Roter Tee Pu-Erh

Quality a bit low. A lot of stems, and mostly broken leaves.
I have not experienced a funny fish smell that others have reported on the internet, maybe because I’ve had the bag for 2+ years now and any such funny smell may have ‘evaporated’ in the meantime.
I would neither recommend it, nor not recommend it. All in all, it’s definitely ok value for the buck.

I have never had pu-erh before today. I went to the supermarket the other day and saw this “made in Germany” pu-erh, cheap and easy, no outrageously high shipping costs, and no risk – because I wouldn’t be disappointed if it was bad, and it’d only make me curious for more. And I’d only be blown away by the first good quality pu-erh I’d have after this one.

I tried it earlier today.The loose leaves are quite small, but mostly unbroken. They strongly smell of algae, somehow – please excuse my ignorance, I know absolutely nothing about pu-erh. I want to change that though. Anyway, back to the leaves – they’re greenish in colour, and snail-ish in shape. The drink itself is very clear.
Since I was very curious about pu-erh, I let my guard down. I straight-up stuck my nose into the cup and was immediately hit with the strongest hazelnut smell I have ever smelled in my life. Even a room filled to the brim with fresh hazelnuts would not smell this strong. We had hazelnut bushes in our garden when I was a kid and my sisters and I would spend every summer trying to make Nutella by mixing all the hazelnuts we could find with some dirty water (I honestly don’t know how we’re all still alive) and it reminded me of that.

The first sip was extremely underwhelming, I must admit. “Is this hazelnut water?” I thought to myself. Is it normal that this has no astringency whatsoever? Again, please don’t hate, I am new to this. I followed the brewing directions, in any case. It was too flat for me.
So I decided to steep new leaves for 30 seconds (guess which dumbass had thrown the first leaves away in a hurry, haha). The smell got way more earthy after that. Still no astringency, but the flavours got deeper and thus, more interesting. The hazelnut becomes more earthy, and the childhood hazelnut becomes an adult pine forest. The tea grows up as you let it steep, I feel.
Just to be sure, I put the new leaves back in for 2 minutes. The colour became significantly darker. The pine forest deepened; before, I was standing on the top of the mountain, looking down on the forest – now I was right in the middle of it, the big trees were everywhere around me, very big and very silent, and it was growing cold and dark. The hazelnut was back now, but it had moved into the background and therefore it was way more interesting than in the first 2-minute steep.
I definitely liked it better after steeping it for 4 minutes+ in total instead of the 2 minutes the tea bag was recommending.

I suppose that better quality pu-erhs are going to be way more interesting than this one – but I don’t think tasting this one as my first pu-erhs was a mistake, on the contrary. It definitely made me curious to try more, and I will be sure to do so. Another positive: I haven’t set myself up for disappointment. Well done me!
If you’ve got any recommendations or general advice, I’d be glad!

(Not rating this one, because I’m not qualified to!)