This is certainly an interesting shou puerh. I am not sure how much I like it. It started out with a strong taste of what I would describe as bamboo or aged flavor, not sure which is a better description. Some have described the taste as leather but bamboo is I think a better description. This is a dark and strong tea. Even after eight steeps it was still quite dark colored. I think this is a shou you could easily get fifteen steeps out of. The thing I think I disliked was that there wasn’t much sweet flavor to it, all leather and bamboo along with some earth. While I would not describe it as very earthy, there was still some earthy flavor there.
I steeped this eight times in a 207ml Taiwan Clay Teapot with 9.3g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 10 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, 2 min, and 4 min. The bamboo taste strongly persisted for about the first four steeps and was noticeable through the first six steeps. I would describe this flavor as slightly off putting. It has been suggested that this tea needs to air out, this could be.
Flavors: Bamboo
Just got it tonight. But I want to wait a few days to acclimate from international ship and cold weather.