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I totally botched brewing this at first because I tried to brew it using my newly acquired gaiwan. Note to self: practice using the gaiwan with cold water before using it with boiling water. I have used the gaiwan a couple of times fine with boiling water, but I found myself fumbling it when having to deal with the short steep times.
It’s quite a few steeps in and a few times I had a mouthful of nastiness for the above reasons. The last 40 sec. one resulted in a light honey infused brew with no astringency and a lingering sweetness. These relatively young green puerh can be very touchy, but give them some time and attention then they turn out to be just fine.

This is probably a 2008 Darjeeling. It’s not on offer at SpecialTeas this year, and came in a sample collection that is a pretty good value.
Light and floral with a bright lemon grassy taste. It’s good, and I’m pleased with it. I’m not rating this since I’d recommend a more seasonal Darjeeling to anyone, but it’s not bad at all.
A well stored Darjeeling in sealed packaging can sometimes be excellent even when faded, and a bargain when it’s discounted to make room the new seasons harvest.

This has that typical velvety Keemun smoke and chocolate, but this has stronger perfumy floral notes than other Keemun I’ve tried.

This is an absolutely delicious oolong. Very sweet and aromatic.

Everybody likes a little Golden Monkey.

After drinking a lot of green or raw puerh, I’m turning back to the fermented or cooked puerh I have. It seems that the lighter hand at steeping I’ve developed with the greens also improves the cooked immensely. Rather than being a curious taste experience, this tastes good.

Pleasant and mild. The flavors evolve and it actually becomes sweeter after multiple steeps. Not a lot of character though.

This tea benefits from low initial steep times (~15 sec. +- 5). It has that strange back of mouth perfume thing going on. Something’s right with this.

When I got up I put a teaspoon of the pearls in a tea thermos. I just kept refilling and drinking from the thermos until midday. Very nice.

I’m using the suggested steep times and really enjoying it.

Gongfu style: Full boil, 1g per 30ml, 20s rinse, stand after rinsing for 60s, 1st steep 20s, 2nd steep 15s, 3rd steep 15s … increase the seconds incrementally.