Broke ball in half and brewed in a 80ml yellow clay pot that takes forever to empty. It took a while to get the hang of this tea. It smells quite nice for the price. The first post-rinse steep was tasteless, because the chunk had yet to loosen up. Discard.
The next one I oversteeped. The tea does not react well to oversteeping. It is a cat that swipes right at your eyes for f-ing up. I eventually fixed the problem by beginning to drain immediately after pouring the water in. Then it purrs like it’s gonna fall asleep right in your lap.
Steep 8 was fascinating, because it did not taste like tea, but a comfy, savory leafy veggie broth. Almost rice-y, like the final sips of sungnyung, but with no toasted flavor to it. I think people who taste this will agree with me.
If this could be kept more or less at the steep 8 flavor, I’d want to add some salt to a whole pot of it and try it with some somyun as an experiment.
After it hits the rice-y, mineral-y point, it doesn’t change much. It has a good body throughout, and no qi to speak of.
I like it. I would not have identified it in a blind tasting as a sheng at all. I kept staring at the pot to make sure I was still brewing tea. But I like rice and sungnyung, so I had a good time. I wonder what a shou made of this material would taste like.
Flavors: Mineral, Rice, Seaweed
