What is 7572?

This number refers to a classic benchmark ripe puerh recipe made my the Menghai Tea Factory. To be more specific, it refers to a recipe first made in 1975, using grade 7 leaves, and made by the Menghai Tea Factory (factory #2). This cake was produced on the first run as we can see from the number below 7572. The “2101″ means the cake was produced in 2021 and comes from the first production of the year for that recipe, “01″

This recipe is produced every year by Menghai Tea Factory and this will be my first time trying it. I have another 7572 ripe puerh sample although I haven’t tasted it yet. Sometime in the future this year I will be going more into specifics in puerh recipe numbers, and well as reviewing several Menghai ripe recipes. But for now the focus lies here on this 2021 production.

Upon unwrapping the cake, the first this I saw was beautiful ticket inside. I haven’t seen one quite this nice or large before, but these tickets are great to see as they act as a means of authentication, as benchmark recipe like this are often faked.

As I went to the break the cake, it didn’t take long to realize that it is VERY tight compressed. It took several minutes to try and get my pick into the cake to pry off some leaves. When I do this I’m usually very careful not break a lot of leaves or break off crumbs. In this case however, I found some difficulty finding a spot on the cake where my pic would smoothly insert, and so I ended up making more of a mess than I like.

The dry leaf had a sweet aroma of aged cigar, and pipe tobacco, along with a subtle note of hard woods. I detected a similar aged cigar note on the wet leaf, but the sweetness took a much more dessert like turn. Noted a strong aroma of fudge brownie and a unique kind of caramel note. Reminded me more of a dulce de leche type of caramel scent, which is creamier and richer.

The brew is strong!

The tea has a full bodied, rich and creamy mouthfeel. It has a lingering astringency that sits right on the throat while it’s malty body coats the tongue. The combination and the strength was similar to an instant coffee mouthfeel but without the coffee flavor. The initial infusion was slightly sweet and noted the tobacco smelt on the wet leaf.

The malt got much stronger on the second infusion and persisted throughout all other infusions. The second infusion has a bit more of a strong earthy note, of what I can only describe as tree bark. After the second infusion the combination of maltiness and astringency dominated the taste buds with a very traditional, woody earth ripe puerh flavor.

The word that kept coming to my head to describe the teas “powerhouse”. The tea packs a major punch and never lets up. 8 infusions later and it’s still dominating with a strong taste and as iron fist! Rating the tea is hard because while it didn’t leave me with a long list of tasting notes like more complex puerh’s do, I can’t help but be influenced by it’s clean flavor and powerhouse energy.