Best Teas from Menghai Tea Factory

[bagua7]

Here's Steepster's ranking list:

Best Teas from Menghai Tea Factory

81/100

1. 2010 Dayi 7562 Ripe
2. 2011 Dayi Wu Zi Deng Ke
3. 2009 Red Aura Round
4. 2007 "Golden Needle White Lotus" Ripe

80/100

5. 2006 Chen Sheng Hao Classic Raw
6. 2008 V93 Ripe

79/100

7. 2009 7532 Raw
8. 2009 7562 Classic Ripe
9. 2009 V93 Ripe

78/100

10. 2007 Dayi Hou Pu Ripe
11. 2010 Dayi High Mountain Tea Charm Ripe
12. 2009 "Da Yi Jia Ji Tuo" Raw
13. 2007 Dayi Yunxiang Ripe

77/100

14. 2008 "Da Yi Hong" Ripe
15. 2008 Menghai "Peacock of Nannuo" Raw

76/100

16. 2010 Star of Menghai Ripe (gee this one selling for 50 bucks at DTH )
17. 90's 8892 Grand Red Label Raw (I can imagine this one sitting high on the 3 figure mark)
18. 80's 7572 (most likely close to the magic four)
19. 2005 "Early Spring" Tuocha Raw

75/100

20. 2009 "Da Yi Gong Tuo" Ripe
21. 2008 "Peacock of Bada" Raw
22. Chrysanthemum Mini Tuocha Ripe

74/100

23. 2008 "7562" Premium Ripe
24. "Peacock of Mengsong" Raw

73/100

25. 1997 8582 Raw

70/100

26. 2008 Dayi 7572 Ripe
27. 2008 "Peacock of Menghai" Raw

68/100

28. 2008 "Peacock of Bulang" Raw

67/100

29. 2008 Yue Chen Yue Xiang Menghai Tea Factory

61/100

30. 2009 Menghai 7542

Ratings below 61/100 are found here but yet to be rated.

Not many reviews though so those ratings should be taken with a pinch of salt, perhaps?

Do you agree or disagree with that list? Is there anything else that should be listed?

[MarshalN]

Hard to take these seriously since most only have one or two ratings.

[BioHorn]

Funny thing here...M's point of few reviews apart. There is barely a sheng listed here with less than five years of aging. That may have something to do with all the shu's have much better ratings than all the young sheng! How many people here really want to drink young 7542 on a regular basis?

[debunix]

Steepster has a lot of members, but not a lot of serious puerh drinkers, so yes, most of those ratings are based on very few reviews. And to prevent the ratings being overwhelmed by one really good or really bad review, the 'Steepster' rating for a tea is not simply the average or the mean of the individual reviews, but rather starts out about 75-80 points, and can be raised or dropped a little by each review.

So....for less popular teas like puerhs, there are going to be very few with really high steepster ratings--no matter how well their one or two reviewers liked them. And for Menghai teas, the reviews are going to be diluted further by some being listed as Menghai, some Meng Hai, and some by the company that sold the tea instead, and those reviews won't be collated together by the software. It means that your signal-to-noise ratio is very low for this sort of tea on steepster.

[Charlotte_J]

Hard to take these seriously since most only have one or two ratings.

Also, it is steepster. Most of their users are more familiar with Teavana than puer.

And there isn't a 7542 in the top ten? Most of what is ranked highly is ripe and widely available abroad, like V93. V93 is ok, but a 2009 V93 ranking 6th overall? That is all you need to see to know the merit of the list.

[Charlotte_J]

Steepster has a lot of members, but not a lot of serious puerh drinkers, so yes, most of those ratings are based on very few reviews. And to prevent the ratings being overwhelmed by one really good or really bad review, the 'Steepster' rating for a tea is not simply the average or the mean of the individual reviews, but rather starts out about 75-80 points, and can be raised or dropped a little by each review.

Sorry for the double post, just noticed this!! This is what I wanted to say

[MarshalN]

Hard to take these seriously since most only have one or two ratings.

Also, it is steepster. Most of their users are more familiar with Teavana than puer.

And there isn't a 7542 in the top ten? Most of what is ranked highly is ripe and widely available abroad, like V93. V93 is ok, but a 2009 V93 ranking 6th overall? That is all you need to see to know the merit of the list.

The same can be said of steepsters' reviews of any other non-labeled teas. Tieguanyin, white tea, green tea, etc, are all pretty fungible and the number of people who've tried one or another is going to be exceedingly small, generally speaking.

[bryan_drinks_tea]

Plus the fact that the 2011 Wu Zi deng ke is in the top of the list. Talk about bland..(of course this is only my opinion.)

have fun tea friends, and who cares about ratings from best to worst anyway? We are our own judges in that regard.

[TwoDog2]

Plus the fact that the 2011 Wu Zi deng ke is in the top of the list. Talk about bland..(of course this is only my opinion.)

have fun tea friends, and who cares about ratings from best to worst anyway? We are our own judges in that regard.

Both good points. In my opinion Da Yi hasn't made anything too memorable in quite awhile. Their classics are pretty decent, but nothing to write home about.

And your second point is even more true, tea is so subjective. One man's trash is another man's treasure. Apparently, people on steepster treasure menghai cakes. Ain't nothing wrong with that. I have a few 7542's in my closet.

[spinmail]

Several Steepster reviews I've read run the gamut, and there very little effort to standardize the ratings. With so many teas being rated 90+, it's hard to distinguish teas.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by this set of ratings. I'm not a big fan of ripened puerh, and dislike young sheng, so the ratings kind of made sense to me. When a ripened Dayi 7562 gets one of the top ratings of the bunch (81) - with no better teas sampled - this very roughly reflects my experience with ripened puerh and raw sheng.

[franklucido]

Posted by debunix
Re: Best Teas from Menghai Tea Factory
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Steepster has a lot of members, but not a lot of serious puerh drinkers, so yes, most of those ratings are based on very few reviews. And to prevent the ratings being overwhelmed by one really good or really bad review, the 'Steepster' rating for a tea is not simply the average or the mean of the individual reviews, but rather starts out about 75-80 points, and can be raised or dropped a little by each review.

So....for less popular teas like puerhs, there are going to be very few with really high steepster ratings--no matter how well their one or two reviewers liked them. And for Menghai teas, the reviews are going to be diluted further by some being listed as Menghai, some Meng Hai, and some by the company that sold the tea instead, and those reviews won't be collated together by the software. It means that your signal-to-noise ratio is very low for this sort of tea on steepster.

I wonder: what are the pitfalls of tea cultivation in Europe? I know that global tea production is based on Bangkok, Thailand resources. Alastair Hicks wrote about it in his essay eview of Global Tea Productionand the Impact on Industry of the Asian Economic Situation.