I bought this one in January 2018. It is a beautiful-looking cake. Leaves are large, lots of white hairy tips, looking very neat. Loosely compressed so that the leaves come off nice and whole.
Dry cake smell: nicely woody and tobaccoish. Wet leave smell: nicely sweet, crisp and fresh. Color: nicely yellow, bright.
This tea really needs a couple of brews to really start to loosen its flavors. It isn’t a highly aromatic tea in a smelly kind of way. Most of it happens on the tongue. It is nice though. Each sip leaves a nice astringency, which quickly develops into a very fresh, citrusy kind of sweetness that keeps on lingering. Thoughts of grapefruit cross the mind (no bitterness though). It is also very vegetal though. Sweetly-grassy. Sometimes I noticed some of the woody undertones I often associate with raw puers, but only very faintly. I’m guessing those notes need age to develop (this is the youngest puer I have drank so far). When brewed stronger, the vegetal aromas deepen into something more savory, reminding of licorice. Would like that side of this tea to develop more as it ages (yep, I bought 3 extra on Taobao where they are only 10$ per cake).
Update after 1 year of storage: this tea has certainly not gotten worse. I do think it has changed somewhat. It feels less vegetal, less sweet also, and has more of a herbal, dry honeyish thing going on.
Flavors: Citrus, Grapefruit, Honey, Licorice, Sweet, Vegetal
