I almost finished this packet and never wrote about it. I got a 50g sample of this about 4-5 months ago, and it’s about gone, so this must be the 8th or so session I’ve had with it.
This tea smells and tastes powerfully of dirt, or maybe wet stone. Seriously, drinking this has deeply warped my tastes, so that I no longer consider heavy humid storage to be a deal-breaker defect.
The leaf is dark brown nondescript lumps and bits strongly reminiscent of shu.
I used 5.5 g of leaf with a “standard gaiwan” and near-boiling water. 1 rinse of ~10 sec followed by short infusions, a couple each of 5, 10, 15s. The rinse smells of dirt, the gaiwan lid of wet stone. The taste changes from dirt to wet rocks over the first few infusions, and there is a slight mouth coating that becomes a little fruity. By about the 5th or so steep it’s getting pretty astringent, and soon the dark soup begins to lighten up some. There is some definite pore-opening perspiration-inducing power with this tea. Even at the 10th or 12th steep, each cup raises a fresh sweat. Eventually it becomes light-copper, stone-tasting, slightly sweet astringent water, after maybe 14-15 steeps.
I don’t think this tea has the staying power of some older raw puer, but on the other hand I have not tried brewing 8g of it at once. This tea is probably worth trying just as an example of 20-year-aged tea, but might be too humid for some. I’m interested in finding an example of the type that has drier storage, I think.
Flavors: Dirt, Fruity, Wet Rocks
The only aged heicha I have had some very humid storage taste to it as well. I’m airing it out right now.
It will do a job darkening up the craquelure in your ruyao ware. I don’t think it ever airs out, really.