2005 You Le Mountain "Old Tree" Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake
This is a 2005 Spring Harvest You Le Mountain raw pu-erh tea cake. It was produced by the You Le Shan Minority Tea Factory, which is a small tea factory located in You Le town and owned by a local Ji Nuo minority family. On the wrapper it is written
攸乐山老树 (You Le Mountain Old Tree), but we believe this to be old plantation bushes, not old tree.
The tea was aged in Jinghong until 2016 and then stored in Kunming. The tea's aging conditions have been really kind to it. It definitely has a wet storage aspect to it, but it's very light and does not persist much past the second or third steeping, and the first two steeps have very little in the way of wet storage tastes or aromas.
The tea brews up a deep golden-orange tea soup with a medium level of body. The taste is sweet, herbaceous and mushroomy. There is a nice cooling sensation in the mouth and throat. It has a very stable output during brewing and we found it performed well up to about 9 steeps. This reminds me of the 2004 Sun Drum You Le that we used to offer, but has since long disappeared from the market. It's a fine example of a Banna stored You Le Mountain tea, but without a hefty price tag!
** Some wrappers may be bug-bitten with little holes in the paper. There may also be some dust between the wrapper and the cake. Rinse tea once or twice briefly before drinking! If you are squeamish please don't order this tea!
