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I’ve been reviewing so many raw pu’ers lately it’s time for another ripe. At around forty cents per gram, this tea is crazy expensive for a shu. I ordered two five gram sample packs and after weighing them my scale displayed eleven grams. I used all of it in my 160ml Jianshui clay teapot and also drank the tea from a Jianshui clay teacup. I rinsed the tea for slightly under ten seconds and let the leaves rest and wake up for five minutes before I began brewing. I did seven steeps, the timing for these being 12s, 12s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 60s and 2 min.

Since my sample was already broken up into smaller pieces, I got a dark color right from the first brew. The liquor was exceptionally clear for such a young tea. The taste was sweet, with a little bit of the young shu vibe going on, but it was really minor. There was a darker note as well that was not quite chocolate nor coffee. The body was pretty average for the time being, could have been a bit better.

While the second infusion brewed perhaps even a bit darker, there was actually a little less body now than before. The taste was dominated by a generic unidentified darker note. While the tea started off less sweet than before, it got sweeter over time, developing into a cherry or cola type of sweetness. While it was not bitter, it was leaning a bit in that direction.

In the third steep the body got back closer to the first steep or maybe even a bit thicker. The taste was sweet, increasingly sweet. I could taste maybe a touch of vanilla or fudge, or maybe vanilla fudge. Yes, I would say the tea had a caramel vibe to it. As the tea cooled, I could catch a hint of dark chocolate in it. I was beginning to feel the tea in my body.

The body dropped again in the next steep. The taste was slightly sweet, quite generic. There weren’t really any distinct flavors for me to pick out. Maybe a bit of weak nougat if I really push it, but not much else. I was feeling the tea a little more now. While the tea continued brewing a dark color in the fifth infusion, there was almost no taste at all now. Maybe some generic sweetness, but not much else. There was a very distinct void of flavor. There was the most absolute basic ripe pu’er base, but nothing else. I was continuing to feel the qi, but the energy in this tea is one that caused a slightly unsettled feeling and a throbbing sensation in me, which was not something I enjoyed.

For the next infusion I decided to push the tea a little and brewed it for a full minute. The results were similar to before, only now there was an added note of a non-bitter bitterness. The flavors felt really stretched out, like the very late steeps of a tea. The tea actually reminded me of the taste of paper, and once I got that image in my head I could not get rid of it. I’m all for being adventurous when it comes to tea, but sorry I’m just not interested in drinking something that tastes like paper. The body was passable, but fairly thin for such an extended steep. The tea tasted absolutely hideous once it cooled down.

I brewed the seventh steep for full two minutes in an attempt to force out some sort of flavors of interest. I ended up over-brewing the tea as expected. Not much changed, however. The tea was still dominated by the dry paper taste and I decided to call it there. At this point I was so not into this tea that I didn’t have the fortitude try to do the science and see what else there was to see.

While this tea started out okay, maybe somewhat above entry-level ripes, from the fifth infusion onward I was not able to extract much from it besides color of which there was plenty. For a shu that costs forty cents per gram, four steeps is abysmal. That is poor for any kind of pu’er. While fairly easy and straightforward to drink in the early steeps, I honestly couldn’t recommend this tea even if price wasn’t a factor. There are simply so much better alternatives out there. If you want to experience a true high-end ripe, try one of Hai Lang Hao’s many excellent offerings or something by one of the vendors specializing in pu’er like Crimson Lotus Tea or Bitterleaf Teas. Also a personal favorite of mine similar to this one in flavor is the Menghai/Dayi “Xin Hai Bai Nian” which comes highly recommended.