I was surprised that I had to put this one in the catalog. There was a 2014 in the catalog. I hadn’t known that there had been a 2014 version of this or did a person put it in the catalog with the wrong year? In any case this is an excellent tea. It is somewhat bittersweet at the start, thick with fermentation flavor. The fermentation taste was clean to me though, no fishy taste that I noticed. I would venture to say that there were some chocolate notes to this tea and some fruity notes in later steeps. I gave this tea ten steeps and I’d say it took about five steeps for the fermentation taste not to be a factor. This was an excellent tea.
I steeped this tea ten times in a 120ml gaiwan with 9.8g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 454 sec, and 1 min. The tea was still quite dark in the tenth steep. I would definitely go a few more steeps.
Flavors: Bitter, Chocolate, Earth, Fruity, Sweet
Preparation
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The 2014 rating is for the loose material that had gone out in samples and was also available to customers prior to pressing being done. I bought plenty of the losse material as not everyone wants the cake. The ripened material for the cake is the 2014. Glad you enjoy it! I’m sipping some right now.
So the loose tea is 2014, interesting but the cake is defined by the year of it’s pressing 2015. I think I understand.
I was the one who made the original entry, based on a pre-release sample before Mandala made a web page for it. I’ve updated the tea info with the words and picture from the new Mandala page, and modified the tea name to indicate the 2014 entry is the loose form.
The 2014 rating is for the loose material that had gone out in samples and was also available to customers prior to pressing being done. I bought plenty of the losse material as not everyone wants the cake. The ripened material for the cake is the 2014. Glad you enjoy it! I’m sipping some right now.
So the loose tea is 2014, interesting but the cake is defined by the year of it’s pressing 2015. I think I understand.
I was the one who made the original entry, based on a pre-release sample before Mandala made a web page for it. I’ve updated the tea info with the words and picture from the new Mandala page, and modified the tea name to indicate the 2014 entry is the loose form.