I COULD DRINK THIS ALL DAY - Lush Disciple PuErh Tea

Hey teaheads! This is Don from Mei Leaf. It's Friday here in London. I've got that Friday feeling, which is made even more special when I'm launching a new Puerh cake, which I am doing right now. Are you ready? Here we go. This is our brand-new Puerh cake, a raw Puerh, a Sheng Puerh, a Gu Shu Puerh. So that means it's raw. It's not fermented. It means it comes from old, ancient tea trees, 200-plus years old, and it is a Puerh tea, and this is Rockabilly Dream Boat. Rockabilly Dream Boat. Check out the cover by Celine. The frog sitting on a lily pad, and holding a nice, frothy, chocolate milkshake. So you can make some guesses as to the flavor profile of this tea. Whenever we sit down to work out the artwork for the cake, Celine and I taste the teas. Obviously, we try to put in some reference to flavor notes, but also just the general character of the tea, and this is definitely a character. So let's quickly scope this tea. Season. This is April 2023. Cultivar. This is from the Dai Ye Zhong variety, which basically just means that it comes from those old Assamica tea trees. Dai Ye Zhong is just a catch-all, to say, big-leaf variety. There are obviously lots and lots of variations in the genetics in Yunnan, which is why the different areas of Yunnan have such different characteristics about them. But even within a certain area, a certain mountain area, you're going to have lots of different genetics, because they're all seed-grown if you're getting Gu Shu ancient tree material. The origin. This is from He Beng, which is on the west side of Yunnan, close to the Myanmar border. We have previously sourced from He Beng. Before, we did a blend with a Myanmar tea called Dream Scene Smuggler. It's long out of stock, but it was a real favorite, and some of the characteristics of Dream Scene Smuggler are in this tea, at least from my recollection of drinking the Mao Cha before it was pressed into cakes. So this is from He Beng, near the Myanmar border, in the western side of Yunnan. The picking and processing is going to be the standard Puerh, which means picking from those big, old, ancient tea trees. There's going to be a period of withering. There's going to be the Sha Qing process, which means you're heating it up in these wood-fired woks. Then it goes through a rolling process. Then it goes through a resting process. Then it goes through a sun-drying process, and then it goes through a sorting process. Those are the very, very broad headlines. There's a lot more nuance, obviously, in the processing. The differences in the genetics of the certain areas are going to play a part, obviously, in the taste of the tea, but also the differences in the way that the processing unfolds, the differences. There's so many variables from the how long do they leave it, first of all, when do they pick it, what type of leaves they pick, how long do they leave it, what temperature they heat it at, how long, how thoroughly they go through the Sha Qing process, how long they roll it for, how long they rest it for, etcetera, etcetera. So all of that falls into what we call Terroir. Terroir is just the soil, the plants, the microclimate, the climate of a particular area, but also the culture of processing and producing, I think, falls into that big catch-all of Terroir. So you get so many different variations in flavors of Puerh across Yunnan, because there's so many differences in Terroir. So that's the picking and processing. Elevation is around 1,650 meters. So let's open up this cake. As I said, He Being we have sourced from before, but it's not an area which you hear about that often, and we taste it regularly. I find that it has a very particular flavor profile that you can almost spot immediately. The flavor note that I tend to associate with He Being is milky, creamy, and chocolatey, which is not a common flavor note that you associate with Puerh. Oftentimes you hear about mineral, you hear about bitters, you hear about florals, you hear about fruits. Obviously, if you look at my video releases and tastings of Puerh tea then there's so many different variations in terms of flavors. But chocolatey, creamy, malty notes is not you would normally associate with a vast majority of the raw Puerh that's produced. So He Being is quite unique, I think, for that. That's why you can see the cover of this frog is sipping on a malted chocolate shake, because that's the flavor note that we really picked up when we were tasting the Mao Cha. Obviously, it's been many months since then, so we're going to see how this tea has developed. Let's take a look at these leaves. Good-looking. Nice amount of bud there. So a good blend of picking materials, from the larger leaves to the buds. The size of the leaves sort of look medium, quite glossy, quite shiny, and that will come from the trichomes, the little hairs that are on the pickings. It's not just also on the leaves as well. You've got a nice sheen on these leaves, which hopefully you can