2003 Yunnan Pu-erh Tuocha

I wish I could have also tasted this tea when it was young to be able to understand how aging during the last 7 years has affected it. Like the other aged ripe puerh teas that I have gotten to sample it is not that impressive to me. While it lacks any off tastes of being overly musty, earthy or malty, it does not have that much else going for it. Overall the taste comes off to me as bland and washed out without much to be desired. Yet another example to support my view that beyond a year or so to let a new ripe puerh air out from any lingering off smells and tastes after postfermentation it does not make sense to age already artificially aged ripe puerh.

This one looks kinda funky…
kind of a earthy slightly sweet aroma and not funky at all but it’s kinda smells like some earthy old leafes.

I did 2 rinses and let it rest in the pot with the lid off for a few minutes and started with a 30second steep as usual, its kinda weak I honestly taste mostly hot water and slight earthiness.
I was going to go steep by steep but that was about it with this one, it stayed pretty weak the whole time, nothing at all wrong with the taste there’s just not very much of it.
I did get some earthy maybe kinda woody, slightly sweet flavors and even a bit of camphor notes when I abused it and steeped too long but still just weak, like the flavors have faded or something, I dunno.
See photos of it here on my blog :)
https://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/2019/03/outside-with-weird-puerh.html