My anniversary sampler finally can in and I decided to start with this since I’ve never tried raw puerh before. The dry leaf smells sweet and vegetal. I did 2 15 second rinses and then 20,25,30,25,30,30,40,40,45 second steeps. If other raw puerhs are like this, I don’t understand why so many people fear them. It reminds me a lot of a dark green tea. The first steep tasted exactly like spinach. Pure spinach. The second steep was a but bitter and astringent. As was the third, which is why I backed up the steeping times. But the tea remained very spinachy, taking on a (chest?)nut background note in the later steepings and as it cooled. The last few steep were also pretty green bean and kale like. There’s also the astringency and bitterness popping in and out at random times.
Definitely not as scary as I thought.
I think the cooked ones are the “scary” ones typically.
Spinach, kale and green bean tea. :(
That makes more sense
Marzipan of course is scary for those who don’t like green tea though (;