2005 GanRun Yunnan Tuocha 250g

This is a tasty tea. It is my second tea from tea8hk2013 on EBay. I am new to Hong Kong storage. This must have been stored properly because I was able to taste no storage flavors at all. It had also cleared. I did not taste any fermentation flavor in this tea. That is two for two for this seller. There was little if any bitterness to this tea. It had a sweet note throughout all twelve steeps I gave it. It also did not have the thickness usually associated with ripe puerh tea as far as the tea soup goes, much thinner. I guess the thickness in ripe puerh is from the fermentation flavor. Usually in my experience tea that is only eleven years old hasn’t cleared. This has me wondering how long it takes a ripe tea to clear in Hong Kong’s humid environment. The one I drank yesterday was only four years old and had cleared. In a few days I will try the raw tea I bought from this seller and see what the humid storage conditions have done for it. There was no trace of the fermentation of this tea left in it. It had cleared to that degree. I could tell it was ripe tea not raw but it had no more fermentation taste than a raw tea would which is to say none. What really surprises me is there was also no wet storage taste to this at all, no spicy taste, no wet wood, nothing. As to the sweet note in this tea, I really failed to identify it but it was good.

I steeped this tea twelve times in a 120ml gaiwan with 10g 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 min.