2012 Qui Yun Wild Arbor Raw Pu’er is a 250 gram cake from YiWu mountain. This tea is from Yunnan Sourcing.com.
This raw pu’er is harvested in Autumn from 60 to 80 year old, non sprayed arbor trees.
I discovered I really like autumn pu’er. I was having this discussion with another pu’er lover and we figured it might be because I’m born in the fall. Spring pu’er is still tasty, but the fall teas really make me swoon!
Dry Cake: Slightly sweet earthy floral smell to the cake.
I love the appearance of raw pu’er cakes – it’s like an earthy varigated ombre yarn – gradient of grey, cream, deep greens and browns. Hey yarn makers, make me pu’er dyed yarn in lace weight! I’ll make a “tea” shawl, har har! (ugg, don’t tempt me to get into dyeing yarn)
Teal “pu’er pick” Owl broke off around 4 or 5 grams of tea. This cake was totally machine pressed as it was a pain to break of leaves. Teal Owl is tough though!
Instructions: No instructions – I just went with it. 190F for 30 second steepings, increasing steep time as I go with a range of 15, 30 seconds and 1 minute.
I used a gaiwan (also from Yunnan Sourcing) as my sheng pu’er yixing pot is still in its flavor stealing phase.
The tea is a pale gold colour – looks good!
Infusion 1: Sweet! The flavor is on the light side, but has a warm, honey sweet flavor with a hint of earthy mushroom. I’m not talking funky flavored fungus, moreso a sweet bit of an enoki mushroom. There is also a rock sugar like aftertaste, with a creamy sensation leftover. The sweetness in this tea reminds me of bai mu dan white tea, but with earth flavor instead of grassy.
I have tried a number of 2012 and a 2013 pu’ers. They all have varying degrees of smoke. 2012 Qui Yun Wild Arbor Raw Pu’er HAS NO SMOKE flavor!
Infusion 2, 3: The flavors of this tea jumped in strength – making it move away from that white tea-like flavor. 2012 Qui Yun Wild Arbor Raw Pu’er is creamy! The flavor starts like and ends light, but the middle is intense! It’s like the tea ninja’d in, did a surprise attack and left! Aftertaste is a buttery apricot flavor – fantastic!
Infusion 4: A little sweeter with a surprising hint of bitterness at end of sip, a 2/10 on the bitter-o-meter. The flavor is just going on strong, but it seems like the flavor perks to overwhelming point, producing a little bitterness.
Infusion 5: Maybe Infusion 4 was just unlucky or an awkward teenager transition. This infusion has no bitterness and lighter end of sip. However, I am getting a little grassy notes. The sweetness has died down some and little creamy texture.
Infusion 6, 7, 8, 9: It appears Infusion 5 was also part of the awkward teenager transition as well. These infusions are sweet again – like crystal mineral sweet with a corn flavor end of sip. Each infusion starting from 6 begins to slightly lighten in flavor. A few minutes later I notice the apricot aftertaste appears! I’m not sure if it is lingering from early steepings or from these later ones.
The leaves have expanded to nice, large open leaves.
Infusion 10, 11, 12, 13: A big drop in flavor intensity. The flavor kind of reminds me of a second western steeping of a green tea – it’s light, green beany and little buttery. There are also some mineral copper notes. Despite the flavor going really light, a minute after each sip I am getting that strong and delicious apricot aftertaste.
Comments: 2012 Qui Yun Wild Arbor Raw Pu’er is fantastic! I’m surprised how there was no smokeyness or astringency. There was some bitterness in a few steepings, but overall the tea experience was very enjoyable. 2012 Qui Yun Wild Arbor Raw Pu’er had a few similarities to drinking a white or green tea, but having amazing resteep ability and more complex flavor notes.
I would be bold enough to serve 2012 Qui Yun Wild Arbor Raw Pu’er to guests who aren’t too experienced in tea. It is exotic enough to be a great conversation piece, but also easy to drink.
You know how much this 250 gram cake cost? $15! A great price! This tea owl highly recommends 2012 Qui Yun Wild Arbor Raw Pu’er for tea peeps wanting to try a raw/sheng pu’er! 250 grams is quite a bit of tea, but since it’s pu’er, it will get better with age!
Bonus:
Waah, Teal “pu’er pick” Owl is kind of scary…
