Nan Nuo Mountain (Nan Nuo Shan) is a green, unfermented 2012 Spring pu’er from the Nan Nuo Mountain area. This cake is specifically from a village of Bang Po Lao Zai in Southern Yunnan. This exclusive pu’er is from Jalam Teas, a monthly pu’er tea club.
A little on Jalam Teas – for $19 a month (plus shipping), they’ll send you a hand sourced, limited quanity 100 gram pu’er cake. Each cake comes with a card explaining where the tea is from, how to locals drink it and such. In addition, Jalam Teas has a webpage for each tea with more information, plus a video of where the tea was made. You can also purchase more of the pu’er cake, if there is any left. Very spiffy! Thinking about it, $19 is a pretty good deal for a good mini pu’er cake!
The cake the Tea Owls and I will be tasting today was from March 2013 – Nan Nuo Mountain (Nan Nuo Shan)
Dry Leaf
Nan Nuo Mountain has a soft forest floor scent. The tea leaf is a tangle of browns and cream with a hint of green.
The cake is surprisingly easy to pick, leaving Teal “Pu’er Pick” Owl’s job very easy.
Steeping Instructions
I went with 190F filter water, steeping 5 grams of tea in a glass gaiwan. I did a rinse, then 15 second steeping, adding an additional 15 seconds until the 5th infusion. I then added 30 seconds for the 5th and 6th infusion, and 1 minute for the last steepings.
While rinsing Nan Nuo Mountain, oh my, the tea smelled amazing! It was like I was in an untouched forest! Ultra woodsy deliciousness!
Tasting of Nan Nuo Mountain
First and Second Infusion – Nan Nuo Mountain steeped up to a pale daffodil yellow with a grassy woodsy scent. First taste that comes to mind is sweet! Nan Nuo Mountain has no bitter or fermentation taste. The flavor starts light, blossoming into a sweet, light woodsy and slight vegetal flavor. The vegetal is cooling, like bamboo and celery. Nan Nuo Mountain finishes off with a wood char smoke flavor, adding onto the woodsy flavor from earlier.
Third, Fourth and Fifth Infusion – Nan Nuo Mountain colour deepens to a golden yellow.
The flavor is more on the woodsy side, a smokey cedar. To elaborate more on Nan Nuo Mountain‘s smokey flavor, rest assured, it is slight. The smokey taste is like the remnants of a campfire the morning after. With these middle infusions, the tea has a big full flavor, with a mineral coppery flavor mid-sip.
The highlight here is Nan Nuo Mountain‘s aftertaste. OH MY. After all that woodsy and smoke flavor, it clears to a peachy sticky aftertaste. This aftertaste lingers for at least 5 minutes. Best part of this tea!
Sixth and Seventh Infusion – The coppery mineral flavor has lightened with mostly the vegetal flavor remaining. Of course, the aftertaste is still going strong!
Now that the leaves are pretty open and expanded, we can see that the leaves are quite branchy.
Eighth and Ninth Infusion – Finally, Nan Nuo Mountain is light and squeezed of most of its flavor. What is left? Peachy aftertaste! It seems the aftertaste in this pu’er stacks.
Comments
I found Jalam Teas‘s Nan Nuo Mountain to be a relaxing, yet refreshing pu’er that screamed “sit back, sip slowly and enjoy” to enjoy its fantastic aftertaste. As stated on the information I got with the tea, the locals drink it as a morning tea on an empty stomach, or as a fever reducer or organ inflammation. I could see this being a great morning tea, in contrast to the typical strong black most people tend to have. Nan Nuo Mountain blossoms from refreshing and cooling – easy on the tummy, to warm and smokey – waking you up.
Overall, this tea owl recommends Nan Nuo Mountain if you want to get into a green raw pu’er that is meant to be savored after each sip.
(tea provided for review)
