2012 Nanqiao Selection Raw Puerh from Yee On Tea

The 2012 Nanqiao Selection is a special commission raw puerh made by the Nanqiao Tea Factory for the Yee On Tea Company. Yee On ordered it in 2011, basing the recipe on the classic 8582 and using mostly wild-grown tree material from the Bulang Mountains, with the rest coming from Nannuo larger leaves.

After years of Yee On's traditional Hong Kong storage, this is definitely a humid stored tea. It has a nice thick throat feel and is earthy with a dash of basement, sweet, with notes of camphor and medicinal roots, a bit of spice, and sweet tobacco. It responds well to longer steeps, which balance out the storage character, and finishes sweet and salivating. Really nice.

Important: This tea has traditional, humid Hong Kong storage, and that storage character comes through, especially in early steeps. If you prefer clean, dry stored puerh, this one may not be for you. There may also be some frost on these cakes. Frost is a normal and positive sign of traditionally stored puerh, made up of caffeine, catechins, and sugars that migrate out of the leaf during the active transformation stage of higher humidity storage. It can easily be confused with mold but it is not mold. The wrappers aren't damaged, but after years of storage they aren't pristine either.

A whole cake is approximately 400 grams.