The liquor has a bright amber-ish color. It’s aromatic with a light orchid and strong honey aromas. The tea leaves are dark green. I was reading the interesting story behind this Hu’s tea “The Big Dark Leaves” on Mandala’s site while sampling this. How Mr. Hu saved the ancient tea trees during the 2008 financial crisis. Pretty interesting stuff. ^^
Back to the tea hehe… Although the aroma was a strong wild honey smell, the taste of honey was light, delicate. Very mellow floral, wood, sweet notes. I enjoyed the first and the 4th steep but the 2nd and the 3rd were very bitter. My dad, if he was alive, would have loved it, it reminded me of this “delicious” soup he used to make, made of bittermelon. I ate everything he cooked except that soup lol, no matter how much he tried to gaslight me saying how “delicious” it was. He was born and raised in the Philippines so he cooked all of their authentic dishes but that was the only one that I could not eat, no matter how much rice I put in it.
So this tea isn’t for me, although I’m generally a sheng over shou type of Pu’er person. It’s just a little too bitter. If I ever get another sample, I’ll try to lower the temperature and play around with the brew & see if I can make those honey notes sing instead of the bitter notes.
Yixing gaiwan, 7g, 205F, 15/25/35/45 and debating to continue. :P
Flavors: Bitter, Honey, Orchid
