Garret sent me home with one of these – my first 10 year old ripe pu’er, and an affordable one. I was working with water at 208 and my dedicated Yixing pot for ripes. The cake fell apart easily with the breaking knife.
30 second infusion: Clean and mild. The flavors are not intense, but work as an integrated whole with nothing spiking out at me. Yes, “clean” is the word.
1 minute infusion: Again, impressively clean-tasting now with a slight cooling sensation. I confess that I don’t like eating mushrooms so I don’t have a good benchmark on some of those flavors others describe. What I do taste is a pleasant leather scent, vanilla, and even slight cinnamon. The extra steeping time brought the flavor intensity way up. Hearty flavor, but not HUGE.
1.5 minute infusion: very much the same cup – it seems to have leveled out at this nice, easy-drinking plateau
3 minute infusion: still the same cup as the 1 minute infusion, the same flavors remain integrated in a nice, round whole. It is pleasant.
Homerun infusion: I don’t know…maybe it was 6 minutes, 10 minutes? Did it for the sake of science and guess what? Pretty much the same cup as the 1 minute infusion.
I’m really glad to have Yellow Mark in my home. This could be brewed in a semi-intentional way for some consistently good pu’er drinking.
