After sampling this twice and not liking it the first time but liking it the second time I finally bought a bing of this from the Yunnan Sourcing China site. This tea had virtually no fermentation flavor. The last time I drank this was about a year ago and I reported it had a little. This time I didn’t notice it. There was just a bit of storage flavor barely perceptible in the first two steeps, I would say wet storage flavors. This evolved into a nice sweet ripe with no unpleasant flavors to it. I steeped it fourteen times and am sure it would have gone a few more steeps if I wanted to get up towards five minute steeps. This is an expensive tea but from Yunnan Sourcing you can be sure it is actually from 1999 and not a fake. Many sellers would sell something much younger and call it a 1999 tea. I definitely recommend anyone putting in an order with Yunnan Sourcing get a sample of this tea. It is hard to say which I liked better, the 1992 ripe CNNP, the 1996 ripe CNNP, or this tea. ALl three were very good and I am glad to have bought them. This is one I will look into buying an extra of as the price is not too obnoxious. It is still expensive however.
I steeped this tea fourteen times in a 160ml Solid Silver Teapot with 14.3g leaf and boiling water. 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, 2 min, 2.5 min, and 3 minutes.