see in this camera. Right. Diving in, and heating up my water. Get it? Boiling hot. So as I said, He Being is an area which is not that commonly heard about, but I think that it has a particular, very individual taste, and it's great to have those differences. It's great to have a Puerh, I think, that exhibits more of those richer, deeper, creamier qualities compared with so many other flavor profiles of other Puerh teas out there. I am brewing... Is that enough? Yeah. That looks enough. I'm brewing, with my little crab here, in a Zer Ni Zer Sha Gai Wan. This is a new Zer Ni Zer Sha Gai Wan that we have in stock from Jing De Zhen, but the clay is sourced from Yi Xing, so it's really high-quality Yi Xing Zer Ni Zer Sha. It's glazed on the outside, but unglazed on the inside. You can see here, this is unglazed, so it allows the clay to really affect the tea, which is obviously one of the main advantages of brewing in Zer Ni. I will, of course, taste this tea in porcelain, and you can see the tasting notes that I will put. Ooh! I need to heat this up, don't I? I'm all over the place. The taste notes that I put online will be, you know, the tasting that I do here, but also any extra taste notes that I get from tasting it in porcelain. But I do like that beautiful glaze on there. You can see, all hand-painted, so every Gai Wan is going to be different, and hand-made Gai Wan. All right, here we go. 95 degree water. I'm going to have to throw those little straggler leaves away, I'm afraid, but that's all right. We've got our little crab here, which will flush orange right now, as it enjoys the tea. Let's get these leaves now in there. That's a nice amount of leaves, I think. Possibly a bit over-generous, but it is Friday. Here we go. Smell of the dry leaf of a Rockabilly Dream Boat. We'll talk about the cover a little bit more, and we'll talk about the character a little bit more. Hopefully, as I said, the character and taste of the Mao Cha have carried across, but also we expect the flavor to develop. Here we go. Okay. Immediately, I'm picking up some of that lotus flower that you can see in this cover here. So there is a floral note here, maybe even lilies as well. There is a chocolate note, which I'm going to associate with chocolate raisins, so chocolate-covered raisins. But what's interesting here is I'm getting less chocolate than I remember from the Mao Cha, but we'll see how it develops as we get through the wet leaf and the taste. I'm picking up more of a spice, and those spices remind me of a little bit like fenugreek, methi. So there's a slight sort of spice-bizarre quality to it. I'm also picking up fruity notes, but those fruity notes are very dried. So dried prunes, but more dried tamarind. So it's sweet, it's deep, it's sticky, but it's also got a tang to it. It's also got some acidity on the nose. So yeah, I would associate that with dried, or even possibly salted, tamarinds. You can get salted prunes and salted tamarinds, especially over in Asia. I'm picking up that salted, dried, fruity another drenching, and now we move into the smell of the wet leaf. Okay. The chocolate is coming through more. Very deep, dark chocolate. Oh, it's a very complicated nose, I have to say. It's something that's different from your average Puerh. Again, lots of dried fruits. Moving in towards the herbal, dried hawthorn, dried white mulberry fruit. The fenugreek is there. The lily is there. The lotus flower is there. What's the difference between lotus flower and lily pads? Don't know. But I'm talking about lilies, lilies, and lotus, or lily pad flowers. So the combination. The lilies being a bit more intense, sweet. The lotus flower, or the lily pads, I'm going to have to look this up, a little bit brighter and fresher. Yeah. There's a touch of farmyard in there. It's got that wild, slightly animalic, but all-in-the-good zone. You know, this sort of intrigue and interest that comes from those more animalic teas. So, like, dried hay, a touch of manure, but very far away in the distance. But it all adds to this complex terroir-based aromatic. Mixed in with that I'm getting the chocolate-covered cherries, and some of those salted tamarinds. But even now, a bit of salted plums. So the overall character is in that dried fruit, herbal, yeah, salted fruits and dried fruits, and then the chocolate-covered cherries. Again, the dried cherries. So it's all dried fruits. In fact, it reminds me a lot of, you know, a smell that I would more associate with an aged Puerh tea. And that chocolate is there. The little farmyard note, again, is something that I associate with really good aged teas, that's like sort of tobacco-y, hay, a little bit of that manure in the background, as I said. But I hope that that's not putting you off, because you know, that intrigue that comes from those alimanic notes wakes your brain up. And as long as it doesn't translate in, you know, a taste of that, it creates this heightened experience, I think, when you drink these teas. Okay. Here we go. A