This was my most recent sipdown as I finished what I had of this tea a couple days ago. At this point, it should perhaps come as no surprise to any of my readers that I found this to be an impressive offering. Seriously, What-Cha does a great job of sourcing Nepalese teas. I have gotten to the point where I will just blindly purchase any Nepalese tea Alistair decides to stock.
I prepared this tea in the Western style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 3 grams of loose leaf material in approximately 8 ounces of 194 F water for 5 minutes. For the session detailed in this review, I did not attempt any additional infusions.
Prior to the rinse, the dry leaf material offered up aromas of malt, straw, grass, chili leaf, and wood. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of Muscatel, lemon zest, lime zest, green bell pepper, and hay. After the infusion, I found that the liquor offered aromas of apricot, roasted almond, butter, rose, and orange blossom. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of apricot, straw, malt, cream, butter, chili leaf, grass, straw, hay, dandelion, marigold, orange blossom, white peach, Muscatel, toast, lemon zest, lime zest, roasted almond, green bell pepper, and wood that were underscored by hints of wintergreen, spearmint, and rose before a smooth, slightly citrusy, malty, and vegetal fade.
This was a very high quality tea, one that yielded a highly aromatic, tremendously satisfying, and impressively textured tea liquor. Some of the Nepalese teas I have been trying lately have been a bit thinner and slicker in the mouth, but this one was smooth, silky, and luscious with a little more heft than I have been getting out of many recent Nepalese and Darjeeling teas. I would have liked to see a little more integration and balance with regard to some of this tea’s many aroma and flavor components, but overall, I found this to be an incredibly enjoyable offering. In terms of aroma and flavor, this tea was very comparable to some of the better first flush Darjeeling black teas out there, but honestly, I think it may have been just a tad better than a lot of the ones I have tried. Here’s hoping What-Cha continues to source teas from Guranse. I’d like to try a few more of their offerings.
Flavors: Almond, Apricot, Butter, Cream, Dandelion, Floral, Grass, Green Bell Peppers, Hay, Herbaceous, Lemon Zest, Lime, Malt, Muscatel, Orange Blossom, Peach, Rose, Spearmint, Straw, Toast, Vegetal, Wood
Really glad you enjoyed it, I’ll be skipping the First Flush Guranse productions this year due to the volume of last year’s Floral I still have but will definitely look to pick up one of this year’s second flush productions.