I'm trying to get started with encryption on emacs and I'm experiencing the same issue as mentioned in this question:Emacs opens gpg file without asking for passphrase. When I save a .gpg file, emacs prompts for the password to use, but then I can open the file (even after closing and reopening emacs) without re-entering the password. Unlike the user in the question above, there are no stored passwords in the password manager.
edit: forgot to mention that epa-file-cache-passphrase-for-symmetric-encryption
is nil