The risky buy of the month. It is the cheapest 100g-brick of puerh on Yunnansourcing.us and for a reason.
First, the good stuff: it smells good. The wet leaf has a complex, multi-faceted aroma that is very enjoyable. No fishy smell, no pure decay.
Now, the bad part: it needs at least 5 more years to develop because the acidic tatse of the fermentation is there, ready to pounce and overpower everything else. Which is a shame, because there ARE a number of more subtle, interesting flavors. Unfortunately, the only way to bring them all on the scene together is to do super-short steeps of 5-10 secs, and avoid the boiling water. So, you end up “savoring” a weak puerh for a 2-3 steeps – after that regardless of your efforts the sourness pushes everything else in far corners of the palate.
Oh, and I forgot to add that the brisk is tightly packed and produces a lot of dust – and whatever is not dust consists of small broken leaf pieces and lots of stems. That is, even five years from now it will still be a low-grade puerh of a questionable quality.
The take-away: avoid this brick, there are much better shengs for just a little bit more money.
