2008 Yunnan Menghai ShengShi Gong Ting Puerh Tea Ripe Cake

Bought this about a year ago and am just getting around to drinking it. The good news is my storage seems sufficient for ripe teas. I did not notice any signs of too dry storage in this tea. no sour notes etc. This tea had a lot of fermentation flavor left. It was slightly unpleasant in the first couple of steeps. I could even taste the fermentation in the tenth steep which is quite unusual. It had some notes that I would describe as bittersweet chocolate. Later on a sweeter note did develop. I have to give this tea a relatively high rating. It was pretty good but I would not say phenomenal.

I steeped this tea twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 12.5g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min. The tea liquid was still quite dark at twelve steeps. I’m sure I could get another four or five steeps out of this one.