The Pacific Northwest has the weirdest weather in June. I’ve learned it is called Junerary as it is overly cold and rainy compared to the rest of the country. With this colder weather, I am still shou puer drinking. Today lets check out Bitterleaf Tea’s 2014 Your Ripeness, a Menghai shou/ ripe puer
I love the wrapper art, the blackberry looks nicely juicy.
Leaf and Steeping Method
This 2014 has had ample time to unfunk itself. Right out of the package, Your Ripeness smells sweet and earthy.
I ended up using 1 gram of leaf per 14ml of vessel size ratio. I gongfu steeped with boiling water and did two rinses out of habit. After the rinses, the hot leaf smells of hot dirty earth at home depot.
Tasting of Bitterleaf Tea’s 2014 Your Ripeness Shou Puer
First and Second Infusion: Your Ripeness shou steeps up cloudy. Cloudy isn’t something I like to see, but this is a budget-priced shou with age on it so I’ll make an exception.
Your Ripeness is surprisingly fruity and smooth. It has a slight blackberry tart bite to it that gives a long sweet sip. The finish is saturated dirt earth. The tea is pretty light in flavor, mostly soft fruity. I almost think I should have added more leaf as Your Ripeness is so light to start. There is an aftertaste essence of funk. I say this as being overly sensitive to funk, it’ll likely disappear or would be gone if I aired out the sample, which I forgot to do. This tea was likely funky shou back in 2014/2015.
Third, Fourth, and Fifth Infusion: Another indicator of quality on this shou, all those floating sticks. Sticks don’t add much flavor, but also makes for budget shou.
Your Ripeness is still sweet, smooth, and light as it sips in of berries and earth. Some sips have a hearty earth hug to it, as the texture got thick like rice porridge. Other sips have a bit of a bittersweet berry seed vibe.
Sixth and Seventh Infusion: I did an extended steep to see if I can murder this shou and counter the light profile. I steeped it until it is nice and inky, around 10 minutes.
Your Ripeness’s flavor is strong, with an underripe blackberry seed crunchy taste with an earthy finish. It is very drinkable. Last steep was pretty dead.
The leaf has a touch of green to it, so yeah, this guy was partially fermented and funky in its youth, but age has aired it out. You can likely leave Your Ripeness to age more.
Comments
Bitterleaf Tea’s 2014 Your Ripeness is a friendly, budget daily drinker shou for someone who enjoys a lighter profiled fruity and earthy shou. Nor is this tea motor oil strong, even when I brewed it hard it was still fruity. It has a nice thick texture as well.
It is a shocker, but I like making iced tea with shou and Your Ripeness is perfect due to the fruity flavors. I brew it western style and pour it over ice, unsweetened, for a refreshing drink like iced coffee.
(This tea was a free sample with my order)
