2015 Dayi Hongyu Ripe Cake 357g

This is a tasty ripe puerh with a lot of fermentation flavor left. There was what some might find an unpleasant taste to the fermentation at first, not quite fishy but unpleasant. It doesn’t bother me but might bother some. It was initially sweet and thick in nature. After a couple of steeps I noticed some fleeting bitterness. This did not last. There are a lot of the notes that people refer to as chocolate. I say it like that because nothing but chocolate truly tastes like chocolate to me. This is the real deal Dayi. I checked the security seal with the black light and it glowed green just like it’s supposed to. This was an inexpensive Dayi at only around $16 or so. I steeped this eight times and think if I had wanted to continue I could have gotten quite a few more steeps out of it. The leaves were not done. I did use a lot of leaf.

I steeped this eight times in a 120ml gaiwan with 9.6g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. I was originally going to drink a different tea from 2004 but I opened it to find mold on it and am waiting for a response from Puerhshop. I do recommend this tea as a nice inexpensive shou but want to remind anyone thinking of buying it that it has a lot of fermentation flavor to it. I don’t mind that but some do.