2011 White Moonlight Menghai Cake

So I got some nice new stuff in the mail. It was a back order from Tea-adventure. In there were some greens, some samples and this cake. It's a rather interesting cake. I would call it beautiful. the array of colours is very nice and the leaves are really intact. The aroma is really nice, having some similarities to sheng, but also white tea.

I have two other white tea cakes now, because the first tea cake I ever bought was really good. The second was less good, tasting mostly of stale white tea. What is interesting about white tea cakes is that cakes are usually associated with puehr, which has the trait of improving with age. Now white tea is said to be best when young by some people, however, of course, not everyone agrees. The first time I came across aged white is at Thee Aan Zee, a tea shop near The Hague. The guy who owns the place is rather fond of the stuff. I can't recall what I liked best, old or young, when tasting some at his shop. As for the opposers: some puerh drinkers say that the buds are not good for aging and in turn that white tea, which usually has many buds, doesn't age well. Also the production of the basis tea for puerh, maocha, has been processed to maintain some form of enzymes so that it will continue to change in time. White tea is only dried so they might contain some enzymes, but this I am not sure about and couldn't find an answer for after a quick google search.

To now focus on this cake, it's made of White Moonlight. Which is an interesting tea. The story is that this tea is picked under a full moon and then dried indoors. This is different from "normal" white tea which is sun dried. The drying, thus, takes much shorter than with White Moonlight. This is the reason it's not greenish but more blackish. Another difference is the origin. White tea originates from Fujian, China, and is made of the smaller leaf variety. White Moonlight is made in Yunnan, China, and is made from the same larger leaf variety where puerh is also made of.

Somehow this, to get back on the aging thing, suggests to me that this cake might age well, instead of just getting stale, like a green tea would. And I think it shows in this cake. While not being really old, it doesn't seem to have lost either strength nor flavour. It tastes only slightly of white tea. There is some hay like flavour. For the most part it tastes more of a Yunnan gold. Malty and dark fruit. It's quite mellow though. It doesn't have the kick Yunnan gold has. I have a loose White moonlight as well, which also is way more astringent. While not having a kick, it does posses strength and longevity. It handle long hauls of many minutes really well. I like this stuff. It's not mind shattering, but I like to drink and doesn't have sharp edges or so. Two Dog Tea I think has the same idea as I have about aging this thing. It will never taste anywhere close to a sheng puerh, but it will turn into something. I guess it's turning more and more into black tea seems logical as it may still be oxidizing. I haven't had young versions that I know of. The loose one I have is from Simon Levelt. So god knows how old that is. It does have the same black flavours, so it might have some age as well.

Anywoo, let's see what this turns into as it matures.