2010 Da Ye Sheng Pu'er (100g)

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #5

I took this tea out because I have enjoyed one younger De Ye that was somewhat sweet awhile back. My thoughts were along the lines of: “this should be more smoothed as it has aged a good 3 years more than the last I drank”
Those thoughts didn’t take into consideration of tea factory, storage, and my exposure to sheng in the last few months. With all pu’erh I steep at least 8 times and by the fifth steep I knew this wasn’t going to magically become a liquid sweettart. The liquid is dark and has a nice taste, but as far as comparing it to others it would land in that realm of average. It also doesn’t have any strong enough notes to make a flavor claim on either.

This was not all that special. The dry leaf is heavily compressed maocha. It consists of a variety of dark greens with small brass and tarnished silver strands. The brick carries the scent of sharp plums. I placed a small but heavy chunk in my warmed yixing and gave it a shake. This scent heightened to raisins and tobacco. I brewed up a cup, or rather, I tried to brew up a cup. This maocha is so compressed it took about four long hot washings for it to open up and yield anything more than slightly flavored water. The maocha finally opened up, and the initial sip was very basic. This had no complex tones or aromas. It was a very singular flavored tea. This tasted of wood. It would sometimes give a slight smoky flavor, but otherwise very unattractive. This wasn’t terribly tasting. It was just a very basic tea. The qi was calm and came in spikes. It faded after a few minutes. I was not impressed by this, and I’m glad I only have a small amount. Lastly, the dry leaf consisted of only 2 whole leaves and the rest BOP out of a 7g portion.

https://instagram.com/p/3MY3IPTGVo/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

As a pu noob, this may not be a fair assessment.. I think I steeped it properly after completely botching this last night. I used 7g of tea in 16oz of 200 degree water for 40 seconds (adding 10 seconds for additional steeps). The tea color is a light gold. The taste is woody and smoky, dissolving into a subtle sweetness on the back end. I didn’t really taste a change in flavor over subsequent steeps, so it tasted very one-note throughout the entire process. I will try again with a gaiwan, when it comes in, and update accordingly.