What-cha commissioned Paul “Two Dog ‘White2Tea‘” Murray to produce this 100 gram mini-beeng, which should be enough to grab your attention to start with.

This is, as you might have already guessed, Spring 2016 material that originates in “…a far flung part of Lincang, Yunnan…“, and was harvested from trees aged between 50-100 years.

The compression on this cake was moderate, so it was no problem to get the old Pu-erh pick in there, open it up, and pull off a good lump of leaves.

Post rinse those leaves smelled of sweet smoke and leather, almost as though someone had been burning incense in a stable.

This tea delivered right from the word go with a lovely, smooth, silky, oily body, and a sweet note that hung over the smoke and leather complete with a subtle hint of dried mushrooms. This was balanced with a nice astringent flick.

The Qi made its presence known immediately, too. This was less of a “smoke and lightning/heavy metal thunder” gig, and more of a cool jazz trio playing a relaxed set featuring a good mix of contemporary and classic standards kind of a thing.

The aroma that lingered in the cup was an interesting one, part old plaster of Paris, and part “old candy shop’s upstairs bare floorboards store-room“, if that makes sense.

I was able to perform 15 leisurely, easy infusions before the tea began to tail off.

All things considered this is a nice little cake. I can certainly see it carving out a place in my stash as a tea for a late afternoon, “pre-cooking of the evening meal” type session, one where you want to be relaxed, rested and ready rather than hit for six.

Good stuff.