5 grams to ~90 ml with ~200 F water, +/- 5 degrees. A darker yellow gold liquor than the Spring and Autumn from the basics set, it appears to be slightly cloudier as well. Initial aroma smelled of honey sweet grass, although the taste had only a touch of sweet to it. The first steep was thin, almost, with a lingering sweet note I enjoyed.
Second steep may have been for too long as it definitely hit a bit hard with the bitter tobacco taste and astringency. Third steep was overwhelming tobacco, bitter, and astringency—my best succinct description of the taste of the later steeps is if you took tobacco, stuffed it into an old shoe for a day, lit the shoe on fire, waited a minute to rescue the contents and then were to brew the results into a flavor. I tried a couple more steeps just to see where this went from here, the answer was not very far. With short-ish steeps, the tobacco bitter becomes tolerable, but still a predominant note. A little more hay and light, but nothing I particularly enjoyed.
The aftertaste was a nice, smooth pu erh savory taste. So far, I’d say I preferred it over the Spring 2015, which I had a hard time noticing much else besides the raw/sour bitter and the tart astringency. The Autumn had some of that raw edge still as well, but definitely more mellow with some sweeter characteristics and grass hay tastes becoming stronger, although still not something I’d want to drink for pleasure. The Huangpian was less of an immediately enjoyable flavor to the others even, but is something heavier, with more depth and flavors that I am more curious about to see what the magic of time does to it.
Flavors: Astringent, Bitter, Grass, Honey, Smoke, Tobacco
