Thank you, Alistair, for procuring this awesome tea!
I gotta admit, I hesitated getting this tea because it looked to green. The dry leaf has a floral green been and jack fruit aroma that I usually would get in a Japanese or Korean green tea. Drinking it up in a tumbler told me the same story: This oolong was on the greener side with a little bit of an astringency akin to apricot and jack fruit, but some smooth floral notes western. I only got five yields from it which disappointed me considering this is an expensive tea. So Gong Fu would be the better method to do, and this tea needed a lot more care and attention.
I went light on this one with a 5 sec rinse, but around 5 grams of tea in five oz. I got floral hints, but a little bit of a grassy sourness and nice fruity apricot in the background. The fruity notes got more prominent as it cooled down. There was a little bit of lemon peel, orchid, and something that I might pin as magnolia. I’d like someone else’s opinion on that floral, but still. I do get orchid more clearly. The tea is still green as ever.
Second steep ten, third at 5 seconds, and fourth at seven seconds, it’s been generally the same. I got Yuzu in three, more apricot and some sugarcane in four and five. There’s more to come in the future.
Next one at one minute, and I get orange peel rather than lemon. Smoothly floral, but not as densely green. The next three steeps from this morning were much the same, while being closer to a Baozhong in florals, having some honeysuckle, and some hint of a blossom. It’s still citrusy.
The tea still strikes me as something much closer to a Japanese or Korean tea in style, maybe with a Nepalese apricot hint, but I’ve gotten to yield more complexity in the brews so far. I do think this is an excellent tea, but with or without this particular price point, I personally would not drink this tea extremely often because it’s so frickin’ green. Too bad this is sold out, because I’d definitely recommend this tea to more hard core Green Tea drinkers because it’s got the qualities of at least four terroirs in one.
Flavors: Apricot, Astringent, Citrus Zest, Floral, Fruity, Grass, Green Beans, Orchid, Pleasantly Sour
