2008 Menghai ripe pu erh "hong yun" cake 100g

 This 100g ripe cake is from the Menghai brand.  The cake comes in a paper wrapper (2nd pix)) and then housed in a paper box (1st pix).  You can also buy them in a 5 box pack where you can get 5 pieces in a bigger box.  This tea, as I write this blog, is easily available especially on the internet.  It is also inexpensive about us$6 per piece, freight inclusive (I had bought 5 pieces).

The description on the box claims that this is a high quality selected tea with a good and prolong aftertaste.  Yunnan sourcing (which sells tea on the internet) describes this tea as "This is the one of the highest grade premium ripe teas released by Menghai tea factory for the year 2008!  It is also the first release of this mini iron cake which is called "Red Rhyme" (Hong Yun 红韵）.    This collectable mini tea cake is composed of grade 3 and higher leaves, all smaller leaf fermented material with plenty of flavor to give up when brewed".

Observations - tea is well packed with a paper wrapper and housed in a box. This, for the tea collector,makes storage of the tea a breeze.  The tea cake is tightly compressed and I had to use my large swiss army knife to split the cake in half.  I could then break the cake, by hand, into 12 pieces for storage.   I could make 10 infusions (after discarding the 1st 2 infusions) for drinking.  Tea is not bitter with a  pleasant characteristic ripe pu erh fragrance.  I find the taste of the tea nicer, when the tea had cooled down to room temperature.  Well the tea brews well, and you must keep your 1st few infusions of the tea short....about 5-10 seconds (your preference).  It is a tasty tea but  my thoughts on this tea are that because this is a new tea (manufactured oct '08), the potential of this tea may /would be better after a few years of storage.

One advantage of buying this tea, well for me because its  a small cake(100g), and the size allows me to finish the cake in about 12 brews and I can move on  to try other cakes.  I have allocated 4 ripe pu erh containers in my tea cupboard. and I will only opened another ripe pu erh when one of the containers are empty.  At this moment, my 4 ripe pu erh I am drinking are, 07' haiwan lao cha tou, '07 loose royal pu erh I had purchased during my latest visit to Kunming, '02 cnnp, and this '08 menghai.  

One other strong advantage of buying this tea on the internet is  to fill your tea order in terms of weight, to the nearest kg.  You must remember that the postage on your order of tea is based on weight. Example -when you have made an order of tea and it weights 1.7kg,  you can add a couple of these pieces of this tea, or any other tea to make your order's weight within 2 kg, without incurring additional postage charges.

Would I buy this tea again?  to drink now - no because this quality tea has potential to be better after a few years of proper ageing  .  But for storage and filling up the weight for a tea order - this presently inexpensive 100g menghai tea - yes.