2003 Menghai Bulang Jing Pin

Some tea has its own story, and few stories are quite interesting. Today I drunk a five years old Jing Pin (Superb Product - 精品) by Menghai Tea Factory. It's a sheng pu-erh made from wild mao cha harvested in Bulang mountain range. The tea was sold by Hou De, and it was sold out very quick, within a day, despite the fact that it was limited to two or three beengs per customer and the price was quite high.

Few days later BearsBearsBears suggested, that the nei-fei on the beeng suggest, that this tea could be fake. Guang from HouDeAsianArt answered, so the beeng is probably authentic. I already ordered one, so I decided to keep my order and not to cancel it. And now I’m drinking the tea.



This tea certainly went through some not very-serious wet storage, probably in the first two years of its existence. That’s good, at least in my opinion, because it added a few years of age to the beeng without damaging it too much. The last three years it stayed in dry environment in Houston and then in Šamorín (yes, with me). The leaves are browner than on dry-stored beengs of same age. The dics is quite compact, I had hard time to loosen enough leaves without damaging them too much – the edges are a bit loose, but the center of the cake is xiaguanish hard.

The dry leaves give out very nice, warm smell of wood and grapes, I like the fragrance a lot. The first infusion is quite bitter, not really enjoyable, but in later infusions the tea quickly turns from bitter to sweet. In the second infusion fruitiness emerges, resembling the red grapes from the smell of the dry beeng, in late infusions the fruitiness is covered by woody notes and the slightly-aged taste, reminding me of the smell of cellars.

The tea is still young, the liquor is just very light orange, so there is enough place to develop more depths and complexity. The stamina of the tea is very good, surviving 10 infusions with ease, so there is a hope of turning it into something even better. Fake or not, I like this one.

1998 Menghai 8582

Summer is coming to its end and autumn knocks on our doors. Last Saturday I was on a concert of Jaromir Nohavica – while the concert on castle Červený Kameň was hilarious the stormy night proved really cold.


Actually, the castle on this photo is Smolenice, about 20 kilometres north of Červený Kameň.

As the summer ends I’m more and more time at home and so I drink more and more tea. Fortunately, I got some parcels with really good teas, so I’m able to try and learn more and more teas.

Today’s tea is from Guang, ten years old classical 8582 recipe by Menghai Tea Factory. The price of these beengs was quite adequate, so they sold out fast, in day or so. The leaves I used today were broken from my two beengs during they journey to Slovakia, so they are quite broken down. The color of the leaves is dark and there are lots of stems.



The beeng was originally dry stored, yet I decided to wash it twice – mostly to wash out the smallest leaves and the tea dust. This tea definitely isn’t young, yet it still cannot be considered fully aged. The liquor is dark orange with spicy smell, the taste is semi aged, and round and smooth with similar spiciness I found in 2003 Henry Company 7542 beeng.

It’s an OK tea, yet I will let it rest for another 5 or more years – it could improve with age.

2001 MengHai Special-order "Yi Wu Zheng Shan"

Phyll recently restarted his Adventures in Tea & Wine after a hibernation lasting nearly one year. To celebrate it I decided to drink today sample sent to me by him.



The story of this tea is quite fierce. It was posted by Guang during Big Pu-erh Price Bubble and after I made a comment about it on LJ Pu-erh Community, it was sold out within 24 hours.

What do I know about this tea? It’s a special-order tea, meaning it’s probably higher quality than standard products. The mao cha it’s made of is probably harvested in 2000 and processed a year later.

The sample smells really good giving out a typical Yi Wu smell, sweet, woody, flowery. The smell reminds me of 2000 Chen-Guang He Tang Yi Wu brick or 2001 Chung-Hwa Yi Wu "Jin Yeh Hao" beeng. Tea feels aged and it’s aged in the right way – no sign of too wet storage, there isn't musty or pondy smell.



This tea is about eight years old and the liquor turns orange, as it should. The smell of the tea is woody, fruity; I definitely like it a lot. Compared to Lao Ban Zhang beeng I wrote about last time is this tea much tastier, even if maybe not quite as powerful. The smell in emptied fairness cup is dominantly spicy, reminds me of 2003 MengHai "BuLang Jing Pin".



The wet leaves are turning from green to brownish; since it is sample I do not judge the wholeness of leaves.
I like this tea a lot. Definite recommendation, if you will be able to get some. Thanks again Phyll for sharing it with me.

2005 Menghai Golden Needle White Lotus

The 2005 Golden Needle White Lotus is maybe the most famous and most appraised shu pu-erh made by Menghai factory in last few years. It won the 2005 China Tea Industry Exposition Gold Award. So is this tea really that good?



I read somewhere that this tea is of "medium compression". If that's true, what is heavy compression? I was able to cut off enough tea from the sample, but also I made a pretty deep cut with my pu-erh knife into the surface of my table and I'm lucky that I still have all ten fingers. Certainly a hydraulic press was used to make this beeng!

The leaves are small, consistent, with some yellow buds. The dry sample emits very strong aroma - partially it reminded me of bacon, with a certain earthiness (reminded me the smell a dry cellar with some wood deposited in there).

The brew is beautiful - clear, dark, in direct sunlight it changes color into ruby.

The taste - well, probably now is the perfect time to tell you, that I'm not a big fan of shu pu-erh. I drink shu in work, when there is no time to brew something better, but I do not seek it. Why? Maybe because I know, how shu is produced, and also here in Slovakia only pu-erh available was very, very bad shu, so I somehow disliked that kind of tea.

Back to taste - the taste is smooth. Nice. Mellow. If you like the mustiness or fishy tastes in shu pu-erh, you will not find them here. Instead, the taste is sweet, woody, and earthy. In some reviews I read about floral notes - well, I do not found any of them. Just a very good shu, that last 8-12 infusions.

Wet leaves were dark and broken - probably as the result of my humble attempt to break the sample into pieces.



I tried a sample I got from Hou De (sold out). I also have two minibeengs (200g) I accidentally purchased just before the pu-erh bubble, but I decided not to open them, because of their quality. Let them sit at home and age.

The tea itself is probably sold out anywhere for a pretty long time, you could try its two years younger cousin from Yunnan Sourcing - but at your own risk, since I do not know, how tastes the fresh one. Or you can try the more expensive aged loose variant.

1999 Menghai Green Big Tree Black label edition

So the tasting of five prestigious 98~99 arbor pu-erhs began with a sixth one. This is the one that was used at 5th International Aged Pu-erh Appreciation event in Pasadena.

As you can see from the pictures, the leaves are turning brown, but they are still maintaining a bit of greenish appearance. The sample is torn out from the cake, so the leaves will be chopped even if the leaves in the whole cake would be intact.

I used a small yixing pot, good enough for such a mighty pu-erh, the infusions times were rinse (short), first infusions short, then medium, then long. The liquor was crystal clear, very beautiful.

What stopped me, were the smell and the taste of the tea. On about third infusion I remembered, what it tastes like - 2003 HK Henry Special-Ordered 7542 of MengHai. Same strange taste, Guang described it as "most unique fragrance of the ink stick used in Chinese calligraphy - a solid aroma of musk and pine wood with a very refined feeling" - well, the description is quite good, maybe I would mention a hint of "potatoes" on the background.

I remember, that this was the taste I does not like about 2003 HK Henry beeng. I'm not sure if the problem in this special ocasion was in tea, water, preparation?

Even with good, fresh aftertaste and long lasting tea (approx. 14 infusions) I would not buy this tea. Especially considering the very high price.