The first raw/sheng pu’er I’ve tried, and the second 100g cake I’ve purchased. (The first one I ever got, as a present, was the Ontario pu’er 100g cake from WPTC.) This is also the first tea cake I’ve ever attempted to crack apart. I think I did ok, although of course I did break a few tea leaves. This cake doesn’t seem so tightly compacted that it’s going to be hard to break some off for a cup of tea. The leaves are beautiful, of course, all twisted and varying in color from a light silvery color to dark walnut brown.
Since I’m still new to pu’er, I decided to follow someone else’s steepings on here as close as I could—first steep at 5 sec with 6.5 g of leaves and 5 oz water, though I skipped doing a rinse; the leaves I managed to get off were individual and not in a chunk, so I felt it would be unnecessary to do a rinse.
The dry leaves smelled amazing and the wet leaves did as well, with little difference between the two that I noticed. A nice floral aroma, sweet, perhaps more like hay or grass. The tea brewed up a pale green, similar to a silver needle tea I recently had. It actually tastes very similar, too, although the floral notes are stronger and it seems sweeter than the silver needle. Not a trace of bitterness, happily.
Second steep of about 10 sec. Tastes similar to the first cup, not much difference that I can tell. Third steep ~15 sec. This one has a more sour note to it, possibly the grass flavor I have seen others mention? Fourth steep ~20 sec. Grassy note is gone; back to the sweeter, more floral green tea taste. Fifth steep ~25-30 sec. Touch of the sour note again. Otherwise, the flavor is slightly fainter than before. Six steep ~40-45 sec. Tastes much like the first cup, with a faint hint of the grass.
Flavors: Floral, Grass, Hay, Sweet
