Half the day is gone already! How did this happen?! (Might it have something to do with it turning 11 before I managed to get out of bed?)
So I’m Yunnan-ing today. It’s one of those days where I look at all the tins and unable to make a decision just grabs one at random. It was the first one of the lot that I looked at twice so I figured it was selection.
Hopefully this will provide some energy and give me a kick in the rear about NaNoWriMo. I’m currently about 7500 words behind my personal daily goal system which is rather annoying. But before you bring out the pep-talk and the cheerleading and the encouragement, I’ll just tell you all something, because you might not want to do the pep and cheer afterwards. I may be behind on the personal goal, but I’m still 12K ahead of the minimum to NaNo goal for this day, and set to reach 50K at record (for me) speed. Still want to cheer? Go ahead. :) smug
So is this an inspiring tea, then? Does it smell and taste like the tea that can zoom me through at least 5K today?
I’m surprised at how sweet it turned out today. It’s very much as if there’s sugar in it, which, as anybody who knows me just a little bit will know, is not the case, and certainly not on a first sip. Ever. It’s not the honey of an Assam and it’s not the caramel of a Keemun (which I have only nearly been able to find). This is more like just plain sugar, but a little smoother than refined sugar. It’s like, if you can imagine the sweetness of refined sugar but without the stickyness of it. I want to say it’s something more fruit-like than plain sugar, but I can’t seem to think of a fruit that comes close in flavour. I’m leaning a bit towards ripe pears here, but without it actually tasting like pear. It’s that kind of sweet.
It’s very difficult to identify it anyway, because on top of all that there’s a prickly layer of spicyness and if you focus really hard on the flavour to try and figure out where that sweetness comes from you end up with a mouthful of pepper prickly and not much else.
It’s funny, though, that a tea can be so pepper prickly on the tongue and at the same time as smooth as velvet. The two things just don’t seem to get along in the head, do they? But the thing is the prickly stays mainly on the tongue and isn’t noticed when swallowing, so combined with the lack of astringency to speak of, we have in fact at arrived something that is smooth in a prickly way. How fun is that! I think that’s awesome.
I used to consider golden yunnans to be of the smoky spectrum, and I was surprised when others consistently identified that note as pepper. The more I’m tasting it however the more I find myself moving into the pepper camp. I remember the first golden Yunnan I ever had. It was from Chaplon and I had not yet discovered the awesome appeal of smokies. I thought it tasted very smoky and I didn’t much like it at the time. Right now though I would dearly like to go back in time and try that one again because I really think that it would have been a hugely different experience for me today.
But is this inspiring? Yes, you know what, I think it is. I shall go get some words out now, and hope that my characters will behave themselves.
