Sometime in April 2020, I bought some raw puer in the form of balls (hence the name “dragon balls”). This raw puer had already been aged for 11 years, but as someone who doesn’t typically like the astringency raw puer can have, I haven’t been reaching for this, instead opting to let it age.
Since I had some spare time and since I remembered that I had this tea, I thought it was time to revisit the tea about 3 years on. As of now, the tea should be 14 years old, which should be quite interesting.
First Impressions
The ball of tea was much darker than I remembered. If I didn’t know that this was a raw puer, I might have guessed that it was ripe! It smelled faintly herbal and somehow… minty? I haven’t had any mint in that tea cupboard (ever, minty teas are somewhere non-enclosed) so I’m confused how that happened.
Tasting Notes
Apparently, I didn’t take many notes about how I used to brew the tea. But to be on the safe side, I treated this like a white tea and tried to brew it gongfu-style: very short steeps, less water involved. I started with a very short 15s steep but I think that officially counts as a rinse instead.
The first two steeps were very light and it generally tasted like a grassy white tea. It was very smooth and quite unlike a puer, if I’m being honest.
By the third steep, I noticed that the leaves had opened up and the tea liquor was now a light amber colour. I steeped the leaves for one minute for the third steep and noticed both an earthy and grassy note – it really resembled a ripe puer for me! At the same time, there was a bit of a bitter “bite” around the edges of my tongue that reminded me of raw puer.
I’m actually wondering if I shouldn’t have continued increasing the steeping time after the leaves unfurled but I did it anyway. I found a bit more bitterness/astringency in the fourth and fifth steeps, but it generally had the same notes and was quite smooth, especially compared to the first time I tried raw puer, which scared me so much I didn’t want to try it again.
During this tea session, I made it to 8 cups before starting to feel the tea jitters! Surprisingly, I found the 8th cup to be surprisingly sweet and clear – I’m not quite how to describe it but it reminded me of a stream, if that makes any sort of sense. I do think that I could have pushed the leaves a lot further, but I also didn’t want to make myself continue drinking once I felt that I had hit my limit.
I took a look at the spent leaves and they were springy and smooth, quite different from the roughness of the 蜜香红茶 that I tried very recently.
Conclusion
I read my previous two reviews of this tea after drinking this and wow, things have really changed. I think the grassy note that I got here is actually pretty similar to the description of the tea. And unlike when I tried this in 2021, I did not get any floral notes from this session – but I’m not sure if it’s because the note has disappeared, or if I’m just not attuned to floral notes in oolongs/similar teas and didn’t pick it up.
Regardless, this was a very fun tea session. It’s nice to go back to a tea and see what has changed. I still have a few more of these raw puer balls, so I’ll probably revist this in a year or so and see if I pick up anything new!