Update: Huge bitterness in sheng, 2nd cup onwards

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/puer/comments/1i9ksmw/huge_bitterness_in_sheng_2nd_cup_onwards_only/

I am drinking my sixth infusion of a young sheng pu-erh. Yeah, sixth! SIXTH! I know that's not many (yet), I'm just excited ok. The first was amazing, to have them continue to be damn near as good is blowing my mind in its own way.

It's this tea, one I had tried before and had the "2nd infusion bitterness" problem with.

Thank you everyone who replied. Genuinely I cannot thank you enough. I am very new to tea but I knew there was something here that appealed more than many other teas, I appreciate you all taking the time out of your days to help me break through and be able to experience it properly.

Things I changed so far:

• I'm using filtered water now - I'm in a soft water area but my partner reported a chlorine smell so I thought, worth covering my bases.
• The tea had had time to "rest" after arrival, over a week now - not something mentioned in the comments but I've seen people mention it elsewhere as a potential issue.
• But the most likely culprit is I just tried to go faster. I wasn't exactly "slow" to start with, but again I am new to tea and that means gongfu feels like a lot of moving parts. I managed to get my speed up by a good 5 seconds I think, just by being more aware of what I was doing.

I've also ordered an easy gaiwan, because I reckon I can be even faster, or at least less frantic, if I didn't have the uncertain fumbling with the gaiwan. Practice can happen with less time critical teas, lol.

But yeah, again, thank you so much.