1980s PLA Puerh | ||
| Genre: Sheng/Green/Uncooked/Raw | ||
| Factory: Unknown | ||
| Vendor: M and J's | ||
| Reviewed by Mike Petro on 05/26/2004 | ||
| Background | This was a brick of what appeared to be little more than tea dust. | |
| Dry Leaf Appearence: | very dry broken leaf | |
| Water to Leaf Ratio: | 10 gr of Leaf in 178 ml of water | |
| Brewing Method: | Gongfu in Yixing pot Rinsed tea with boiling water for a few seconds before steeping. | |
| Wet Leaf Appearence: | powdery small pieces of leaf, wet leaf crumbled easy between my fingers. | |
| 1st Steep | 170f - 2 to 3 seconds - Liquor was dark golden color but not reddish at all. Very astringent, even bitter. Wet leaf smelled a little musty like something in your basement. | |
| 2nd Steep | 170f - 5 seconds - Liquor is still dark golden color. Very astringent, slight musty taste. | |
| 3rd Steep | 170f - 5 seconds - Liquor was dark golden color. Still astringent, musty, smelled like an old book. | |
| 4th Steep | 170f - 8 seconds - A little less astringent, still musty, ever so slight sweetness in aftertaste. | |
| Subsequent Steeps | 170f - 10 seconds - Fairly bitter, slightly musty, faint sweet aftertaste. | |
| Conclusion | This tea was advertised as being about 18 years old. There was a long story about how it was made for the Chinese Army (PLA) and had been stored in a warehouse and more or less forgotten for the last 18 years. I really tried hard to like this tea for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I respected Michael Ryan as a good source, but the sad truth is that this puerh is only mediocre at best. I tried this tea a number of ways and a number of different strengths. The only way I got anything acceptable was to brew the tea very weak. Otherwise it was every bit as astringent as a young green. I tried to ignore the PLA story that came with the tea while reviewing it, however it is hard to believe that this is an 18 year old cake. The smoothness you would expect from age is not there in my opinion. Regardless of its true age this tea has not impressed me. This tea was not any better than good quality young puerhs in my collection. I am by no means an expert on vintage puerhs, With that in mind, and since this is such a negative review I obtained a lot collaboration from others. 5 different people had similar judgments of this tea. I have also sent a sample of this tea to a Puerh Collector in China to get his opinion. He said that it was clearly not 18 years old and that it indeed tasted terrible! | |
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