I found this ripe bittersweet at the start with a fair amount of fermentation flavor. It was dark and rich in the early infusions with some notes of bittersweet chocolate in there. It pretty much lost its fermentation taste by the fifth infusion. In any case I don’t remember that taste being of the particularly unpleasant sort. Perhaps it has simply cleared enough that the taste wasn’t too bad. If so that is a bit of a miracle as this was dry stored in Michigan at Puerhshop. I just bought it but I know they have had it for a number of years. In any case I liked this tea. It was not in the phenomenal category of ripe puerh but was a good solid ripe puerh for a decent price. Puerhshop has in my opinion it’s problems but they are one of the few major sources of puerh on this side of the Rocky Mountains. They have a lousy return policy when something goes wrong. I was once sent a moldy tea. They made me ship it back to them. I don’t know if they were planning on selling it to someone else. Yunnan Sourcing would have never expected me to ship the tea back to them if they sent out something moldy. I wish Yunnan Sourcing would open up something on the east coast.
I steeped this tea ten times in a 120ml gaiwan with 10.4g 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, 45 sec, and 1 min. The leaves were not done but I had had enough puerh. I’m sure I could have gotten a few more steeps out of the leaves.
Flavors: Chocolate, Dark Bittersweet, Earth, Sweet
