2005 Yongde Wild Arbor Brick

It’s interesting how seasonal your consumption patterns can be. A few days after the last attack of winter on which I’ve reported here, the spring is in full swing here in Poland, with temperatures reaching +18C in the afternoon. Immediately, I feel less thirsty for tea in general, and my choices tend to be more and more green. On the other hand, I can’t quite imagine brewing those high-roast Wuyi oolongs or ripe puer.

Between sessions of Longjing and sencha, I decided to have a look at a tea I haven’t reviewed here yet, and in fact haven’t tasted in quite a while. The 2005 Yongde Wild Arbor Brick is the sort of upper lower middle range tea I never feel urged to drink but that is always a safe choice for a ‘normal’, weekday cup of tea.

This puer is compressed into a brick instead of the more usual cake. Somehow, I don’t really like bricks. I can’t explain it, since bricks have many qualities: easy to store, I get the impression they are also a bit tidier than cakes when you have consumed more than 70% of the tea. Yet there’s something about the shape that doesn’t attract me. Bricks are quite thick and I have encountered a ‘dressing-up’ strategy more often than with cakes: there is a pretty layer of large leaves on the outside but underneath, the brick is made of lesser material.
2005 Yongde Tea Factory Wild Arbor Brick
Merchant: Yunnan Sourcing
Price: $13 / 250g brick
Brewed in: gaiwan
Dosage: 5g / 120ml
Leaf: Large leaves on front of brick but speaking of dressing up, there is indeed a bit. Leaf colour is rather dark and untippy. Pleasant, aged aroma: dried leaves and tobacco.

Infusion #1 (25 seconds).

Tasting notes:
25s: Pale colour. Not much aroma, echoing the nose with tobacco and dried leaves; uncomplex and calm. Not a lot of body on the palate. Finishing definitely a little bitter (vegetal juice of chewed branches coming to mind); a little unbalanced or perhaps just austere.
45s: A darker (if not terribly attractive) beige-brown. To its credit, the tea hasn’t turned bitter with this longish infusion. A moderate intensity of low-acid tobacco, beans, and barnyard; perhaps some huigan.
40s, 45s, 1m: Consistent and fairly stable, building a more bitterness-driven balance than initially. Some content here, and could improve with time.
Brewing #6 is already a little light, with decreasing interest. The profile is not very young but not really aged either. Dry-stored (this was purchased in 2008 from Yunnan Sourcing, who are still offering this brick)

In essence, it is not a great tea, but surely good for the price. It has some content and personality, though not exceedingly much. The disappointing factor is the grandeur of its description: I can hardly detect much old-tree material here, and for a high-mountain spring tea, it tastes a little light and bland. If you forget that, it is a relaxing pleasant puer that’s just fine for Monday like today.