Michael Brooks Send Message

The smell is little marine with a less pungent shou aroma. Actually, I noted a bit of bamboo shoot as well, but very faintly.

As for the flavour, it’s forwardly smoky, very mellow and smooth. Great balance between bitter and sweet. Hard for me to really place the flavours, though, even as it continues to develop; I’d say it’s more woodsy with light earth notes. A challenging one indeed.

Super-easy drinking. I steeped it for a full minute pretty early on and it was still fantastic with a warm, long-lingering aftertaste. Highly recommended!

On the first few steps, it has notes of what I would expect leaf litter to taste like. Very earthy. Little bit of astringency that builds on consecutive steeps.

Not particularly exciting; I could see it coming back to it after some time to see how it’s character has developed.

A ripe puerh I’d heard was an easy drinker. After a rinse, I started steeping at 10 seconds with 5 second intervals. However, any of my steeps longer than 20 seconds made the liquor too astringent/bitter for my liking.

The liquor is very thick and very dark. Even the rinse was darker than my other samples. I found notes of bread, molasses and earth throughout. I found it pretty uniform, with astringency/bitterness on the finish. There is a very heavy emphasis on the molasses; it’s uncanny how present it is. Luckily, there is no hint of the low-quality or ‘young’ ripe puerh aroma (fishiness).

After 5 or so steeps, it eases up pretty quickly, both in colour and flavour. Again, if steeped briefly, it’s intensity is less obvious and is rather manageable.

I’d say I enjoyed it overall. For those who like dark puerhs high in earthy sweet notes, you’ll enjoy Sloppy Jimbo. I wouldn’t quite grandpa-style brew it as suggested, but it can be easy drinking.

As an introduction into pu’er, it was…certainly something. The tea, done gong fu style for tasting purposes, turned our smoother than when I attempted it Western. Although it was relatively smooth and the complexity was beyond what I’m used to in, let’s say run of the mill black teas, it has a distinctly ‘fishy’ smell.

This, I am told, is exhibited by low-quality, very young or incorrectly fermented pu’ers. They (I’m sure there are exceptions) are supposed to smell more earthy with darker fragrances (malt, etc.)

Although it worked well for multiple infusions (30 seconds – 1 minute), I still couldn’t get over the fragrance. If you can’t find any pu’er locally, this might be your best bet at trying a fermented aged tea (other than oolong).