Sandalwood and Soap: ’06 Tippy Tuo

There’s a much greater taste of something like sandalwood starting to express in this treasure.  The camphor and woodsy quality seems to have vanished.  Several years ago, there was an orange-juice quality, replete with sourness that has sense vanished.

Spring tea.  A strong and lasting aftertaste.  That’s where the sandalwood is most evident.  Flowers, that aroma and aftertaste of many spring productions is straight sandalwood.  There’s also some humidity and minerality.  That comes on the front end.  The humidity used to be more pronounced, not in a dank fashion, but that which gave the long gone woodsy vibe.

Ahhh.  Sometimes it seems that the puerh pursuit is one of nostalgia.  There’s still quite a bit of attack on the tongue.  I noticed that this one consistently leaves a qi-effect.  Not all qi-effects are heady, however.  This one has “gut qi.”  I’m not saying it is a gut buster, because it doesn’t land exactly in that fashion.  A gut buster elicits the urge to eat, just like one that has gut qi.  The difference is that gut qi doesn’t give you cramps.

Nothing about this production feels green anymore.  As you dig deeper in later infusions, bitterness definitely starts to assert itself.  A zinging astringency attacks the tongue throughout.  There’s something in there that evokes a sense of soap powder.  Certainly the woodsiest of spring productions I’ve had.  Quite similar to this in terms of the sandalwood.  The ’07 Tippy Tuo is an entirely different production, which tastes much more like Lin Cang, Fengqing, of the Yunnan black tea vibe.  This has the true minerality of Wuliang material.