2015 Jin Zhen Li Cha Puerh Tea Cake Ripe

Bought this tea from a new EBay seller, or at least one new to me. I have won a number of auctions from this seller so I was admittedly hoping for something spectacular to start with. That would not be this tea however. Their was a lot of fermentation taste to this tea and it was of the unpleasant sort. There was also a fair amount of bitterness. I also at points seemed to detect a sour note but on that I’m not really sure. I only got this four days ago so it may simply need another week to get used to the New York environment. A fairly nice note did develop with this tea in later steeps. It’s not that this tea was all that bad, I was just hoping for something really good and got something really average. I will endeavor to try this again in two weeks and see if letting the tea air out a bit will help it. This is in my opinion not a good start for me with this seller. He sells a lot of tea on auction. Sometimes you can get his teas for a low price. This one some idiot ran up the price at the last minute. That is the problem with EBay auctions. There is always some idiot who is not actually commited to getting the tea but they are willing to raise the price for the serious bidders while trying to get something cheap.

I brewed this tea twelve times in a 150ml Jian Shui gaiwan with 11g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min.