2017 Mengku Chatou Ripe Puer Tea

Name: 2017 Mengku Chatou Ripe Puer Tea

Year: 2017

Material: Tea leaves from small tea trees picked at high altitudes were used for this chatou, spring and autumn harvest. The blend has different grades of tea leaves and some buds too. It has a medium level of fermentation.

Producer: Dian Xi Lin Yun滇西林韻*, (literally Yunnan west forest charm)

* Dian Xi Lin Yun is the brand of a friend. The tea material comes from the family’s tea gardens. They process the tea at their factory.

Harvest: spring/autumn blend.

Area: Lincang, Mengku.

Weight: 100 grams.

(2017 Mengku Chatou Ripe Puer Tea)

The fermentation of this tea was done by the elder brother of my friend. And he did a great job if you asked me!

Although this tea has only three years, it is already super drinkable. With nearly no wet pile taste/aroma, you can also see by the colour of the tea soup that is not black/dark at all, instead shows a lovely burgundy/orange tea soup.

Some of these tea nuggets are tightly compressed, even for a chatou. I advise longer stepping times than your usual parameters, especially if you use a gaiwan. Be patient and they’ll release all its flavour.

This tea is as smooth as you can get, and also the feeling in the throat is quite slippery, hua du 滑度. You nearly don’t have to swallow this delicious tea soup, goes down by itself!

Very warming sensation in the body, this one will put you in the right mood during the drinking session. It has a creamy tea soup and sugarcane sweetness that will surely delight you. The aroma is hard to describe in this one, still may have some dui wei, wet pile aroma, but also some sugarcane/candy-like resemblance.

I used 7 grams/100 ml gaiwan when I wrote about this tea.
If you want a darker/stronger experience you can pack it with tea leaves, maybe 9 or 10 grams in 100-120 ml gaiwan. Steep it for a longer time or even boil the tea leaves, experiment and find which method suits your preference!

Note: Some of these nuggets have some grey/white frost on them which is perfectly normal for this type of tea due to the processing style. That said, the tea doesn’t have any wet aroma or taste as other Puer teas store in humid places. This tea was first stored in Mengku and later on in Kunming.