200x "A"

I approached this one with a bit of trepidation. The leaf was very tightly compressed, leaving the first couple of steeps quite light and tasting mostly of storage with vegetal overtones; not the most pleasant of experiences. However, things started opening up on the third steep, where pushing it for about ten seconds rewarded me with a dark, thick liquor featuring a suddenly spicy aroma and richly savory flavor.

Having finally fully decompressed, the tea continued on in this way through the remainder of the session. Periodically, other notes would emerge, like a few remnants of lingering bitterness around the seventh steep, a little bit of a cooling finish here and there, some tingling on the tongue, and a faint sweetness that started coming through as the tea lightened in later steeps. The vegetal notes never quite went away, but stayed mostly masked by the savoriness; remarkably, no sourness ever emerged. Throughout, the qi remained calming and quietly potent, although unaccompanied by much in the way of serious caffeine.

All in all, this tea was a lovely example of well-done Hong Kong storage. The original material seems to have been of decent quality, as well, though probably not the stuff of legends. Definitely worth a try if you can deal with a bit of funk.

200X ‘A’ from the 2018 Sheng Olympiad. An Yiwu raw puer stored in Hong Kong for over 10 years. I don’t have much experience with HK (i.e. humid)-stored pu’er but I enjoyed this one a lot.

Very thick body, a little sweet, reminded of honey a bit, but also dark wood (especially at the beginning). It reminded me of my rosewood tea table. No bitterness and very little astringency. Energy was calming. Lasted a long time and faded out slowly, with the final weaker brews reminding me of the fading brews of a ripe. Taste lingered a long time, but also left a cola-like fizzy sensation in the mouth too.

Tasting this as part of the Sheng Olympiad 2018 courtesy of LiquidProusts generosity.
I did rinse this, and for most of the early steeping I used 5-10sec and from 8th on I used 15-25sec.

Dry leaf aroma: slight, subtle scents of mint?, I suspect from the isolation in the bag it lost some its aroma.
Wet leaf aroma: pretty interesting, very very reminiscent of “dank” shu but with added dimensions of leaf or herbal essence that is very inviting and intriguing , honeysuckle or
something similar to chamomile.

1-3rd Steepings: soup is of light color with that funny pinkish edge along the rim, starts off closer to shu then sheng, but has a distinctive raw edge to it no bitterness or astringency present which is a nice change from young raw, by the third steep the mouth feel is nice and sweet.
4th-7th Steepings: It is already hitting me, sweats and everything along with the sweet mouth feel, all of these steepings serve to enhance the chaqi and mouth feel, it is not extremely sweet like i hear about other yiwu teas this being the first raw yiwu i’ve tired i’m pleasantly surprised and looking for more.
8th-11th steepings: I’m fully loaded with tea magic, where did you find this liquidProust? its all chaqi and tea drunk now, body sweats and everything

This tea is good for a experiencing good and pretty fast chaqi at least for me, its a very good enjoyable aged puerh.
However its taste profile is elusive leading me to try drinking more before I make anything conclusive.

I suspect however this tea lost its flavor profile in exchange for chaqi, so much so it manages to stand on this alone and would definitely recommend this to fans of puerh.

As this is my first HK humid stored tea I don’t have anything to compare it to, once I have tried others I may edit my note. This is a good learning experience.

The aroma of the dry and wet leaves was musty.

The tea soup reminded me of wet bark after a rain, petrichor but with Yiwu sweetness.

So I had bought this cake as a potential candidate for the next Pubertea buy… but ended up going on different paths to where this is now a tea I stock for the shop. I sent a few people the tea as tea ‘A’ in a sequence of three older raw puerhs and this just stood out to me as very enjoyable. Realizing I was able to obtain a bit, trying not to bias, at 35 cents a gram… it’s a solid tea that I enjoy very much myself.

I’ve been waiting to hear from more people, but regardless…

Yiwu raw puerh stored in Hong Kong for over 10 years, I won’t disclose the real age : P
Going into this as a mystery is probably more fun for everyone than it is for me because I know! The tea has aged for sure and the HK environment did it well. Aired out decently at my place and the tea is going quite well. Almost a silk like texture to it coming through the nice viscous soup.

This is what dank tea taste like when it starts to get its stuff together… really looking forward to seeing how others enjoy it.

Possibly breaking up all I have for the next Sheng Olympaid as a solid candidate to understand humid stored tea that is drinkable.