This Raw puer is really nice, less bitter than some other puer this young. There’s a sweet overtone and the undertone is of wood and white pepper. A little lasting bitterness stays in your mouth, along with the peppery taste.
The funny thing about Puer teas is that there’s so much info out there about how you can steep it 20+ times. Granted, that’s true, the question I find myself asking when drinking a Puer tea is… do I want to?
If I can make it through 5 or 6 steepings and still be interested that’s saying something. I love the Gongfu approach to tea, but for me to really do a lot of extended infusions means it has got to be cream of the crop flavor, or it has got to have some interesting changes from one infusion to the next. Sometimes if I don’t see that really happening over the first 5 or 6 I’ll just stop there because the water I use for tea is expensive relatively speaking… it’s about 35 cents a gallon and I have to walk over a mile with a glass jug weighing over 50 pounds to get more. Thankfully I have a little cart with wheels to help me with this, but pulling it up and down hills can still be tiresome. I’m veering off course a little bit, but these are my thoughts at the moment.
Back to the tea. I like how sheng puer teas tend to mellow out after the first 4 or 5 infusions, and I think this is when I enjoy them the most. Some people rinse them at least twice before drinking to get to this point sooner, and while I don’t do that myself, I can see the appeal. As I move deeper into the infusions on this one, there’s a bit of a sweet floral taste emerging, overtaking the wood notes, but pepper is still the dominant flavor.
This was not a bad puer. It’s not as complex or suited to my tastes as many others I’ve had, but it is also agreeable and nice to drink.
Flavors: Floral, Pepper, Sweet, Wood
