Leaves not to pressed,pleasant colour,good taste

This is just an excellent smoky raw pu-ehr. It is very full-bodied, with little astringency, very infusible. I think it is a great tea to offer to the right type of guest with great results. It's not cheap but the I think it is still a good value tea. The reason I rated it as 4-star is that I found a large thread embedded in the cake. It was quite large and while I was trying to separate it from the leaves, it kept breaking. The tread was very much like nylon. It grossed me out finding a large nylon thread in my tea cake. It probably will not happen to many others, but it makes me think twice before getting this cake again.

If I could only stock up on one single tea for this 'lockdown' period it would be this one, I can drink it all day every day!

I destroyed this cake in short order, in probably 3 or so weeks, but I found it lacking the strength I prefer (for myself). I liked it probably because it is Nan Jian, which I like. Personally I need stronger tea most of the time, but it was a pleasure to annihilate a 500 gram cake so quickly and get so many of my veggie portion from this cake. So, for the most part, it is healthy, and who can't argue with the naturally aged dark brew. Right, seriously? I couldn't find mold or mustiness in the cake, so it's healthy and high quality. If I wasn't growing more accustomed to stomach stripping bitter teas and/or younger teas, and it was 15 years ago when I started drinking pu-erh, this cake would put me in heaven floating on the clouds as I surfed, with a heavy long-board, the endless warm summer evening waves, while breathing the salty moist air of my youth, when I ate more veggies and carbs and less fat and meat. But, as I get older, my stomach turns to leather and I become a busier, crotchety, older man, who eats a couple sticks of butter a day, along with 6-12 eggs, and a couple pounds of meat, I need a tea to medicinally match my temperament and my diet. If I continue in this direction, I'll probably have to start drinking only po cha (Tibetan butter tea) with bao yan flame bricks, like I used to in some odd past life as a Tibetan warrior getting bored of unworthy opponents, but I digress. This cake reminds me how how angry I get when I drink so much tea, which makes me drink more tea to chill-out, which makes me angry that I drank more tea, which then makes me drink more tea to chill-out, which makes me angry again, and so on. This tea is an easy drinker. good taste for a great price. I hope it makes you angry...if it doesn't, you didn't drink enough tea.

A lot of people like this one, but it just not my kind. It's not bad, relatively cheap, last several brew, ok for the price. It does sweet, has strong floral taste, but nah.... I recommend you spend more $ if you one a good one!