Recommended
From 2016 Dark Matter:
Had this in a gaiwan, eyeballed amount, boiling to slightly under boiling water, 1 rinse.
This tea came as a nice large flake. The leaves seem to be in larger pieces. This brewed up with a dark red/orange hue like a red tea and not the dark tea sort of compost brown.
1st couple of steeps was pretty much standard earth flavor I expect from shou with no outstanding funk that I could tell. There’s some brine there as well. Later steeps continue to be mellow and have a bit of mineral bite at the end. The ending steeps once they started to get pale actually had a sweet flavor along with the minerals.
This was pleasant. Lots of flavor without being weak and nothing objectionable. It would make a good everyday baseline ripe.
i have to admit, the company name seems a bit menacing