Puerh Mini Tuo: Xigui GNZ
Our Puerh Mini tuo of concern is the ’14 Xigui GNZ. It is an 8g dragon pearl, similar to the Dragon Pearl Sampler. Dragon pearls are hand rolled balls of puerh tea. The care in processing and quality of the material is the best of the best. Consequently, dragon pearls are a great way to learn about the hallmark traits of the various terrior.
Xigui is a terrior in Lincang with a taste profile closer to Bingdao, fruity and genteel, than Daxue Shan or Fengqing, which are black-tea floral by nature. This fruity genteel taste forms an interesting contrast to Yiwu puerh from terrior like Wangong or Yiwu ZS. One of the biggest differences is how top-shelf Lincang pops out the gate. In your face sweetness is highly suggestive of Lincang not Yiwu.
Xigui GNZ 3rd Infusion
When we “out the gate” raw puerh, we’re talking fewer than 10 years old. Dragon pearl mini tuo obviously age faster than cakes, but their material is far better than what is affordable in cake size. Xigui GNZ has aged in Los Angeles since ’15 under conditions probably averaging 70%/70 in terms of humidity to heat but healthy flux around the average.
In terms of quality the Xigui GNZ strikes me as being very good. It doesn’t reach its stride until about the sixth infusion but up until then what it might lack in thickness is made up for in electric sweet cloud sensation. Fully open there is thickness and sweet tropical fruit notes that linger long in the huigan. There is some affinity with very high quality Bulang but the bitterness is a greatly muted feature.
This dragon pearl raw puerh lasted well into 15 infusions over three days. When pushed the bitterness is more prominent but hardly challenging and vanishes quickly into sweetness.
