i bought this for a change because i like green tea and wanted to try something a little more exotic. yuck. horrible. when it was brewing it made the whole room smell like cigarette ashes. it tasted the same. and it’s colorless.

the size, initial scent and look of the cake looked great! i wanted to buy my first taste of chinese red tea using a gift card for amazon. i got everything for a traditional chinese tea experience. however, when i initially went to break off a piece, the cake was dense. i know these were packed but i practically had to hammer a piece off, and not only that the leaves all broke off into smaller flakes and pieces which already confused me since i know a cake should be packed but not flaking off ( i had researched what a good cake should be like before hand )i at first thought maybe it was just how i broke it off? unfortunately as i did my first wash steep, and proceeded to take a good sniff test of the tea. the scent gave off a heavy fishy aroma. and not only that the tea was extremely dark even on the first wash.i've tried chinese rolled and roasted tea before in actual tea houses and shops in san francisco. and i was very surprised how dense and unpleasant the smell that came from it was. i tried doing a few more pours, swallowing what i could from the first couple steeps hoping it would taste better... but it didn't.i know how good chinese quality tea should taste and this cake was extremely flaky ( creating a dark water quality. the picture i included is only the second/third steep and i couldn't see the white bottom of the cup ), fishy scented and bitter with a sort of odd after taste. i couldn't finish the last couple of cups i know i could have gotten from the few grams i chipped off.i knew i was taking a risk not ordering from a team shop near me or at least going in store to buy a cake i can examine myself. but the fact i spent $20+ dollars on 350 grams that i am now reluctant to drink and now can't return i am just overall unsatisfied...packaged well but horrible taste, scent and color. i know how low quality tea tastes and unfortunately even though i had high hopes for this cake with so many good reviews... gotta say can't recommend..edit :fortunately the seller did acknowledge the situation and messaged me for a refund personally which i appreciate. i might reconsider buying from them again but might just get a green tea or something else besides a cake. poor storage or packing of a cake could lead to the dense fishy scent and taste. so overall the quality of the batch could have been bad. i appreciate the refund and have changed from 1 star to three in good spirits of the situation

you see big leaves and tiny ones, which shows the quality is not that high. but, the price is cheap.

i bought this after trying a small amount of a different brand from a local tea shop. this is much cheaper per ounce, but compared to the tea shop brand, it tastes like lawn clippings. surprised me, since they look very similar.i won’t be buying this brand again.

the color came out very intense and fast. i had it in a glass pot so i can see the speed and how dark the coloring spread. natural tea shouldn’t do this. meaning there was food dye added since the flavor and aroma doesn’t match the coloring. it smells nothing like tea leaves

look at this picture, this is what i got from the first grade bag, you can see the leaves are very dark, must of them are broken, and there are many twigs in it. the real first grade should be lighter colored to pale yellowish green, smaller leaves, mostly unbroken and twigfeee. twigs have no tea flavor, add bark taste to the tea, make it worse, and weight down the product

doesn't smell like tea, doesn't taste like tea;leaves kinda look like tea leaves in hot water, but only kind of - the 1 star for this 'kinda'

the leaves are very old. the color already turned brownish. tea brewed with the leaves smells bad and tastes bitter.