This is the oldest (as in aged the longest) tea I have tried to date, although I just got some older ones recently. It is very interesting for me in the sense that different aspects of it resemble various teas like shou, aged white, sheng, oriental beauty and dianhong.
The smell is initially similar to a lot of ripe pu-erh, but very clean. It is sweet, earthy and nutty with notes like camphor, peat and prunes. It is very complex and later throughout the session becomes more woody and medicinal. There are aromas of spruce, oak, forest floor and chlorine.
The liquor is super clean and its colour is located between dark orange and red. The taste is also clean and inoffensive, but definitely enjoyable even though it may lack some pungency. It starts off sweet, spicy and nutty with light bitterness. I can taste coffee and hazelnuts in particular. The second half of the session (steeps 7 to 10) is a bit more herbaceous, while the very end (steeps 11 to 13) is fruity with notes of apple, apricut and walnuts. These last few infusions remind me of aged shou mei a fair bit. Even better than the taste itself is probably the aftertaste, which is very long. It doesn’t really have much extra complexity over the taste though.
The body is full and the mouthfeel is slimy, buttery, mouth-watering and a touch dry in the finish. I didn’t really notice any cha qi, apart from some caffeine effects in the chest around infusion 10.
Overall, I got 13 infusions of about 100ml and one final simmer of 200ml. Getting 1.5l of tea from 6g of leaf seems like a lot to me, especially given that this is not likely to be made from old trees.
Flavors: Apple, Apricot, Camphor, Coffee, Dried Fruit, Forest Floor, Fruity, Hazelnut, Herbaceous, Medicinal, Nuts, Oak, Peat, Plum, Spices, Sweet, Walnut, Wood
