2012 Cai Cheng Yunnan Raw Puer Tea Ji Nian

In the end this tea wasn’t bad. It was however not what I expected. This was purchased from a seller in Hong Kong. It is my understanding that Hong Kong is a wet storage type of place. This tea had all the hallmarks of dry storage however. The tea soup was still quite yellow. like a dry stored tea. It had not developed any aged flavor, good or bad, like a four year old dry stored tea. It had not developed any wet storage taste either. I was hoping for good wet storage on this tea as the ripes I got from the same seller had the hallmarks of wet stored tea albeit without storage notes. I was hoping for a good wet stored tea. This is at best an average dry stored tea. There were some bitter notes initially and some sour notes too. These took a few steeps to dissipate. What was left behind after about six steeps was fairly nice, mildly sweet raw puerh. In order for this to not be wet stored they must keep their puerh in a humidity controlled vault and set it for dry storage. I had definitely expected a tea that would have aged a bit. The sour note might go away after I air this tea out for a few months. It really wasn’t a bad tea. I was just expecting Hong Kong storage.

I steeped this twelve times in a 120ml gaiwan with 7.9g 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. I could have gotten a few more steeps out of this but twelve was enough.