A Beautiful Aged Puerh Experience - “1960s Loose Leaf”

This is the other controversial offering from Enlightenment Tea/ Puerh.uk.   It is now sold out.  I must admit I was going in very very skeptical with this one and basically went in with the thought that it must not be true to the description … but then the tasting experience really surprised me…

Dry leaves smell of sour musky dusty odours.  They do in fact smell quite old at least 90s… or even older…

First infusion pours quite reddish.. there is a creamy sweet talc cherry taste that comes with dry storage for some time.  It is quite light and creamy sweet subtle peat notes with an old dusty book taste.  The mouthfeeling is tighter feeling.

Second infusion has a creamy sweet onset with a tight quick moving mouthfeeling that kind of chokes away the sweetness rather quickly and leaves an old musty taste lingering in the mouth.  Faint cooling at the back of the throat.  Subtle mild relaxing.  The tugging dryness of the mouthfeeling sneaks down the throat a bit and seems to cause some salivation that pulls an old book and creamy sweet cherry taste even minutes later.  The cooled cup is creamy rich sweetness with strong old musk peat with some throat cooling.  Very nice experience here.  Even 10 mintues later there is this creamy sweet and old musty taste.

Third infusion has creamy milky shu puerh tastes with creamy sweet base taste.  Nice lubricating mouthfeeling and old musty underneath taste.  The gripping feeling of the first few infusions is gone and so is the longer aftertastes with just faint glimpses now you can almost tastes subtle BBQ notes in the aftertaste now and less cooling and much less sweetness.  I’m thinking this is a 90s shu puerh production from the refinement, old taste, and hinting towards shu profile rather than Hongkong Traditional.  Nice relaxing feeling with some scalp tinging Qi.

The fourth infusion has a creamy milky sweet onset of shu puerh tastes there is a smooth mouthfeeling with the faintest cooling with old tastes mainly disappearing and a very faint BBQ and milky finish.  Smooth older school but refined aged shu suggestions here.  Really nice relaxing feeling Qi.

5^th Has a simple straightforward shu puerh creamy milky taste with faint cooling, even more faint smoky meaty taste and some creamy milky sweetness.  There is a woody BBQ faint finish with not much old musty taste left.  Some scalp tingles, mild relaxing vibe with an emerging warming energy.

6^th has a creamy milky woody taste with edges of woody BBq smoke.  The meaty, woody, BBQ smoky almost mesquite taste is now the dominant one.  Reminds me a bit of the 2005 Yuannan SourcingHuangyin but not at all harsh… quite smooth actually.  Strong warming Qi now that is really nice.  There is a very faint mild dry feeling with a thick textured lubricating feeling.  Nice deeply relaxing feeling now.  It seems to me now that these might have some aged sheng leaves in a blend of mainly 90s shu leaves.  It is common that vendors clean up their cakes and remove the loose leaves from the tongs and wrappers and collect the leaves together.  That’s what I suspect this is… how knows maybe some 60s leaves are in here? But the leaf quality is very high- no dust or fannings but this is primarily 90s shu with some aged sheng that is more apparent in the 6^th infusion here? Maybe?  You can see some olive green leaves and some darker brown and even some brown black leaves in the pot.

7^th infusion has cooled down and now offers up a creamy milky shu taste with an emerging fainter woody bbq under taste.  Some slight oily texture over a slight dry tongue.  A warming focusing energy.  Woody BBQ faint taste minutes later.

8^th Oops I left the water in the pot for a few minutes now… this will be a stronger infusion here… nice thick creamy smokey woody taste very oily texture with nice warming and calming feelng.  Slightly more drying and full.  Relaxing Qi, calming not as warming.   A bit of astringency felt in the body.

9^th another really minutes long push gives off a woody creamy bbq sweet oily texture taste.  Nice calming and warming.  Very woody finish less sweet.  Smokey ash taste in mouth minutes later.  Calm but less warming now.  A nice calm.

10^th is another long infusion left to cool nice milky sweet shu taste with a slight woody BBQ smoke finish.   Nice oily texture.  Smoke finish minutes later.  Calming Qi.

11^th is left in the pot over night… night rich milky shu sweet taste upfront with a thick oily mouthfeeling… a touch of faint smoke wood in the finish but milky creamy aged shu tastes throughout.

I mug steep this one hard for the next few days and the wet leaves give off the most pleasant camphor sweet odour… inciting….

The infusions are super sweet oily and camphor with a dusty aged feel to them… taste like really nice aged sheng here.  There are all these super interesting super old tasting notes of talc floral, old paper books, camphor woody… the floral taste in here is super interesting to me…

I have never quite tried an aged tea like this before and I am really appreciative for the opportunity!  I wonder if this is a blend of loose sheng and shu with the material likely being 90s but could contain older material in the blend but I’m not completely sure.  It most definitely tastes blended and there is both shu and sheng, I believe, and it is old but doesn’t taste like the super old puerh I’ve tired before- there are very old features in the leaves though.  It actually tastes really unique to me.  Maybe it’s the result of a shop keeper cleaning up his bings, bricks, and tongs and collecting the nicer leaves?  That’s one theory I’m thinking of.  It reminds me of the selection of loose agedpuerh at Teamasters and would be a good reference.  The result is delicious and I really enjoyed it.  The first handful infusions remind me of 90s shu then after the more shu tastes starts to drop off you are left with the depth of aged sheng with really camphor-like sometimes even floral-like aged sheng notes, must have had some long dry storage on it after the more humid stage of its storage?.  I have never quite had a puerh like this and really enjoyed it.  It would be too hard for me to imagine this as 60s puerh but rather enjoyable and complex aged loose puerh blend which is really satisfying to me!  Paolo thanks for sending me this interesting experience a very nice aged puerh one if that!

Much Peace