Grown 2001, Packaged 2016. For years, we have enjoyed tasting the difference between loose leaf sheng pu’er maocha, and the pu’er cakes pressed from the same material – why not Tieguanyin? We expected a dark, sweet, elderberry-forward roasted flavor with lotus undertones, having tried the Liu Family’s aged Tieguanyin loose over the past few years, but they surprised us with a finished tea that has so much more! Beyond the traditional notes of the base tea, this cake has developed a pine-like cooling quality and forest texture all its own. Each steeping, this cooling sweet finish becomes deeper and more pronounced. This experiment yields very hopeful results for future cake-aging of Tieguanyin!