This was a very tasty tea with a moderate amount of fermentation flavor to it. There was no fishy taste or even unpleasant taste to the fermentation. It was fairly sweet. I agree this tea did not seem overly complex but that may be because it is just on the cusp of being an aged shou. Ten years old is in my experience when teas begin to change. This one was beginning to lose it’s fermentation flavor and beginning to take on a flavor of aged shou. Sweet but not in my opinion chocolaty in this case. It did not seem fruity either. More a mushroom type of sweetness to it in the end. That may not be the best description but it is the best I can come up with.
I steeped this tea twelve times in a 160ml silver teapot with 13.5g 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. This session was also an attempt to see if I could distinguish any difference between water boiled in my silver kettle and my ceramic kettle. The first steeps were in silver and the later ones were in ceramic. It did seem there was a slight difference with the silver kettle winning out overall.
