I bought two of these cakes some time ago, they don’t seem to have aged that much in the last 10 years even though the wrappers have some brown stains.
I keep this short here. This tea reminds me a lot of some late 8653 non-FT Xiaguans (2012, 2013) – a tad less smoky, but with a fresher, more herbal taste profile. There’s not much complexity but quite a bit of bitterness and astringency and the aftertaste lingers on for more than 10 minutes. Overall a rather powerful and pungent sheng with decent viscosity and mouthfeel and if you have a soft spot for the average fresh XG tuo or something of that sort and don’t mind a bit of smoke and …loads of caffeine this could make for a decent daily drinker.
Back into storage for a couple more years.