Sheng Puerh - Vintage 7542 (1998)

This cake is made using one of the famous recipe 7542. The factory codes are broken into three parts.

75 - The first digits refer to the year the recipe was created (1975 in this case). This is not the age of the tea, merely the year they started producing this blend. Incoming tea was much more consistent back then and so recipes could be maintained from year to year.

4 - The third digit is the average size or “grade” of the leaves from one to nine. The "4" is the average leaf size (so rather small in this case).

2 - The last digit tells us which factory made the cake. Two means the Menghai factory.

It gives a rich liquor which is bright and clean. The Qi is powerful with long-lasting complex flavour like many aged teas. Ageing transformation brings out the true flavour of sheng pureh tea. This is very affordable considering the age of this tea. 

The tea is broken down from a whole cake. A whole cake is also available. The size of a whole cake is 357g when it was made, but there are often weight loss over the years because of aging.

Origin: Yunnan Province, China

Brewing method: gongfu, sidehandle