14 Tasting Notes
Very sweet, nice aged flavour. No bitterness in any steeps. A little weak, requires high gram/ml ratio and tapers off quite quickly around 6 or 7 infusions. Quality daily drinker for aged flavour. Doesn’t have enough strength to seem like a good candidate for further ageing (though I’m not hugely experienced in that regard).
Preparation
Found this to be a very uninteresting tea with little flavour beyond the usual sheng bitterness. Not nearly as nice as the Old Bear which has a similar age and price point and a lot more interesting things going on in the flavour.
Preparation
Beware, tastes nothing like the 1993 Family Reserve the website compares it to (and which I very much liked).
Went through about 6 gongfu infusions. Quite a lot of bitterness. A nice buttery scent with hints of same in the taste. Otherwise very little here. Definitely none of the interesting aged flavours in the older versions of this from the vendor. Would not recommend at this point (will update after trying it a few more times and playing around with brewing parameters).
Flavors: Butter
Preparation
Grandpa brewed: This is much better. I would adjust my rating up to about 65 this way. Some hints of the cooling/menthol aged feeling as well as more interest in the flavour. Still a little bitter, buttery scent completely absent. Suggests that a longer ageing time might actually help here (will have to get a vacuum sealer…)
I keep trying to like this tea, and underneath the bitterness I can just about detect something nice. But the bitterness is just crazy strong and ruins it. I’m putting most of what I have into storage in the hope that it might turn into something good in 10 or 20 years, but for the price you could buy tea that is that old now, or just much better younger oolong.
