a nice little Box of 100g ripe puer caught my sight in a tea house in Yokohama's Chinatown:
the label Pavo was not known to me before, but it didn't take long for me to find out that it was produced by/for the Haiwan Tea Company Lao Tong Zhi, what translates as Old Comrades.
the information on the side of the box didn't reveal anything further, other than it's a Yunnan Puer Tea and a ripe one and it was made according to the specific food safety restrictions.
unboxing revealed a nice little 100g Tuo that had the number 968 and 121 printed, next to a counterfeit security label that shines colorful.
it's hard for me to say what the number 968 really means as there is no english information on the internet about it, but the nearest guess would be a 2009 recipe with leaf grade 6 material from Factory 8 (Haiwan). Another way to read it would be a 96 recipe of leaf grade 8 from an unknown factory, but as 8 fits Haiwan, i like the first explanation more.
the 121 refers to the year 2012, 1st batch. so the age of this already fermented puer is now 7 years.
the material has quite some golden buds/tips in there, that should make the tea more aromatic, the nearest thing to compare the taste of these golden tips would be the taste of a chinese black tea, highly aromatic with a clean brew..
the dark leaf material represents the leaves that grow further down on the tea plant and the taste should relate to a rather earthy and thick soup.
not really surprisingly, the brew had a nice red color to it and the taste was a bit earthy, woody, a bit sour and had some aromatic and even slightly sweet notes.
daily Facts:
there are sure better ripe puers that might taste like plum wine and sweet and don't have any earthy flavor to them, but also a lot of ripes that just have an earthy and even fishy taste that i couldn't make out in this one, which is a good thing.
my rating therefore is a medium to good one = it's ok, nothing special, nothing bad here, fine to drink, but the slightly sour woody taste was just something i expect from planatation leaf material.
if it had higher quality leaves like a gushu ripe, the spectrum of flavors and mouthfeel could have been more broad, relaxed and interesting.
with a tmall price of about 9 cents / gram (60 Y = 8,37 USD/100g) it's clear, that this is a standard consumer market product and not a high priced special tuo.
if you want a cheap shu puer that is drinkable and produced by a big factory according to food safety procedures, go for it, if not.. just don't.
3.6 / 5
Haiwan official tmall flagship store: https://laotongzhilh.tmall.com
(don't confuse tmall with taobao or aliexpress, they might use the same system, but tmall shops are factory owned flagship or licensed factory product stores that sell legit products and often have special sale prices)
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