2005 Bo Wen Yue Chen Yue Xiang Ripe Pu-erh Tea of Menghai

I’ve been sitting on this sample for nearly two years…pulling out from the depths of my stash

-wodui aroma, no wodui in flavor
-clean, no fishy
-chocolate, rich, full flavor, creamy cocoa
-no bitter, very smooth
-enjoyable, but not earth shattering
-chaqi is negligible but this was a relaxing session
-lingering smooth aftertaste, more feeling than taste
-decently priced at $46/357g, if I remember I’ll get a cake next order, if I forget, its not something I’ll miss. its worth getting a sample if you like shu

I thought this tea quite tasty. It still had a fair amount of fermentation flavor to it but it was clean, no fishyness to my taste buds. This lasted about four or five steeps. There was little bitterness to this one. It had a nice sweet flavor profile. Some other reviewers have noted chocolate. I really didn’t pick up on that but it is a possible interpretation. Even fruitiness is in the ballpark although I couldn’t be specific. I liked this tea a lot. Which is good because I bought a cake. I am so used to Scott’s ripe being good I often buy without sampling.

I steeped this ten times in a 120ml gaiwan with 10.1g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min. I could have gotten a couple more steeps out of this but want to move on to something else.

This was a nice large leaf shou from a smaller tea factory. I got a 25g sample from YS and used half in a 200ml yixing. Lighter fermentation perhaps, but I felt the need to steep this one longer than usual. I prefer a rich cup when making shou and this one took twice as long to produce a nice rich liquor than most shou. It seems to be a trend with these large leaf shou pu erhs so I’ll just chalk it up to that. Excellent flavor, smooth and sweet with some flavors of mild tobacco and wet wood balanced with some cocoa and spice overtones. With the longer steeps it started to give way after 6-7 steepings but the smooth slippery sweetness on the back of the tongue in the latter steepings was a nice treat. As of writing $28 for an 11 year old shou is a pretty good price. I’ll likely be adding this one to the collection in a later order.

I am really enjoying this one! Notes of coffee, chocolate, sweetness, some fruit maybe. I like this one because it has a thick dry edge to the taste reminiscent of coffee. Not bitter in any way, but it reminds me in a nice way of something I miss. This is a good potential coffee substitute.

Quite a nice dark thick liquor, and while it to me, seems quite similar to other shou Ive been recently trying, this one does things in a nice way, if im wanting a coffee-like drink.

I’d be interested to know others thoughts on this one, I think its quite good.