One of my favorites.
This tea is good to have around. The soup is relatively thick, taste is mellow, creamy, and pretty consistent throughout the sessions. My preferred brewing method in general, and specifically for this tea: gongfu style, relatively little water, in order to sip small amounts each time.
The base notes are pretty consistent throughout the sessions: cream, caramel, brown sugar, some cocoa, tobacco notes.
It’s hard to drive this too hard: from the moment the tea opens, I generally keep steeps at 30 seconds, maybe closer to 1 min. by the end. You can oversteep it and it will still be drinkable. It will just bring the nori-like notes at the forefront. Some dried fruit notes: plums, cherry. Not much astringency, though it develops with the last sessions. You can easily get 6 good sessions with this tea without being a gongfu expert. You might get a little more out of it if you keep the gaiwan very warm, or if you let it simmer in a pan (yes, I’ve tried it).
This tea is not as creamy as other references, such as Hong Yun or 7572. It’s a little drier too: less red fruit-like, more bark or even hints of leather/tobacco.
Definitely a good ripe pu er tea. Since this is from 2009, I would say it’s a “drink now”, but it comes in a pretty compact brick, so you can probably store this for a few more years. This is something I will definitely order on a regular basis.
Flavors: Blackberry, Brown Sugar, Cacao, Caramel, Cream, Dried Fruit, Pleasantly Sour, Plum
