2011 Haiwan Remote Mountain Ancient Tree Raw Puerh Cake

Judged purely on the first few steeps I would have to give this tea a poor rating. It was fairly bitter in the early steeps and there were sour notes. However the tea got better. This would not be one to western brew. The bitterness largely dissipated after four steeps and soon the sour notes did too. What was left was quite good. It was sweet. I would even venture to say notes of apricots like many a good young sheng has. Tuocha Tea sells their tea at reasonable prices. This one was only around $26 if I recall correctly. Their prices are hard to beat. I have only sampled their teas not drank them all but I like their ripe in particular. This is the first of their raws I have drank so the jury is still out in general. I have several more of their raw teas to sample in the coming weeks.

I steeped this ten times in a 130ml gaiwan with 8g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min. The tea was not finished. If I wanted to continue I could certainly have gotten a few more steeps out of it.