First tasting of today is Ripened cube mini brick 2006 by teavivre and again they impress me. Using a 110 ml gaiwan I brewed this at just under boiling, probably 208. Doing 2 rinses because the brick was having trouble opening up, the first infusion produced a nice clear reddish liquor, that smelled faintly of smoke, caramel and wood. There was no hint of the fermentation smell that can sometimes happen with ripe, just smoke, wood and caramel which is wonderful in the morning.
The second steeping was very similar, after that it got much darker and produced a dark red going into black liquor, and the smoke and caramel went up a few notches,still pleasant but a tad strong. After that it mellowed slightly, and this was with flash infusing it too, pouring the water in and right out. And its got a nice little caffeine kick as well, Im awake now.
My recommendations for this are your best brews are going to be the ones around fourth or fifth where its opened up and either just before or just after the big dark infusion. And the price is very reasonable on this too, as you will get A LOT of infusions from this, and you get 4 bags of different mini cakes and about 200 total grams of tea.
Highly recommended, for the price you cant beat this.
Flavors: Caramel, Earth, Oak, Smoke
