Bought two of these in a recent order. They are generally a safe bet in ripe tea as COFCO usually produces a good ripe. This tea was overall very good although mind you not spectacular. It had a nice taste to it. There was a fair amount of fermentation flavor that was not too unpleasant it having matured for a few years. If it had ever had a fishy taste it was gone now. It was fairly bittersweet at the start too. The bitterness, like the fermentation didn’t last too long. I have been sick the past few days so I really was making no attempt to get the specifics down. So there could have been some chocolate taste in there but I don’t know for sure. I know it was a very nice tasting ripe and the price was quite low. I forget what I paid but I am pretty sure it was under $15. For a standard, factory ripe produced in huge quantities this is pretty good. I can only imagine how big the batch of this tea was.
I steeped this ten times in a 160ml solid silver teapot with 14.2g 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, and 1 min. It would certainly have gone a few more steeps. Has a nice dark color in the tenth steep.
Flavors: Dark Bittersweet, Sweet
