Acquired through the Regional Group Buy.
The directions say 195 degrees, but since I don’t have that setting on my kettle, I went with 190 and then lowered it to 185 in the middle of the session. Prepared semi-Western, semi-gongfu method, with a glass tea pot. Steeping times: 2, 3, 4, 6.
I don’t know when the tea was processed, but the dry leaf aroma smells very fresh and interesting. It’s both savory and sweet, with notes of buttered boiled beans, peaches, and sea salt. I let the leaf sit in the pre-heated pot for a bit and smelled a more vegetal aroma, which reminded me of Lu Shan Yun Wu. The wet leaf aroma – still savory – is also sweet, this time in a high mountain oolong way.
Overall, the liquor is light green, clean, and full-bodied, having a bright and crisp personality. The texture is creamy. Infusions one through three taste like the wet leaf aroma – savory with the sweetness of a Taiwanese. Wenshan Baozhong specifically comes to mind. The last sips leave me with a dry mouth, but a long-lasting nectarine aftertaste. A minty note makes an appearance in the aftertaste after I finish the third infusion.
I then took a longer break that lasted a couple hours. The fourth infusion tasted completely different – sweet and grassy like a young sheng.
This kind of green tea doesn’t suit my tastes. I prefer the sweeter varieties over the savory. And after having tried a few Wenshan Baozhongs, I concluded that while I can stomach them and do like how they taste, I don’t particularly go out of my way to experience them over and over. Regardless of these thoughts, I do think that this green tea is good quality. But it has flavors that someone else would appreciate more.
