More tea packages rolling in. Free sample from TeaVivre. Happy days hehe.
I love their sample packaging, the tiny bags with detailed instructions, even recommended storage instructions. When I opened it, it was a single dark green tightly hand-rolled ball, wrapped with cotton paper with ribbon. Cute :D. The ball weighed 7 grams.
I followed TeaVivre’s suggestion, and glad I did. That odd decrease in time in the 4th steep, probably helped with controlling the bitterness in the 4th and 5th steep. I used a porcelain gaiwan, 110ml, ~203℉, 1 pc, 10 steeps: 5s rinse, 80s, 70s, 60s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 110s. The bright yellow liquor with green tints had an aroma of pekoe and hay. It was smooth, good mouthfeel, very little astringency throughout the steeps. The 1st and 2nd steep was nice, extremely mellow, hints of stonefruit notes, similar to their moonlight raw pu-erh… Then the 3rd steep was strong bitter with very little sweetness, but then as I journeyed on, the 4th was less bitter and by the 5th steep it was very pleasant because the sweetness entered, bitterness really subdued and balanced, the 6th-10th was enjoyable. Recommended if you don’t mind a bitter phase, otherwise, hard pass.
It was complex because I felt like the tea was leading me on a journey to find that perfect balance between the honey sweetness, stonefruits, light floral and the bitterness. The sweetness would linger on my tongue after the bitterness enters and leaves quickly. Interesting tea.
Flavors: Apricot, Bitter, Hay, Honey, Peach, Stonefruits
