Bought this quite a while ago and am just getting around to trying it. They are unfortunately now sold out. This was an excellent ripe tea. Despite being from 2007 it had a fair amount of fermentation flavor although this flavor was not of the extremely unpleasant nature of some ripes. It had mellowed a bit for sure. It was bittersweet in the first few infusions reminding me of dark bittersweet chocolate. The bitterness and the fermentation faded in several steeps and by steep five I’d say they were both history. It evolved into a nice sweet ripe puerh. There were some notes of chocolate in there in addition to the early note of dark bittersweet chocolate. This was not expensive. I think it was around $25 or so. It was very good overall. I gave it twelve steeps and judging by the color of the tea I’d say it would have gone maybe two or three more steeps. This was not a tea to last twenty five steeps.
I steeped this tea twelve times in a 110ml Yixing Teapot with 9.1g 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, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min.
Flavors: Chocolate, Dark Bittersweet, Earth, Sweet
