I had some very bad results with this tea, I'm sorry to say. It made me feel as if I'd been poisoned. The cake itself didn't smell too bad, it actually had a decent scent to it — like pu-erh, but different in a way. I wasn't sure if the scent was sweet in the way that some pu-erh can mature into having a sweet, sugary note or if it was something added to the tea. But, the effect the tea had on me made me think that they'd added some sort of chemical to it. It really got me sick. (And, I'm saying this as a person who grew up with the nickname "the iron stomach" — because I could eat/drink pretty much anything and be fine.) It wasn't an effect like what one would expect of being tea drunk or having a new type of tea and just getting a kick. I actually felt poisoned. I got dizzy and ill. I can't really say that this was the producer's fault, because there were some labeling differences. The outer seal was initially broken when I got the first cake and I pushed the seller to send me a replacement. On that one, the seal wasn't broken, but the wrapper on the inner cake was different than in some pictures I'd seen. It was a holographic seal, so either it's genuine or it's a really masterful job at forging packaging. Either way, it was a toxic experience for me. I ended up throwing out both the initial cake I received and the replacement (I tried them both and they both had the same effect on me). I can't recommend this tea, in good conscience. I think that there are better (and safer) ways to try other dark tea varieties without encountering such issues. I've really never had such a poisoned effect with any tea I've tried before. Even with other teas I'd gotten from this same seller, I didn't have such issues (just in case there's concern over whether it's the seller). If you do decide to try this, be very careful.

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