2008 Jinggu Ripe Dragon Egg Pu-erh Tea 100g

This was a pretty good ripe puerh. It is also quite cheap. Goes for only $6 or so. It is neither spectacular nor is it bad. It is good but I mean it is average good, not incredible good. There was a fair amount of fermentation flavor to it. I found the taste of it a little unpleasant but not fishy. It was bittersweet at the start and evolved into a nice semi sweet ripe puerh tea.

I steeped this twelve times in a 160ml Solid Silver Teapot with 14.3g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. 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 minutes. Could of gotten some more out of the leaves but twelve steeps is a lot of tea.

Woo! A ripe that I like! This one came out of the LP Mystery Group Buy.

To my tastebuds, this guy was pretty much totally clear of any weird fermentation flavor. The rinsed leaf smelled like wet wood, but not funky. There was also a slight bit of a bready note perhaps. First three steeps I got earthy notes of wood with a slight cherry note as well. I got about 8 steeps from this one. After the initial steeps, the cherry note went away, but it did get a little bit sweeter. The leaves seemed quite small, so I’m not surprised it was rather short-lived. I probably won’t buy any more of this, just because I’d still prefer a good sheng to a good shou. It seems like for me to like a shou, it has to be pretty well cleared of fermentation funk. This is probably the first one I’ve encountered that it.