Dr Puer Tea (Dragon Tea House)

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.

This is a relatively nice tea with wet storage notes for the first two steeps and fermentation flavoe for about the first five or six steeps. There was a slight bitterness to this tea but not enough to bother me. The unusual thing about this tea is it comes compressed into a cylinder shape. It was loosely compressed. After a few steeps a nice sweet note emerged and developed over the course of twelve steeps. By the twelfth steep you might call it a fruity note with a little bit of bamboo too.

I steeped this tea twelve times in a 160ml solid silver teapot with 13.8g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. 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 minutes. There were still a few steeps in the leaves but I simply had had enough tea and don’t have the patience for the longer steeps.

This is a fairly nice ripe tea. However it does not seem to have cleared as much as I imagine a 2005 tea should. There was a strong fermentation taste but only in the first three steeps. It was slightly bitter at first but this did not last long. It gradually switched over to a nice sweet ripe tea. Towards the end I am thinking of dates but this is just an interpretation. It was a good tea.

I steeped this twelve times in a 130ml teapot with 11.5g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. 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 minutes. I could have gotten a few more steeps out of the leaves if I wanted to continue.

This is a very nice puerh with a lot of fermentation flavor. It tastes like it was heavily fermented. The fermentation flavor was noticeable through the sixth steep. There was a nice sweet note behind the fermentation and a bit of a bitter character early on. It developed into a nice sweet ripe puerh. I am thinking more the taste of mushrooms rather than fruity but it was good. And there were some notes of dark chocolate in the early steeps.

I steeped this twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 12.7g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. 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 minutes. It was not done at twelve. There were a few more steeps left if I wanted to continue.

Bought this in a recent order from Dragon Tea House and it is pretty good. Either it had partially cleared or the fermentation on this was very light. It had some fermentation taste but not a lot. There was no bitterness and a nice sweet note developed. A slightly sweet note with just a hint of a bitter aftertaste, making me think of bitter melon even though I admit I have never eaten that fruit but it is as I imagine that would taste. The was very good overall.

I steeped this twelve times in a 130ml teapot with 10g of leaves and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. 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 minutes. The leaves were not done. There were a few more steeps in them not sure how many.