2009 Dayi Round Ripe Puerh Tea 357g

This is a relatively tasty ripe with a lot of fermentation flavor left. The main note of this tea is definitely earth. Don’t get me wrong there were a variety of sweet notes in there too but the fermentation taste was strong. I steeped this eight times and I am noticing fermentation in the eighth steep. I don’t feel it makes this a bad tea, just potent. This was very heavily compressed. It was very difficult to break off a chunk for brewing. I suspect that the rock solid compression has really slowed the aging of this tea. Luckily I don’t mind fermentation taste all that much. I am curious to see how this one ages. It is a different shape from most teas being a solid ball of tea. I think the traditional bing shape probably ages better than something like this. All that being said this is a Dayi and I generally find their teas to be high quality. I think the quality is there on this one too.

I steeped this eight times in a 120ml gaiwan with 9.6g 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, and 30 sec.