Gong Fu!
So, this is my very first Liubao tea – it’s an area of tea that I’ve been curious about for a while but it wasn’t until I got a bit of gentle peer pressure from HeichaHoliday on instagram that I actually seriously considered buying some to try out. So I did eventually place a Chawangshop order – I’ll be honest I wasn’t super discriminate in what teas I nabbed; biggest consideration was just price. I’m not really looking to immediately dip into high end Liubao here – I just want to ‘dip my toes in’ so to speak and see if it’s something that I find even remotely tasty before I invest serious time or money into learning more about it and tasting more expensive samples…
Cracking open the bag of this one, it smells really interesting. It’s definitely not bad, but it’s sort of different than what I was expecting. At the same time, I don’t really know what I expected either!? It’s very wet/dank smelling though and a little earthy. The nicest and most direct comparison that I can think of is to say that the smell reminds me of the aroma of pond water!? However, pond water in a good way. Like, the way that makes you feel ‘connected’ with nature – not repulsed by it.
So, for my session I used 5g of Liubao in a 70ml Gaiwan with a ten second or so rinse. From there, I did six infusions in total. My overall experience was very positive, and right off the bat I definitely enjoyed the flavour of the tea. It’s a little hard to describe what it tasted like because there were definitely foreign to me elements, but the most distinguishable flavour notes were wet wood and wet earth, tree bark, petrichor, cocoa, and stonefruit. Just, a very wet/dank overall profile but in a sweet and satisfying way. Those stonefruit elements were more so undertones after steeps one and two; nothing wildly distinct. Just good, mellow generic stonefruit sweetness. Pretty smooth overall; certainly not bitter or astringent.
Biggest surprise was actually how quickly the flavour seemed to fade/dull. I stopped after six infusions not because I wasn’t enjoying the taste of the tea but because I found it was getting really weak/bland and I didn’t feel like I was getting much out of the infusions anymore. Really positive first tasting though, and definitely gives me this feeling of promise and excitement towards trying out the other three that I picked out from Chawang Shop!
