Bought this with my recent Tea Trekker order. This is one good shou. There was only a vestige of fermentation flavor in the first steep. I could still tell it was a shou but I couldn’t really taste the fermentation flavor. This vestage was gone by the second steep. This tea was sweet from the start with no bitterness. There were a variety of complex notes over ten steeps but I would venture to say that dates or plums comes to mind in the later steeps. I didn’t really notice chocolate notes in this tea but I think they tend to come from the fermentation taste of the tea and thins just didn’t have any. This tea had clearly been dry stored as the Tea Trekker website I think says. I found no wet storage taste at all so I believe this. This is also unusual for a ripe puerh in that is wild arbor spring tea, that is if we can trust the people at Tea Trekker. I personally trust them so I believe that this is wild arbor spring tea. The total lack of fermentation flavor in this tea indicate it had been stored a while so I buy it’s age. As far as how much I enjoyed this tea that puts it at the top of the scale. I am also getting some cha qi from this tea, a rarity for ripe teas. I wouldn’t use the term tea drunk but I am feeling good, very relaxing qi. This is definitely one I would buy more of as I only bought four ounces. I was thinking of buying eight but Tea Trekker doesn’t knock anything off the price if you buy even a pound. I don’t think that I would get too many more steeps out of this tea. I gave it ten steeps and had to open up a bit on the time iin the ninth and tenth steep. I suspect that I would get at least two more steeps out of it though. I might go back for two more later on as I figure I have already extracted all the caffeine from this.
I steeped this tea ten times in a 120ml glass teapot with 9.2g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, and 2 min. This was one good aged tea.
Flavors: Dates, Sweet
