2008 Yi Pin Tang "Arbor Ripe Cake" - 25g Sample

This cake is a 2008 spring production from Yi Pin Tang tea factory in Menghai town, Menghai County, Xishuangbanna.  Yi Pin Tang is a relatively new tea factory in Menghai Town run by a former manager from the Menghai (Dayi) Tea Factory.  Their annual production in 2008 was something like 3,500 metric tons of tea, so it is not a small concern by any stretch of the imagination.  The materials used for this production were harvested and fermented in 2007, and it was compressed in March of 2008. 

This particular cake has had some time to lose it's "fermentationy" taste due to the fact that it was stored in a lower altitude (read: HOT and HUMID) part of Xishuangbanna after compression, but there is still some of that new ripe tea taste that should dissipate over the next few months.  (Written July 5, 2009)  That being said, there is some interesting complexity to this tea, and I expect it to mellow out nicely and become a great "daily drinker" type ripe tea in the near future simply because it is such a good value for the high quality of this tea.