think if we had the opportunity to continue it would have kept getting better. I look forward to having a second round tonight and will try to update with my notes.

EDIT: We did another four steeps last night and took a few notes. All at 95 degrees again. Why not? I gave the leaves two flash rinses in warm water to “wake them up.”

5th steep: 15 seconds. Aroma was like salt fish. Not that it was fishy, but it smelled salty and slightly smoky. Weird. Taste was mineral and slightly bitter, with some astringency which remained to the end. Not a fan of this steep, but I think it had something to do with waking the leaves back up.

6th steep: 20 seconds. Aroma was mineral and smoke, flavour was mineral but not bitter. Hubby found this the best of all and thought it was almost fruity.

7th steep: 25 seconds. Aroma of toasted rice. What the? It smelled and tasted like Laoshan Black Chocolate Genmicha on the second steep if it were left too long (slightly bitter/astringent).

8th steep: 30 seconds. No discernible aroma or flavour. Not much for the leaves to give without ramping up the time/temp and we’re tea-ed out. I know it could go further but it has more endurance than I do. Off to the compost with these leaves. What an interesting experience!

Flavors: Mineral, Smoke

Crimson Lotus Tea

I have not been able to find where this tea stops giving. 20+ steeps and it will still have flavor and aroma.

Uniquity

I barely scratched the surface. It will likely loooong outlast me!

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86
326 tasting notes

Tea provided by Crimson Lotus Tea for review

I haven’t had a lot of puerh recently, so I was super excited to dig into my two samples provided by Crimson Lotus Tea.

Going into my steeping, I didn’t have a lot of expectations. The first steep tasted buttery, slightly floral, with roasted tobacco. Most importantly it wasn’t bitter at all, just very smooth and palatable.

Third steep brought out a more mellow, soothing experience. With notes of apricot and ‘woodsy’.

Winding down to my sixth steep, more of the tobacco flavour was present, but was otherwise smooth with a bit of menthol sensation.

Overall the sample exceeded my expectations. I don’t drink sheng puerh very often, and most of it has been young and bitter. That being said, I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately I’m not in a great position to keep/store sheng. But I love having a bit occasionally.

Flavors: Apricot, Butter, Floral, Forest Floor, Menthol, Tobacco, Vegetal, Wet Earth

Crimson Lotus Tea

The apricot and occasional menthol notes are my favorite parts. :-)

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286 tasting notes

I am not so eloquent in my descriptions of tea. I have only recently become more and more fascinated with sheng puerh, and so lack the vocabulary to do this tea justice.

What I can say is that this is really good. I’ve done about 4 or 5 infusions now, and it seems to still carry a lot of flavour. Smoky, mineral, apricots. Those are the main flavours that I picked out. Some musty/humidity in the first couple of infusions, but not at all bothersome. I didn’t find any bitterness in this, but I did pretty short steeps. I decided to let infusion 5 steep for almost a minute just to see how bitter it would get, and it was pretty good with a bit of bitterness.

I loved the colour of the brew – golden honey. That kinda surprised me, actually. The mouth-feel was soupy/thick and very pleasant.

I really enjoyed this sheng and am considering a purchase. Definitely recommended.

Thank you so much for the sample Crimson Lotus! My apologies for the delay in writing a tasting note.

TheTeaFairy

Lovely review dear… :-)

looseTman

Agreed.

Learning is a life-long process. Writing tea reviews is a journey that sharpens both the senses and one’s mind.

“I have only recently become more and more fascinated with sheng puerh …”
And being open to new experiences further develops one’s tea reviewing skills. Kudos Scribbles!

Crimson Lotus Tea

Your vocabulary seems sufficient. :-) Perhaps the tea was inspirational.

Kirkoneill1988

is this a sheng?

scribbles

Thanks everyone! :) Yes, this is a sheng @Kirkoneill1988

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371 tasting notes

Many thanks to Glen and Lamu providing this sample to review!

Gongfu session with a ceramic gaiwan. 3 second rinse. Steeping times: 6, 10, 10, 20, 15, 20, 20, 25, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120.

The dry leaf smells of smoked salmon. Get the bagels and capers! Letting the piece of cake sit in a heated gaiwan also brings out a bit of stonefruit. Following the sixth infusion: apricot!! What I love in sheng aroma.

This sheng yields a darker color than I’m used to – a dark honey – and has consistently smooth and thick texture. Clear at first, the liquor becomes cloudy towards the middle of the session. The first infusion is mellow and tastes like it smells (smoked salmon). The second tastes of tobacco. There is a slight bitterness, and a musty aftertaste that turns into apricot jelly fifteen minutes later. Following this infusion, the sheng really strengthens in flavor. The mustiness continues in infusions three and four, which have a fruity aftertaste. Infusions five through fourteen teeter between bitterness with an underneath fruity note, and fruity flavors with an underneath bitterness. It is around the ninth infusion I’m able to pry the leaves apart with the gaiwan lid. They were fun to play with!

I can’t tell if it’s my lack of experience with sheng in general – hence my untrained palate – or if this sheng is still young. I was expecting it to evolve from the bitterness and become sweeter as the session went on.

The qi made me feel a little loopy after drinking four infusions in relatively quick succession. Also, I have a quiet stomach-ache (meaning “eeeeeeeeeeeeeee but I’ll get better soon no worries”) that I’ve had since infusion three (which was four hours ago).

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 g 3 OZ / 88 ML

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89
38 tasting notes

I’m not sure why this one wasn’t on Crimson Lotus’s page!

This was a sample sent to me by Glen with my mini order right before they went to China. I have been out of this tea for a bit, but was encouraged recently (but other steepsters I know) to start writing more reviews on the Crimson Lotus tea I so frequently doomcart

This was the tea that turned me on to my obsession with Changtai. It has that smokey/cowboyness that all Changtais have, but a really complex aroma of peach and minerals along with it. The color of the brew is gorgeous as well, a dark colorful orange! This is a really well done humid storage tea, where the storage added complexity rather than just drown the leaves in that weird mineral smell.

I remember the taste very vividly months later, and someday a cake will be mine! I salivated very much at the instagram photos of the giant crate Glen got of it while they were in Yunnan (bike delivered and all).

TL:DR: Very good starter example for humid storage. Very delicious fruity tea. Will start a life long changtai obsession.

Flavors: Mineral, Peach, Smoke, Wet Rocks

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 15 sec 6 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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