Hoffman's 1999 Xiaguan Raw and the Nature of Desire

I don't like it too wet, I don't like it too dry.  I've come to the conclusion that some natural or humid storage early in a tea's life with dry storage afterwards is the happy medium for me.  My stated preference would indicate that I should do well to buy youngish beengs which were stored in South Asia then I can dry it up in Berkeley to my heart's content.
 
I brewed up the Hoffman 1999 Xiaguan Raw Beeng sent to me by Emmett which has undergone some early stage of humid storage.   This cake is leaps more interesting than Puerhshop's 1998 7542, but still I'm not running for my credit card to get this beeng for a budget friendly $60.

The mouth feel of this tea is still too drying for me.  There's storage conditions but there's also the inherent characteristics of the underlying leaf- this beeng definitely has that noted XG power of tongue desertification.  What am I even looking for? 

The examples of aged puerh I've thus far enjoyed really held my attention through a series of transformations during brews with repercussions of the tea session throughout the day.  Some have short circuited my logical brain and just made me just relax and enjoy the moment.   The aged cakes that I would buy again given the chance- I've probably made my mind up about it in the first few brews.  It takes puerh numerous brewings to really reveal itself and no other tea could overturn first impressions as much as puerh.  But somehow I have to admit my preferences have more closely followed Malcolm Gladwell's pop theories of rapid cognition.  

It's easier to know what one doesn't want more than what one does want if you don't know already.  A concrete tea is easy to reject but a fantasy tea is hard to construct if you don't have models.  I've somehow fallen into a cycle of one of the following 9 states with aged puerh-

1. You don't know what you want, hence fill your time with interim tea.
2. You know what you want, and are in pursuit.
3. You know what you want, but can't get it, and hence must make do.
4. You thought you knew what you wanted, but it's not it at all so you are back to 1.
5. A weak variation on 3 - you think you know what you want but since you can't get it, you really can't know- can you?
6. The perversion of 2 & 3- because you can't have what you want, you convince yourself  you really want what you already have or what you can readily get.
7. You know you only want the wanting of something hence purposely deny yourself the fulfillment of the want.
8. Negation state. Advanced stages of 3 and 6, you reject the very thing you want because you know you can't have it or attempting to get it leads only to frustration.
9. Confusion state. You want it, you don't want it, you don't know any more.

Despite variations, 2 is ever the desired state- like being in love. 

(Those of you who grow apples know the above photo represents a real no-no. Every manual commands the fruit grower to pinch blossoms and early fruit to hold only one or two fruits per cluster. I've followed this commandment faithfully for years.  Because Berkeley grocery stores carry an excellent and dizzying array of heirloom apples,  the primary purpose of my apples is not to be eaten but to welcome guests with a feeling of abundance. )