Have been drinking the remnants of my pack thermos’d (sticking to Zojirushi for heat retention), no scale, boiling, Aquafina water (which yes, isn’t optimal, but neither was the tap at home and the Brita at home grew some really odd looking mold after I left). The pack has been stored in the translucent pack it came in inside a Ziploc, so it’s not optimal, but I don’t have extra Mylar at home.
Aroma is a light chocolate and berries and florals (not quite osmanthus to me, but again, hasn’t been stored optimally), and the usual slight malty hongcha. Sometimes it has brown sugar and something near cinnamon. Taste has a hint of the roast of oolongs and then a chocolatey and nutty taste. Richer in taste than the usual hongcha, though was quite thin in terms of mouthfeel (probably a water thing is my guess; Aquafina is RO, and I’ve definitely read elsewhere abt Aquafina in general being ill-suited for tea) with the slightest touch of bitterness. Sometimes a soured honeyed toasted taste with medicinal notes. Aside from the thinness that I’m guessing is from the Aquafina, an issue can be the slight drying feeling that was also in the past note I wrote for this.
A broadly interesting tea, though I’ve got to try some more hongcha produced from oolong varietals to see if this is characteristic of the category. At this point in my exploration of teas, I have a better grasp of what people term qi. I don’t remember enough about this tea from the last time I had it, and my notes from a year back are still back when I didn’t understand what it was referring to, in the least. Anyway, I did not find it here, so if you’re considering this for the “almost dissociative” cha qi as referenced in the descriptor, maybe get something else. Aside from that, this is a good hongcha that I will recommend, high praise from someone who dislikes hongcha.
