Thank you to E. Alex Gerster for this one. I took a while to review it primarily because I tend not to be a huge fan of this type of tea. It looks like it's already been discontinued from Rishi's catalogue. There's no harvest or packing date printed on the container, so I don't know how old this is, but it tastes like it's been aged a little bit, even if it's Shu Pu-erh.

I don't tend to like Shu (Ripened) Pu-erh...in fact, to date, I've only tried a single example of it that I would drink again. This one was better than average, but still not my cup of tea.

Dry leaf has a dusty aroma, slightly nutty and also suggestive of cereal or grain.

Upon brewing, brews a rich, full-bodied cup with a stronger than average flavor for a shou Pu-erh. Aroma is suggestive of dust and wet stone, moss, and earth. The nutty and bready elements in the dry leaf don't come out as much as I had hoped.

I'm not feeling the autumn leaf fragrance...there's nothing I'm getting that suggests that aroma to me.

I also found this tea didn't resteep as well as most Pu-erh does. It was passable, but like most Shu Pu-erh, I wouldn't drink it again. About the only thing this tea had going for it was its bold flavor, which I found made it stand out a little from most Shu Pu-erh, which tends to oven be smooth to the point of being easily ignored.

Add your own review

Login or Sign Up to comment on this review.