Six Famous Tea Mountains - 2006 Bang Wei

I purchased this 2006 Bang Wei (邦崴) sheng puer tea cake (生普洱茶餅) back in 2006 for $10. It was pressed by a large operation called Six Famous Tea Mountain (六大茶山). I'm drinking it today for the very first time.

It looks nice and has a pleasant grassy, dried apricot aroma off the dry leaves.

Every pour of this tea has been very saponic. On some infusions the liquor almost looked like jelly with long lasting bubbles. I get excited when puer behaves this way as it often indicates a satisfying, nourishing and delicious tea.

Unfortunately this tea did not deliver for me. I did find a bit of complexity as the tea soup entered my mouth but it was mainly on the tip of my tongue and quickly faded out, leaving behind a flat, boring liquor and bitter aftertaste. Nice flavors such as citrus rind, vanilla and pine were overtaken by harsh flavors like tobacco smoke and an occasional mustiness that reminded me of a wet towel. I'm sure those undesirable flavors did not come from my storage because all of my puer tea is kept on the same bookshelf behind a curtain in my bedroom and none of my other cakes have those flavors.

I can't be too sure what the value of this cake is today and I'll bet there are some folks who would appreciate the tobacco notes but for me, I suppose, I got what I paid for. I've come a long way in my puer tea collecting since 2006 and if I had a time machine I'd go back to 2006 and tell myself to save my ten dollars.