59

I’ve had this in dry storage for 3 years and it is supposedly a 2013, so now an 8 yr old ripe (wet pile process) tea. Rinsed 2.5 g in hot tap water for 10 sec, then steeped in 8 oz boiling water, in a steel straining basket. Odor of fresh fish, compost and forest floor at first put me off, but my persistence was rewarded with a smooth sweet taste. As I sipped down the second steeping of this portion, the fishy aroma had mostly dissipated, and halfway through I got a distinct flavor of chestnut, much to my surprise! My third and final steeping continued to be smooth and presented leather and toasted hardwood (not smokey).

Preparation
Boiling 1 min, 0 sec

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Life is too short to drink bad tea!
Pan-American: Left-coast reared (on Bigelow’s Constant Comment and Twinings’ Earl Grey) and right-coast educated, I’ve used this moniker & Email since the glory days of AOL in the 90’s, reflecting two of my lifelong loves—tea and ‘Trek.

Now a midwestern molecular biologist (right down to the stereotypical Hawaiian shirts), I’m finally broadening the scope of my sippage and getting into all sorts of Assamicas, from mainstream Assam CTCs to Taiwan blacks & TRES varietals, to varied Pu’erhs. With some other stuff tossed in for fun. I enjoy reading other folks’ tasting notes (thank you). I’ve lurked here from time to time and am now adding a few notes of my own to better appreciate the experience. Note that my sense of taste varies from the typical, for example I find stevia to be unsweet and bitter. My dislike of rooibos may be similarly rooted in genetics.

As a benchmark for my ratings, I give Lipton Black Tea bags “orange pekoe and pekoe, cut black” a score of 65 because it is widely available and profoundly consistent. I view it as just okay. I would give hot spring water a rating of 25. Below that speaks for itself.

I am conversationally friendly but absolutely not here looking for dates or money, nor to sell anything. If I’ve started to follow you, I don’t mean to be creepy, it only means you posted something I liked reading, or it was about an interesting tea or event. And I’ve recently discovered that the Steepster system only notifies me of new posts written by people I follow. If you follow me, I won’t assume anything. If I do not follow you, it isn’t a snub—you’re still a good human being!
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Photo with Aromatic Bamboo Species Raw Pu-erh Tea “Xiang Zhu” by Yunnan Sourcing, which is most definitely aromatic!

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Chicagoland-USA

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