2007 Jinggu Large Leaf Pu-erh Tea Brick 250g

I got this one from madametj who first reviewed this tea. It’s pretty bad. I drank maybe 4 ounces of it. I’ll probably just toss it.

So far I’ve been spoiled with tasting only good shou. Good to learn that there is bad stuff out there and to experience them, which makes me appreciate the good stuff even more.

5 steeps: rinse, rinse, 5s, 10s, 20s, 30s, 60s, 4min

5s: Generic puerh taste

10s: Generic puerh taste

20s: Puerh that’s beginning to lose it’s flavor on the 3rd steep

30s: Generic puerh taste (once again on the weak side)

1 min: Generic puerh taste

4 min: Surprisingly weak after 4 minutes

Woooow I am floored. The leaves on this were large and flat and I wasn’t sure how much to add so I decided to put in extra just in case. I ended up filling the whole 90ml gaiwan by accident. Wasn’t expecting the leaves to expand that much I guess. Anyway, since the gaiwan was full, I was expecting to end up with tea that was very strong, dark, and maybe a bit bitter. What did I end up with? Just barely decent tea. I kept thinking to myself “what does it say about a ripe puerh if the gaiwan is full and it still barely gives any flavor?” I’lllll tell you what it means. I means I’m a sucker. This was one of 4 teas that I bought as my first puerh purchase. Puerhshop was recommended and I didn’t have much to spend so I selected 4 teas from their clearance section. I thought “Clearance” meant “marked down” teas, not “crap” teas. Literally all four teas (3 tous, and this brick) turned up extremely bland. sigh Lessons learned:

1. You get what you pay for
2. Sample, sample, sample