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So I just read over the tasting notes for this tea. Should sales people from tea companies even be allowed to rate their competitor’s teas: I don’t know. It seems a bit tacky to me personally.

In any event I bought a big bag of these a few months ago in 2011. I gave some away and I only have a few left which I will save to see if and how aging changes them.

This tea benefits from a quick rinse in boiling water. They recommend steeping it for 3-4 minutes which seems like a bit extreme to me. I did mine for around 2 minutes. It’s a very dark, earthy and rich brew, no bitterness at all. OK, it does smell a tad bit fishy according to the BF but I never noticed that before. I associated it with shiitake mushrooms, coffee, chocolate and broth. Curious. I’d much rather have this than camphor any day of the week. I first started drinking tea like this when I quit drinking coffee. I was told that pu-erh has the lowest acidity of any tea. It does seem like it’s easy on my stomach. I think this is a nice little shu.

My second steep was only for around 30 seconds and it is still very flavorful. I would definitely recommend shorter steeping times with this one…