Healthy Leaf caught my eye for the big selection fo aged white tea, but they do sell other teas. I selected this 2016 Naka Big Tree as I like NaKa and wanted a taste of their sheng. I was smelling my blogger sample pile, I opened the bag, and smelled and WHOA must drink! I wasn’t in the mood to drink a younger sheng, but this tea changed my mind.
Dry Leaf and Steeping Method
This is a maocha puer, so it is loose instead of pressed into cakes. The leaves are honking big and wiry, taking up lots of space. You can’t see it on the leaf shot, but this is also a hairy leaf as the bag is full of fuzz against the mylar lining. 2016 NaKa smells sweet and pungent like I should be adding it with fried pork, pineapples, and rice.
I used 1 gram of leaf to 15ml vessel size, steeped gongfu style in boiling water. The hot leaf smells even better, like concentrated tart peaches.
Tasting of 2016 NaKa Big Tree Sheng Puer from Healthy Leaf
First and Second Infusion: If there was such a vegetable that is spinach peaches, this would be it. The flavor is strongly vegetal like lightly cooked spinach, but with an equally strong peach finish and aftertaste. The texture in some sips is like lumpy thick pudding in the mouth. There is a touch of bitterness from the strong vegetal flavor already. Bitterness this early is a warning sign of things to come or I should have steeped it at 200F.
The colour is slightly cloudy, something I don’t like to see, but it appears there is a lot of fuzzy debris in this tea.
Third and Fourth Infusion: The 2016 NaKa tastes of bitter, peaches and STRONK. There is eyeball popping energy too. This is tea is too much for a 4pm on a rainy Tuesday where my evening was supposed to be reheating dinner and playing video games to relax. I’m not sure if its the energy but it could be the bitterness mule kicking my throat to make my eyeballs pop. The aftertaste is peachy but seems to settle in the cheeks.
The leaf is already fully open at this point.
Fifth Infusion: This tea has gone back in time to a peach that is ultra bitter and green. The 2016 NaKa is ultra fruity yet incredibly bitter. There is also a dryness that sandblasts the back of my teeth dry. Of course, this is NaKa, I should have expected bitter and eyelash pulling.
While I wait for more tea to steep, I get a bitter aftertaste of a 1000 angry spinaches. And my teeth feel squeaky as if I ate 1000 angry spinaches.
Sixth Infusion: I don’t know why I tried for a 6th, but I did. The tea is crazy bitter, almost at Kuding level bitter. It is still fruity at the end of the sip. I am also blasted at this point, the blood pressure high and sinuses engaged kind of tea. Ready to hit the mosh pit hyped.
The spent leaf is quite beautiful. Big, uniform, stemmy full and robust leaves.
Comments
Healthy Leaf’s 2016 NaKa Big Tree is not for the faint of heart or new puer drinkers. You must dig the bitterness. At the same time, this is one of the most fruity teas I’ve had in awhile. 2016 NaKa is a quick and dirty slap of energy that I’ve only seen elsewhere in matcha. I did have the 2016 NaKa again and got more infusions, but I lost track.
This would be an excellent tea to sit on a big jar and dip into for self-medicating days. That fruitiness and bitter crazy would transition well later on. Surprisingly, the NaKa is low on gut rot. Young sheng loves to make my stomach cramp, I feel like I could use a cookie, but otherwise, I’m feeling great. I’m going to go blast some metal now. K bye.
(tea provided for review)
