Received a small sample of this with my order yesterday. The first thing about this is it was excellent tea. It had little bitterness and a lot of sweet notes. It had none of the unpleasant notes usually associated with aged teas. That being said it did not have the color I am used to seeing in a nearly twenty year old tea. While the color of the tea was darker than yellow, it was not the dark red to brown you would expect from a tea this old. In short while this was a fantastic tea I am not completely convinced as to the age. The color was more in line from what you’d expect from something maybe six or seven years old. It had started to change in color but it wasn’t there yet. So I have two points here. One it was one of the best raw teas I have tried, two I am not convinced it was twenty years old.
I steeped this tea 16 times in a 50ml gaiwan with 3.5g 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, 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min, 2.5 min, 3 min, 3.5 min, and 4 min.
