This tea charmed me right off the bat as soon as I opened a pouch with my sample. It has one of the best dry leaf aromas that I encountered with puerhs so far: a potent blend of wood, plums, apricot.
I prepared it gongfu (5g per 80g of the 212 degree water). My steeps were 15s, 5s, 10s, 15s, 25s, 40s, 60s, 90s, and 120s.
In the first steeps it came out very sweet, fruity and smooth, with just a hint of dry wood decay and camphor. The aftertaste is long and also comfortably sweet, full of camphor, apricot, peach, flowers, honey… All these flavors blend exceptionally well together and it was a lot of fun to sip and observe the interplay of various tastes. Around 4th-5th steep this shou started to lose some of its power and complexity but still remained cheerful, sweet and enjoyable.
All in all, it came out as an exceptional puerh for me, with every element of this tea -appearance, aroma, color, taste, aftertaste – having no flaws whatsoever. The tea’s character is confident, powerful and cheerful. I had it very early in the Monday morning at work before the arrival of most of my coworkers and ended up aimlessly wandering the office corridors, smiling and happily greeting everybody I met like a some sort of a resident office fool. A very enjoyable experience and an awesome way to kick off the workweek.
Flavors: Apricot, Camphor, Decayed Wood, Flowers, Honey, Peach, Plum, Wood