really interesting smell, and definitely has developed since the Mao Cha. I remember the Mao Cha being very straight-ahead malt and chocolate, and you know, maybe this is not covering those dried fruits, which are now really present in this tea. Lots and lots of dried fruits. The color of the liquor, a beautiful sort of creamy, glowing, slightly apricot-tinged, golden liquor. Apricot and peachy, pink, apricot, pink, apricot gold. But noticeably quite misty, with all of those trichomes that we saw in the sheen of those leaves. So it's definitely got a lot of trichomes going on. All right. Give this a rinse, heat it up, and pour myself a cup. Okay. Rockabilly Dream Boats. Cheers to one and all. Oh yeah. Okay. Thick and oily, and I will, as I said, taste it in porcelain just to check whether or not the thickness is being contributed heavily by the Zerni, but this is definitely thick, soft, oily. Got a lovely mouthfeel. But the, oh yeah, that I said when I tasted it was the taste. Chocolate is coming through. Chocolate-covered cherries, I think, is the best, but you could throw chocolate-covered prunes, chocolate-covered raisins, chocolate-covered dried fruit. Lots of prunes. But then this lovely accent of those high, bright lotus flowers are definitely... This is the beautiful interplay, is this deep, dark, the chocolate and the dried fruits, but then this little highlight of fresh, you know, lotus flowers. Mmm! A lot going on, and a very full spectrum of the deep, the rich, and the high, and the bright. So you're covering the full spectrum. This is a tea which has a rich, complex character. Yeah, the chocolate is definitely coming through, and the milkshake is coming through. A little bit of slight bitters coming through. It's light at the moment. Let's see how it brews in. At the moment I'd associate it with like apple skins. So, apple skins, lotus flowers, fresher. Chocolate-covered raisins, chocolate-covered cherries, prunes. A little bit of malt. The malted chocolate milkshake is there. It's less than from my memory of the Mao Cha, but it's still there. So the cover still applies. If I was to rethink this I might, I don't know, put some chocolate-covered dried fruits somehow in the cover. Mmm! Yeah, that deep, chocolatey note is there, which is, as I said, something that is very, I think, unusual, and is clearly a He Beng thing, in that I recall it from multiple Mao Cha tastings. There was always this one tea that was like, Oh! That tastes like chocolate. Then when I unblinded myself it was like, Oh! It's He Beng again, of course. Mmm! That was an excellent first infusion. Bustling with flavor, which will only get stronger. I'm intrigued to see how this tea brews out, or brews in, as the water moves into those leaves and starts to extract more of the inner-leaf material. You can see texture on here. We've got a good bubble-bubble going on, and that bubble ain't going anywhere. Okay. Cheers, everybody. Consistent chocolate-malted milkshake prunes, apple skins. This bitterness is beautiful. I can feel like it's very subtle, but I think that... I mean, that's a lot of leaf that I've got here. I think that as we brew into this I think that we're going to get some really lovely bitters developing on this tea, which is also going to potentially mean that it's got a stronger body feel to it as well. Yeah, and it's different. It's very different from a lot of the bitters that you would normally get with Puerh, because of that association that we have with the chocolate. So it reminds me of bitter chocolate, a dark chocolate. So it's got that... I don't know what contributes. Is it theobromine, or something like that? But it's that cacao-bitter quality. It's light at the moment. I'm going to intentionally brew harder to try to see if I can bring that out a little bit more in the next infusion. Carob. Mmm! A touch of... I said hawthorn before. Those mulberries there. A little touch of... it's not quite cinnamon. Maybe it's like a light cassia in there. So there's a woodsy, herbal note, which is sweet. I think cinnamon is too specific a note. I'll see if I can get something better. Apple skins are there. A little light elderflower note is coming through as well. Floral, but in a... Oh! I did that wrong. Floral, but in a spicy, little bit woodsy way. Okay. Apologies, everybody, as I slurp a very, very hot tea. Why did I not just drink what was in the Gong Dao Bei? I'm getting ahead of myself. Bitterness is the same, so I should have brewed it a little bit longer to try to get it out. But I would also associate it with a tonic water. So imagine you have an elderflower water, which I know exists, but maybe the elderflower is dialled down a bit, so it's not so strong in the elderflower. Or you've taken elderflower and you've made a syrup, but you've cooked it down, so it's sort of lost some of those very bright aromatics, but you still have this woodsy, floral note happening. I'm going to mix these, because otherwise this is just going to become a mess. Yeah. But a