2013 Chen Sheng Hao "Na Ka" Raw Pu-erh

Finished a sample of this tea from my own dry storage. Quite different compared to the one that was more humid-stored from mrmopar. Depth and punch are similar but my own is notably greener, more like yerba mate — slight smoke and moderate alkaline savoriness with a strong herbaceous hay-tobacco note, but topped off with a heap of pollen, a chunk of beeswax, and later, a spoonful of apricot jam.

Naka Group Buy, Backlog

I had this tea on Sunday-Monday. I had steeped this 4-5 times on Sunday, but the overall flavor wasn’t too appealing. I figured I’d move on from this and come back to it on Monday to see how much the overnight rest would change the flavor of the tea—not much. I will admit that from the 2-3 teas I’ve tried out of the group buy thus far, this was my least favorite of the bunch. The flavors (leather, moss, & creek rock bed) were consistent throughout the session, but after a while, it became bitter/astringent. I wasn’t able to get past the 10 steep mark, unfortunately. I try to keep a sheng going for a while, knowing that there’s often potential for it to change, but this one hadn’t really changed at all.

Got this tea from Liquid Proust’s latest group buy. I have tried four Naka teas and I would say that this one is the most aged having an orange colored tea liquid and my least favorite. It had developed a lot of negative storage flavors already. I guess you would call them leather and tobacco. It did improve over twelve steeps but the storage flavors lingered strongly through about eight steeps. This one might improve with time but it would need a number of years storage.

I steeped this twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 8.2g leaf and boiling water. I ave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min.