2013 Mengku "Wild Arbor King" Raw Puerh Tea Brick

This is a fairly tasty but bitter sheng. The bitterness was quite strong for the first eight steeps. About steep nine a sweet note took over. You might conceivably use the word apricots to describe the sweet note but it may not be quite that sweet. On a side note I got my teamail while I was brewing this. And my postman is a little bit odd. He asked for some tea. So I gave him what I think was the fourth steeping of this. He will probably have had quite a shock as sheng is something of an acquired taste. We’ll see if he ever asks me for tea again. I didn’t put sugar in it for him either. Just gave him what I think was the fourth steeping. It was still quite bitter at that point. This tea took a good eight steeps for the bitterness to depart.

I steeped this twelve times in a 130ml gaiwan with 7.1g 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. I could have gotten more steepings out of this tea but I had had enough caffeine for today.