2007 Liming "Golden Peacock" Tippy Raw Pu-erh

I bought this in early ‘21, and the cake was loosely compressed with a stained and torn paper wrapping. Had a couple nice long gong fu sessions with this, after a 15 sec rinse under hot tap water, covering 13 steepings (100 ml ea) from 4g tea each time. The flavor and aroma were mild and of generic black tea, with moderate astringency and no hints of swamp or fish. By the 5th steep I’d begun sweating, reflecting the caffeine. Overall a good, if unremarkable, tea. By the last steep, the aroma had faded and the tea flavor muted. I wouldn’t buy this cake again, especially after seeing the price rise 30% over the past few weeks. I don’t see much depth of flavor to support further aging, so I’ll just be doubling the dry measure and sipping it down to make room for better things.

Downside to living in a humid region: the state of my walls
Upside to living in a humid region: this tea has aged well in the several years since I bought it with little to no work on my part. The liquid is now more orange than yellow and the bitterness is much reduced, replaced by a mildly sweet autumn-leaves kind of flavor.

This tea puts a smile on my face from the first sip, it’s energetic while being very relaxing with a strong feeling of well being. If I’ve had a rough day and need help calming down this tea works wonders. I bought a cake and will be buying again.

I’m not really familiar with the wide variety of shengs available, but this seems very middle of the road. For a moderately aged tea, you could do a lot worse but also a lot better. It would make a good daily drinker and that’s how I’m drinking it. 5g in a 16oz ingentuitea hitting it with boiling water and just waiting until it looks right. for my notes on taste I did a session with 5g in a 90ml gaiwan.

Early on it’s a bit smokey, but not too strong. More of the petroleum than wood smoke. There is a very distinct saccharine sweetness coming from this, but it balances the bitterness really well. There is still a lot of green to this despite being a decade old and you get a cooked kale flavor from the body that also brings up ideas of tobacco and wet wood pulp. There are some of the classic stonefruit flavors there in the background, but the texture really distracts me away from it. It started out nice and silky but has transitioned to being a bit drying, which is really where I back out.

All around not bad, but I won’t be buying a cake.

very easy to make this tea very bitter and overly astringent, requires some attention within the first few steeps but if you do you are presented with very nice returning sweetness.

There are definite hints of fruit and later on the brew becomes much smoother and can surprise you with its flavor especially in the first brews.

I would be happy to try this again i enjoyed this as one of the first puerhs i have ever tried, definitely not the best there is but there is not much you can go wrong with on this one.

So I wanted to push myself to do these reviews because I want to force myself to be more objective about tea. I’ve been drinking for years and mainly I just chug, and find that when I talk to people I’m either like “I like this” or not but can’t say why. So anyways. I like this tea and I can’t say why, because every time I have it I just end up chugging it. It’s got a little bitterness which feels very “concentrated” somehow, but like I said I didn’t stop to think about why. Otherwise is sweet but not overpowering and not too floral. It has good thick mouthfeel. For some reason the energy it gives feels very “concentrated” also: didn’t give me jitters or make me feel teadrunk, but made me feel like I was going somewhere. Very affordable. 4 sessions so far.