What’s so dangerous about this tea? :P The bell tolls loud and clear in apricot taste then fades away in dampened waves. Mellow. Nice.
Easy to break off a chunk or peel off layers of leaves that smell of apricot and tobacco and… pu’er. Rinsed leaves smelled pretty good: strong apricot and smokey green bean. The first steep was all thick apricot and it exploded into juicy ripe apricot up front in the second steep with a quick unfurling of the leaves. Bitterness presented mid-mouth and sour in the back with slight astringency all around. The third steep stayed thick with the addition of a light creamy taste.
Cha qi kicked in around the fourth steep. Muscles relaxed, especially in my shoulders, arms and face. Droopy the Dog. Aftertaste of apricot and light creaminess was most pronounced in fourth steep then moved to sour. From there, the tea presented itself in muted, cyclical peaks and valleys in taste, mouthfeel and energy, going from apricot to lightly floral to sour unripe pineapple and mineral and back until the end. Sour to lightly bitter and astringent to a persisting pleasant sour again. Thick to thin and back, with final steeps leaving the back of my tongue feeling plump and a nice fullness in the throat. Light relaxation to mild pep and back again over the course of the next 6 steeps. The caffeine is present but nothing I couldn’t fall asleep to, which is a perk for the caffeine-sensitive derk.
Aroma never caught me. Spent leaves are still very green with no hint yet of fermentation.
Nothing in particular stood out to me about this tea but I do have a fondness for bold pu’er. Its qualities seem to make it a good lazy-day drinker or de-stresser. In fact, I think it facilitated an ease of conversation that by nature of the subject could’ve turned out ugly.
