Today I drank a tea from the Puerh TTB labeled “2006 Haiwan” from Mx Tea. I picked it out because I was interested in tasting some mid-aged factory tea. This one wasn’t really too fantastic. The leaf smelled like leather with some floral and tobacco hints as well.
The flavor started off a little bit sour with a spicy vegetal finish and notes of leather. This lasted for about two steeps before it dropped off at least some.
The next six or seven steeps were like roasted asparagus, sometimes accompanied by a sour mushroom note and with a bitter finish. The texture was a little bit thick, but not too nice in that regard. The tea started to get a little bit lighter around steep 8 or 9, after which some sweet flavors finally started to come out.
The last four steeps had a relatively pleasant vegetal sweetness, with a bit of nice throat feel. I think these were the most enjoyable parts of the session. This tea seems like it could use more age on it – I’m fairly certain it was stored in a rather dry environment, as there was no wet storage taste and the liquid was still quite yellow, only starting to pick up an orange tint.
I’d rate this 77/100. I used 6.1g in my 100mL Jianshui pot.
