Midwest Nice – Bamboo Raw Puer

Tight compression of tea. That is a definition of this one.
I managed to get 5 grams for my gaiwan, made quite a long rinse (30+ seconds).

Now, first steep, about 20 seconds I think. Stonefruits, honey… tea on me. I spilled (cold already) on me.

Second one is longer by 10 seconds.
Taste gone stronger, bit more astringency. Bamboo is the strongest taste I think.

Third steep, again 30 seconds.
Tea broke completely, so finally I am getting sweet notes. But in background there are still some bitter notes.

4th
Oh well, how long? 30+ seconds, maybe close to 1 minute! I forgot!
But tea is still good. It does not turned awfully bitter, rather the stone fruit flavours turned out stronger.

And few more steeps, I stopped making any more notes. I am too lazy now. It is almost 10pm.

Song pairings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO7uemm6Yo
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0NSeysrDYw
Bit schizophrenic, I know.

Snack pairing:
Lindt Crémant 49% chocolate bar with Bourbon Vanilla. Too delicious to take just one bit.

Picked up some of this one in a recent smaller W2T order. Compression is pretty tight, but comes apart without much of any fussing – so definitely not on the scale of an iron cake or some of the peskier tuocha/fangcha that are out there.

This one had a bit of a dry woodiness to the aroma that may be imparted by the bamboo, or may just be part of the flavor profile. It is definitely young sheng, and being slightly smaller material, it can definitely go astringent if you don’t brew it with a proper touch. Definitely some sweetness and thickness, to the tea. To me, this one is drinkable now, but would certainly benefit from some age. Wasn’t smoky or funky at all – pretty clean taste.

This is a pretty good raw puerh. It was only somewhat bitter at the start with notes of apricots and stonefruits throughout all twelve steeps I gave this. It had a slightly bitter aftertaste to it. I couldn’t really taste the bamboo one way or the other, I don’t know if this is good or bad mind you. It was extremely well compressed. It took several steeps for this to open up and brew correctly. I liked this puerh.

I brewed this twelve times in a 120ml gaiwan with 8.6g 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. It would have gone a few more steeps not sure how many. I didn’t get much qi off of this.