24K 2015 Da Xue Shan Ancient Tree Huang Pian Raw Puer

Been trying to work through the BLT sheng samples I have sitting around. Gave it a wash and a quick steep. Not too much flavor in the first steep. Soft and like. A bit of hay, in my opinion, with a slightly sweet aroma that clings to the cup.

A little bit more robust in the second steep, but still quite gentle. Florals start to emerge over the next few steeps, but nothing too distinct. I put the session on pause for a while due to getting absorbed by a few tasks. When I come back to it, I’m greeted with a sweeter, thicker brew than what I left behind. Still smooth.

I’ll be coming back to this one tomorrow!

Update:
So I have come back to this one (it’s the following morning) and it’s still very smooth and gentle in flavor, but it has a bit of a buttery taste behind it. Other than that, I’m still mainly getting florals, but nothing overwhelming. The sweetness seems to have died down, as well. Overall, I feel the same about it. I’s not particularly impactful in any way, to me. But it is good and easy to drink.

Got a sample from Matu after he decided he didn’t love it and I’m glad I did! What an awesome tea. In his review, he states that he had to keep the water below 200F to enjoy it but I’m loving my steeps at 208 so far. Grass, root veggies, sweetness, just enough bite, everything I want a raw puer to be. I’ll be buying one soon for sure.

This tea was decent after I figured out the ideal way for me to brew it. I haven’t had particularly great experiences with huangpian puerh yet, and this tea wasn’t really a step in a new direction in that regard. I was able to enjoy it after I learned that it’s a wussy lil tea that wants to be babied. At my normal sheng parameters, it got sour-ish and rough, as most huangpian do for me. I instead used 200F water and kept steep times below 20s for the whole session.

Doing the session differently was allowed me to avoid most of the rougher flavors that have made me dislike other huangpian I’ve tried. This tea’s aroma was wonderful – sweet and floral. I tasted notes of honey with a floral backbone for the most part in this tea. Towards the end of my first session, the sour notes in this tea died down a bit and took on almost a fruity character, like white grapes, and the tea developed a bit of a straw taste. Using cooler water and shorter times, I also got some starchy notes, almost like potatoes or unsalted french fries (yes, I know french fries are made of potatoes).

So this tea, while not my favorite, is not a bad tea. It was alright once I figured out how I prefer to brew it, but not one that I would need to order more of.

This is a splendid tea with which to have a most relaxing session.

While often I look for more of an iron fist, this tea is the velvet glove. It retains enough bitterness to lend the tea character, but is resilient to steep variations, and good for ten steeps, just like it says on the box.

It would be ideal here to pontificate on the differences between this and other pure huangpian, and/or other DXS material. As I have no experience with either, my comparative uselessness renders this paragraph comparatively useless.

All in all, however, if this is what huangpian offers for the money, sign me up. It may have stayed past its welcome. it could have seen things you people wouldn’t believe, but in the end, it’s very much a comfortable slipper of a tea.

it is indeed soft and gentle; quite nice. i drank the rinse, which was far sweeter than i expected. later steeps were less sweet but still calm. bit of a floral aftertaste. flavour and aftertaste shift a bit more vegetal over time, like a savoury spinachey sencha sort of flavour. i may have used too-hot water and cooked it. :P having a bit of a head-fluffiness effect on me, at least on tired today.