2006 Langhe Peacock Tribute Gong Ting Ripe Pu-Erh tea cake

Very mild and balanced with nothing standing out, earthy with a little malty sweetness, maybe a hint of chocolate. Cha qi comes on slow, starting at the feet and moving up giving me a slight uplifting and giddy mood. While there’s no WOW factor it does make for an enjoyable tea session.

Soft earthy smooth gentle, not super complex flavors. I really enjoyed this tea for a late night/early morning session like 3-4am until sunrise. No caffeine jitters, just a soothing simple shu.

2-3 rinses and brewed in Crimson Lotus Jian shui dragon egg teapot (love this little guy!).

Errrrr. Ummm, not too impressed with this one. After pouring the first steeping I always smell the wet leaf and I knew right away I wasn’t going to like it. It had a kind of dirty aroma and flavor to me, like… dirt. I just didn’t like it. I’m going to let the other portion of my sample air out and see if it improves but so far this one is a no go for me. I’ll update this if my opinion improves when I finish the sample I got.

Someone please remind me to do this more often. I know, I know it’s not how is should be done. There are times though that I really like ripe pu’erh western steeped – or at least not true gong fu.
I did this one about 5g 12oz 95C 1 minute – I did do a couple of quick rinses.
This is just nice – it’s mellow and soft, just a hint earthy, just a hint chocolate, some depth, some malt and all just yummy goodness….

This is from the April box that I shared with Dexter.

I have enough for 2 tastes, which is super nice. The leaves look pretty. They’re pretty small, with golden and dark brown parts, and I think it’s pretty tightly compressed.

I’ll do my usual, which is a 30 second rinse (ish), letting it rest for a bit, and then steeping until I like the colour for a few rounds.

Wet, it smells like shou. IDK, tea people. It’s weird and composty and “why do I want to drink this?” which is basically my reaction to shou every single time I brew it. And then it usually ends up being super tasty.

Ok, I rinsed this one again.

It’s quite woody. Like wet forest. And really really really dark.

I’m missing the sweet notes that I got from the puerh I had yesterday, tbh. IDK that this is bad, but it’s not really what I’m interested in drinking right now. I’m going to put the other serving in my storage (uhh.. the bag with all my shou), and leave it open, to see if it’ll be tastier next time.

I’m just steeping and dumping this, but it looks like after about 6 infusions, it starts losing the strong flavours, and starts getting a little sweeter.

This is one of Langhe’s more interesting creations, something I picked up to add to my “peacock collection”. The taste of orange peel is quite noticeable. Characteristically clear-clean taste. I noticed that another reviewer was no pleased with what they found to be a murky taste. Having been purchased from another seller, I cannot say that my experience was in any way similar. Typical in the Langhe tradition of fermentation, the flavour is always on the dry side, with zero must and often pronounced tannins. This offering is in that vein, though again, it has a spicier note of dried tangerine peel.

This came in the YS tea of the month club recently. I’ve been a little remiss in writing tasting notes for all the teas I have gotten through the tea club.

This tea says it was dry stored, but to me it tastes a little murky. I was thinking it was a wet stored tea. After two steepings I am just finding this a little off in taste. It has a nice, creamy mouthfeel but I am not too impressed with the flavor. A bit barnyardish and musty for my tastes. If anyone else would like to try it I would be glad to send the rest of the sample your way!