2005 Wistaria Taihe Maocha
Sample purchased from LiquidProust
6.7g, 100mL gaiwan, mix of Brita/Poland spring bottled water
Dry leaf has a smell I can’t really describe, sort of old and leathery but not musty. Not a very strong smell.
15s rinse that smells lightly BBQ-smoke like
Wet leaves have a sharp sour (somewhat BBQ sauce like, but more sour) and very slight minty smell. Sort of a dark army/camo green color; would’ve expected darker. Leaves are large, but not as long as the 2006 which made placing into gaiwan a lot easier. Didn’t bother trying to stuff either one into shuiping.
5s: wet leaves now have a smoky note, but also smells sweeter, in the vein of BBQ sauce. Taste is something akin to if a really light BBQ sauce had a medicinal edge. Aftertaste is crisp and lightly sweet.
7s: woody with a slight medicinal bitterness. Sweet aftertaste, not as crisp. Overall mouthfeel softer and not astringent like before
10s: similar, though less bitter. Some other note that I can’t quite identify, but seems to be from storage rather than naturally inherent
15s: woody bitter, slightly medicinal with some sort of cherry note. Slightly astringent, slight sweet aftertaste. Some warming.
18s: less bitter, darker fruity notes, slightly crisp. Slightly plummy in the vein of late steeps of aged oolongs. Slight sweet aftertaste. Warming in face
20s: was really hungry so had a blueberry yogurt that was really sweet so I couldn’t taste anything in this cup…
25s: kinda bland in the vein of rather tasteless apple skin or something. Very slight drying and aftertaste
45s: slight bitterness. Slight woody (in a papery light sort of way), light fruitiness and drying. Slight warming, but otherwise suspect this will probably only last a couple more steeps…
1 min: a tangy sort of fruity note, very slightly drying. Nothing too exciting
3 min: very slightly plummy, but mostly bitter.
15 min: very bitter, fairly astringent, somewhat fruity and slight plummy. off to the thermos.
I know my notes seem lukewarm but these are from a couple weeks ago, and for some reason I remember liking this tea overall. I liked it much more than the ‘06 since the storage taste was lighter on this one and the plummy note was nice, but I might cake the ’06 just because it’s 2000 NTD cheaper at present and gamble on letting the weird notes air out. Alas.
