One of samples kindly provided by Scott, a welcome companion of my order from Yunnan Sourcing. I recently discovered it in my box of samples - I must have received it few months ago and it has been forgotten since. However, it has been unearthed and tasted yesterday so that I may taste a young tea again.
It is a blend and, according to my wild imagination, it is more than a sum of its parts - of course, I make no claims about the future of such a young tea, I leave that to more knowledgeable people. I'm glad that Scott has started doing blends as I although I enjoy single-estate teas, good blends may be quite superior to them in means of balance and complexity. I wonder about the regions from which this tea comes... I think that the first several brews were quite like Jinggu and then something like Mangfei has appeared... And I believe that I noticed a taste similar to Pasha-iness in the late aftertaste, but it may be simply a taste common to more regions.
The dry leaves are furry and nice, but that is nothing new with Scott's cakes.
The aroma of wet leaves is grassy and chunky, seems like a very promising young puerh at this stage.
The taste had two rather different phases when I tasted the tea. The first phase was dominantly grassy and floral, very thick, mouth-coating and sweet - an enjoyable sugarcane kind of sweetness. The aftertaste was gently astringent and promoted salivation. The mouthfeel was a real treat after somewhat dull Xiaguan 8653 from 80s, the not-dry-stored version. This tea is very active in mouth and sends waves of energy throughout the body. When drinking Scott's young teas, one could fall under the impression that all the young shengs have this good intense mouthfeel, but try a few young Xiaguans, Menghais, Guanzizais and similar factories and you will quickly see that the reason is rather that Scott picks a very nice material - most young shengs do not have this pleasant mouthfeel.
I nicknamed the second phase of the taste as "Mangfei" phase as it is closest to the Mangfei teas I've had. The green grassiness starts to shapechange to mild tobacco-smoke-iness. I generally do not enjoy this taste too much and I wait until it disappears (and according to my current aging experience with Mangfei, it does age into something more satisfactory). However, in this tea, it is gentle and not overpowering so that even I have no problem enjoying it. And the sugarcane sweetness goes on and on, as well as remains of the floralness from the first phase.
I quite enjoyed drinking this tea; even though it is so young, it gave a calming, harmonizing session I will repeat in near future. The price is sound, no problem here.
The wet leaves say goodbye!
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