Since I’m kind of on a puer roll, I thought it would be fitting for the first tea I’m reviewing for the Rare Tea Company to be their Malawi Leafy Puer! I bought this pretty much because of the name – I was surprised that Malawi produced dark tea (technically not puer because it’s not from Yunnan) and I wanted to see what it was like!
First Impressions
To be honest, my first impression of this dark tea was not great. The leaves are very small with random longer twig-like leaves mixed in. I should have realised this from the picture but apparently I didn’t pay close enough attention. The scent of the dry leaves were pretty much like any other puer.
Tasting Notes
This was where things got interesting! Although the tea brewed dark like most puers/dark teas, it smelled rather like and tasted lighter than a regular ripe puer too. There were still distinct earthy notes that I’ve come to associate with ripe puer, just with an addition of something that I could only describe as “watery”. I took a look at the product page afterwards and it mentioned ‘rainwater’ which hit the nail on the head.
Tasting notes from my fellow tea drinkers: nothing special (dad), 很甘甜/very gan-tian (HK Mama). No one else could be persuaded to try this.
The second steep proved to have the same notes as the first, so I decided that I would try and see how many steeps I could get out of this. It ended up being a tea vs Eustacia sort of thing since my family all stopped after the first round. I lasted seven rounds before I gave up. The tea could probably go a couple of rounds further, since there was still quite some taste to it in the seventh round, although it wasn’t as strong as the first.
I took a look at the spent leaves after, but the dry leaves were so small that I couldn’t really feel and see what they were like after.
Conclusion
The lightness here makes me think that this tea would be great for serving guests that want something different but not too heavy. As for whether I’d buy it again, I don’t think so. It’s not a bad tea, but for the price, I’d rather try something else – still lots to try from Rare Tea Company!
I’ve got another two more teas from Rare Tea Company to review but since I also just got my hands on some 2009 raw puer balls, I may just carry on the puer theme and review that next.
Interesting!
I gong-fu’d at 6 grams/150ml with boiling water and got a good thick tasty broth, but that batch was bought late 2018 so who knows how different our teas were in regards to yearly variations in the raw material, processing, etc.
I think I generally like my shou stronger these days, so I might have to revisit this tea, see how I like it these days… 🙂
I can’t remember my proportions but I tried this twice (once with friends and once for this post) and got the same “lighter” quality both times. It’s definitely a flavourful tea, it just has that rainwater quality. Yes, agreed that it might be a batch thing – I just got mine so I’d imagine there’s at least a year’s difference to it!