lot of those dried fruits. Mulberry is definitely up there. He Beng. A really, really interesting area. As I said last time, we blended it with a Mien Ma tea, which I think works very, very well. But I'm happy to have a pure He Beng, so you can really taste the character of this area. I'm not quite sure why it's not more popular, because it does have such a unique character that you would expect, that it has a focus to it that would mean that a lot of people would seek it out. Look at these leaves. Fabulous looking leaves. Young, pear and sage green leaves. Very, very nice pickings. Really lovely pickings. Very whole, and you can see that they were very tender leaves. Yeah. An entire bud set here. Look at that. You can see how tender the pickings are. Normally with Sheng Puer you would not see pickings as delicate as that. So very, very small pickings, actually. It's surprising, because it didn't look that way, necessarily, on the cake, although the level of sheen on it showed me that they were young or early spring pickings. But that is something else, and that might be what's contributing to this lovely little tonic water bitters that's coming through. I'm feeling that this is going to be quite strong. Not just because of the bitters, but now looking at those leaves, those pickings, those are young pickings. It's going to have a lot of energy about them, because the younger the picking the more it needs to protect itself from insect bites. So you're going to have an extra boost of caffeine, but of course all of the other mad myriad of compounds and chemicals that exist in those old, ancient Puerh trees will also contribute to all sorts of other effects on the body. Yes, 200-year-old tea trees. Right. I'm going to drink through, and I want to see what this effect is. So I'll be back after about three or four more infusions. I'm brewing up infusion number seven here, and before I get into the body sensation, which you're definitely going to want to know about, let's quickly have a sniff of this empty Gong Da Bei, which is brimming with toffee, dark toffee, and again, dried black cherries. And the finish in the mouth has also got some fruits to it, but I would say more fresh. So it's got lotus flower, and some Long An, is what I've been picking up. So sweet, cooling, very cooling in fact, and fruity with those Long An, and fresh with those lotus flowers. So it leaves the mouth with this glorious, lovely, fresh, fruity note, which actually is very different from the flavor profile, which still has that deeper dried fruit and chocolate going on. Right, body sensation. This is a little bit of a creeper, because it wasn't until about infusion five that it started to really rise up, and it came slowly. But I can tell you now that I feel that this is going to be a very, very potent tea for a lot of people. It's a creeper, but it's high, it's bright, it's energetic, and it's slightly dizzying. It definitely sort of puts a little bit of the little Tweety Bird stars around your head. It's got this sort of slightly dizzying feeling about it, which is lovely, but maybe not something you would want to drink first thing in the morning. So be warned. Flavor is very, very consistent. I'm getting the chocolate, I'm getting the dried fruit, I'm getting the fresh lotus flowers, I'm getting the little tonic water bitters, slight cacao or tonic water bitters, but it's very, very consistent, and it is delicious, and it is very, very unique. I really can't associate He Beng area with any other area of Puerh. So I highly recommend, if you want to explore through the different village areas of Yunnan, that you don't miss trying a He Beng tea. A bit more mineral, as you'd expect, but the minerality is, again, different. A little bit like, I want to say, slightly volcanic in its quality. So, He Beng, an area that I have not personally visited myself, but has clearly got a very interesting terroir, not just in terms of its genetics, but also in terms of its picking profile, which is very, very tender and young, and its processing to make a very, very particular tea type. The Rockabilly Dreamboat... The reason why we called it Rockabilly Dreamboat was because I associate those sort of malted chocolate milkshakes with that era, the Rockabilly era. You know, those sort of diners in America, and the terminology that was used around, oh, he's such a dreamboat. You know, it sort of like worked, Rockabilly Dreamboat. Also, you know, in sitting on that lily pad works with that dreamboat terminology as well. So the Rockabilly Dreamboat, feeling that dizzying high, it is definitely one to launch me into the weekend. That's it teaheads. Check out our other videos, taste our teas wherever you are in the world by browsing Mei Leaf dot com, and come visit us if you're ever in London. Other than that, I'm Don from Mei Leaf. Thank you for being part of the revelation of true tea. Stay away from those teabags, keep drinking the good stuff, and spread the word, because nobody deserves bad tea. Bye.