Edited to add:
After trying this western instead of gongfu, I can say this is most likely an aged Taiwanese red tea. Really nice chocolate and cherry-scented tobacco aroma with that wintergreen character present in Ruby 18s. Much more interesting gongfu!
What a ride! Is it an aged raw tea? Is it an old oxidized white? Is it a sun-dried red? Is it a GABA oolong or simply an oolong? The only thing I can feel confident declaring is that I have no idea how this tea was processed! Is it a forgotten relic, stashed away in some dark corner for years? Is it an experiment gone wrong, or rather oh-so-right? Like the Indonesian Yellow that Liquid Proust sells, this tea defies all preconceived notions of any specific processing. Most of the material is one leaf picking like Baozhong oolong and it’s well oxidized.
Taste- and aromawise, it starts out with humid aged nutty and forest floor notes, then moves to barnyard and mushroom, then to something almost malty, then to something lighter and fruitier like pear, then to pure watermelon-cucumber and yellow cherry with light grape skin tannins.
Several characteristics are apparent throughout all steeps: a welcome sweetness, a refreshing wintergreen-type quality, seamless transitions, an inability to be oversteeped and a complete lack of bitterness no matter what temperature water is used.
So much complexity wrapped up in ridiculous longevity. Did I mention watermelon?!!
Thank you for sharing, beerandbeancurd, you lovely creature.
Flavors: Barnyard, Caramel, Cherry, Chocolate, Cucumber, Cumin, Forest Floor, Grape Skin, Malt, Mineral, Mushrooms, Musty, Nutty, Pear, Pine, Salt, Smoke, Smooth, Spring Water, Tobacco, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Watermelon, Wintergreen
Ahh, I’d quite forgotten about this one! Thank you back for the journey.