I purchased White2Tea’s 2016 Cream Shou Puer and it arrived sometime early February. I had it air out for about a month before putting into my shou’midor to party with the others.
Dry Leaf and Wrapper
Cream is a 200g cake and has a simple, retro wrapper. Filthy hoot.
The cake is super dark with the odd ripple of dark brown. The smell is a bit like wooden planks.
Steeping Method
I did gongfu style, of course. I used 1 gram of leaf to 13 grams of vessel size. A bit more leaf here as I broke off a clean 7 gram piece and didn’t feel like picking out a gram. I steeped with boiling water and did two rinses to get the tea going.
Tasting of White2Tea’s 2016 Cream Shou Puer
I don’t know guys, this doesn’t look cream coloured to me.
The hot leaf smells like my compost pile after I dumped a ton of fruit in it – a steaming pile of sweet fruit.
First, Second, and Third Infusion:
The flavor is light, but is bright and sweet. The first infusion I cannot pick out any notes other than it is sweet. Second and Third infusion have a bit more oomph to it, sipping in a bright mineral and super sweet. The finish has a bit of a woodsy bittersweet aspect to it. The texture on cream is quite nice, it is slick like drinking milk.
Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eight, and Ninth Infusion: Wow, such an inky tea!
Cream reached a high level of brightness and sweetness starting on the fourth infusion and stayed consistent as long as I increased the steep time (up to 5 minutes by the end). I keep saying sweet, but I don’t mean I emptied the sugar bowl sweet, but a clean sweet mineral. I don’t get any of that woodsy bittersweet here, but I do get a blip of a dark soil on some sips. The texture remains thick creamy feeling here, giving a good throat coating. I am getting a bit of a body feel, mostly just awake yet chill.
Tenth and Eleventh Infusion:
I did long steeps here, 15 and 30 minutes. Cream lost steam and what I got was light flavored water that was sweet. Interestingly, these last infusions still had a ruddy color to it, yet the tea was dead.
Oversteep Bombproof test!
I tried Cream 6g in my gongfu2go tumbler and left it to steep for 1 hour and 12 minutes.
The ripe puer came out with zero bitter or dryness, but also not motor oily or heavy. The flavor is a very bright wet stones mineral, sweet, with a little earth. Bit of a clay taste as an aftertaste and the texture is balmy. I got to the dredges and it is potently sharp, tasting hazelnutand sweet. I’d say this tea is bombproof! Over steeping is a go and likely Cream will western steep well if you choose to do so.
Comments
White2Tea’s Cream Shou Puer is a sweet, super friendly puer. It is simply sweet, mineral, and a bit of dark depth to it, without any bitter, dry, or funk. It drinks pretty consistent each infusion and easy to brew. Cream is an excellent thermos tea! I think Cream is a good puer match to people who don’t want that strong motor oil, super dank, compost dirty ripe or types who love the later infusions of shou. I’d show Cream off to those types who drink all those expensive milk/sugar latte types – it would be a good coffee converter tea.
