The scent and taste is quite different with this more than 10 years aged fellow and this is in fact a very pleasant aspect about it! The taste is very minerally even a bit iron related and medicinal like dried TCM herbs plus autumn foliage like. I had an Shou Mei white tea some time ago which was an aged one from 2006 and this is exactly the vibe
I received from this aged buddy. Instead of the woodsy notes the strongest ones are more the cigar tobacco nuances beside the already named ones. The coloration of the cup is quite bright and light considering the age. Also and maybe because of its dry aging there is still a lot of the fresh green character left which isn’t a bad thing in fact it blends perfectly in with the already aged aspects and creates an own unique deliciously universe within its small cosmos. You might also discover some fruity aspects like very young early harvested pears mostly noticeable skin-wise with a bit of fruit pulp plus a fine bitter note of grape seeds. Herbal-wise there is definitely a good amount of chamomile and Greek mountain tea aka Greek vervain to it. There is also a very mouth & tongue coating feel to it which passes on an aftertaste feel as if you had swallowed down a pill (Paracetamol or something like that)!
Normally I would give this aged Sheng a 4 1/2 because it is a very nice composed piece of pu-erh sonata but still for my personal taste not the profile I would normally search within a pu-erh with an aged History to it. But that’s just my own matter of taste ;)
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