2015 Year of the Goat Ripe Puerh

Still a great tea! Five years on and the fermentation flavors are almost all gone. It is very sweet with a touch of smoke. Very slippery and thick. I have a few tongs of this, more than any other tea by far. Glad I have plenty!

Picked up a cake of this from YS in a recent order as I’m rediscovering an appreciation for shou lately and had very little on hand. This one seems very good for the price, though really not anything special otherwise. There’s still some fermentation flavor left to it, but it’s not gross or fishy, and I suspect it’s less intense than people were mentioning in earlier reviews.

This one was simple and straightforward to me. Woody sweetness with a bit of a vanilla character to it. Decent body. It doesn’t brew up quite as jet black as most shou at my normal parameters. I’ll have to try super-leafing it sometime and see what I get. It’s definitely one which will fulfill my needs – just something simple and tasty when I want to have puerh without having a really focused session or anything like that.

This is a very tasty shou. That being said there is a lot of fermentation taste to this one. It was strong for the first six steeps I gave this tea. I did not find this to be the sort of unpleasant taste however that gets classified as fishy or musty. If a fermentation taste can be clean I would say this was. I did not find this a bitter tea but found it had a nice sweet note. Not entirely sure what to call the sweet note. As to chocolate notes, that is a maybe as I was not paying complete attention to the specifics. I definitely think that this is one of Yunnan Sourcing’s better ripe teas. To me I find it similar in character to the Hui Run series of which I have drank two of. I would guess that this was a heavily fermented shou, judging by the fact that the fermentation taste lasted a little longer than it would in most ripes I’ve drank of about the same age. And this tea is also good as they test all their teas since I think 2013 for pesticides so I know I’m not drinking any pesticides with my tea.

I steeped this 12 times in a 150ml gaiwan with 13.2g 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 was not done at twelve steeps. I could have gotten another four or five steeps out of it as the color of the tea was still quite dark in the twelfth steep. However, I had had enough caffeine for today.

Being rather new to this I am not certain I have all the correct terms but I find this tea delicious for being such a young shou. Maybe it is the Bulang in it but there are hint of wood and a sweet aftertaste at the back of the throat. I think I prefer this to Green Miracle. Will be stocking up on this one.

Received a sample with my order from yunnan sourcing. I am pretty new to ripe pu-erhs, and will be withholding giving a numeric rating. Brewed gong-fu style near boiling. Two rinses as this pu’er is young and cheaper ripe pu’ers i’ve had benefited from rinsing to reduce ‘off’ fermentation flavors. Typical color, dark orange-brown, burgundy-ish liquor when looked through while pouring, but definite brown-earth colored in the cup.
Smell is musty earth, decent smell. Taste is bitter, very earthy. I think a double rinse is better to my taste- first steeps are a little earthy/bitter to my taste, but again, I’m a ripe newbie.

Second part of my day at work I opened this up with excitement as the Green Miracle was and is phenomnal for being young. Started off with a rinse and tossed it in the snow while walking back to my desk (I have to go outside to get to the kitchen).
Fits thoughts was how rough this was. Then I noticed a tang to it which was odd. I’m guessing this one does need some time to sit in time out.
The taste is a medium depth and the dryness is present in the back of the throat which is worse than the front. Yunnan Sourcing is amazing, but I’ll always tell everyone to buy Green Miracle.
I’m pretty sure I’ve said that 1000 times. I’m just being a good friend…. If I know from first hand experience what taste better to me I will always make that known. This one will probably be something to retry in three years.