Rating:

Upton ZH60. 2.3 grams steeped for 3 minutes at 200℉. Impression: medium brown, broken pekoe size. Dry tea smells musky, like leaf mould, like an overturned compost pile. Brewed tea is deep red-brown, with scent similar to dry. Taste: musky, woodsy, with unpleasnt compost-like notes, little body, not sweet. Not astringent.

A sample ordered a year ago, finally got around to trying it. I mightn’t have bothered. This is a ripe pu-erh. I like some raw pu-erhs, but have never liked a ripe one. Ripe pu-erh processing amounts to composting tea leaves in a heap, and the taste is what would expect of composted tea leaves. Chacun à son goût, as my mom used to say (who actually spoke French, rather than having to fake it, as I do), and there is a ripe pu-erh cult that adores the stuff and pays larcenous prices for it, but I am not a member.

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