CNNP (Dragon Tea House)

This tea is either great or not so great depending on a person’s tastes. If you like wet storage taste, what is often referred to as wet wood, you will like this tea. This tea had a strong taste of wet wood. It also had notes of camphor and spice. It had only a minimum of fermentation flavor in the first steep or two. It has almost entirely cleared fermentation wise. I also noticed a slight sour note in the second steep but it did not seem to persist. I’m not going to click on recommend or not recommend on this tea. You will like it if you like wet storage taste, that simple. I am not overly fond of wet storage taste but this was not too overpowering. It was persistent, lasting somewhat even in steep twelve. This was an inexpensive tea, it goes for less than $30. Since it was so inexpensive I’m not too upset to get wet stored. If I had paid $100 and it had wet storage taste I’d be less happy. I do believe it is a good example of an aged CNNP ripe tea. Although I did have a similar Tuo Cha from Streetshop88 that was much better and from about the same year give or take.

I steeped this tea twelve times in an 85ml Yixing Teapot with 7.2g 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, and 2 min. The tea was not done for at twelve steeps. If I wasn’t watching my caffeine and wanted to continue I’m sure I could have gotten three or four more steeps out of it.

I have a sample from Yunnan Sourcing. I’m not 100% sure that it’s the same tea, but I’m too lazy to add a separate entry right now. If it’s wrong, LMK and I will move the review.

ANYWAYS, this was a sample from my lovely MzPriss. I’m digging it lots. I am in my tea nook, so I’m using water that’s just under boiling. No fermentation ughy flavors here. I’m on a pretty serious tea probation after my Verdant shenanigans, but I would really love a brick of this.

Smooth, leathery, slightly cool finish, a little toasted wood. It’s campfirey! I wish I had s’mores now.

This tea was good but not great. It had no fermentation flavor left. It was sweet with a mild taste of camphor. It was also a cheap brick. It was nothing special, just aged well. I liked it a lot but probably not enough to buy the whole thing as I only bought 100g of it.

I brewed this 5 times in a 207ml Taiwan Clay Teapot with 8g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 15 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, and 30 sec. Overall it was quite good but not the incredible tea I was hoping for. It had no bamboo flavor which I had tasted in another similarly aged tea.