Tea: CNNP Wild Tree Puerh Beeng 100g (Green) Vintage: 2003 Retailer: MandJs.com Price: $4USD, 10 for $35.
Dry Attributes: CNNP is a small and fairly hard beeng cha. The leaf is a mixture of dark greens, auburns, and some pale buds, with little or no stem. I don't know the leaf grade but it looks pretty good. The aroma is slightly smoky with musky-sweet undertones.
Method: 4oz mixed clay yixing pot. 4.5g tea. Rinse: 20sec @ 170F Steep 1: 45sec @ 165F. Strong flavour with some astringency and a sweet finish. Powerfully sweet musky empty cup aroma (using an aroma cup). Steep 2: 45sec @ 165F (all subsequent steeps). The flavour became more intense and bitter. The finish was long sweet and floral after the bitterness faded. Steep 3-7: The harshness is gone, with the musky-sweet florals and some plum/peach fruit moving onto the palate. From here on in the steeps were uniformly excellent. This tea was still going strong at the 7th steep when I stopped.
CNNP has an incredibly long finish at around 15min. It leaves a strangely cool and clean feeling on the palate.
This tea took a bit of learning to get the brewing right, but it really delivers now. At first I tried brewing it in a 12oz Chatsford with about 8g of leaf and 170F water. The infusion was quite bland, but the aroma was beguilingly sweet and musky. This wasn't enough to save it from being boring, and I turned my attention elsewhere.
Today I tried it closer to a gongfu style with my Zhuni pot dedicated to green pu-erhs. My opinion is reversed; CNNP is an excellent young puerh that I think (from my very limited experience) will age well.
Regards,
Cameron