After enjoying a nice spring 2021 Lishan earlier this year, I purchased a whopping 825 g of Taiwanese tea from the same supplier. I’m swapping 75 g with another Steepster member, but the rest is all mine! If the other four teas I bought are as good as this Baozhong, I made the right decision. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 150 ml clay teapot at 195F for 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus many uncounted steeps.
The dry aroma is of lilac, orchid, honeydew melon, apricot, cookies, and egg custard. The first steep has saline, mineral, grassy, and egg custard notes, with lilac, orchid, butter, and honeydew melon. Where the tea really shines is in the lingering aftertaste, which features perfectly ripe apricot, pear, and dewy melon notes. The next steep introduces coriander, herbs, cookies, and something similar to menthol, plus more spring flowers and that same lovely aftertaste. Steep three adds even more florals like sweet pea and gardenia, plus honeydew, peach, apricot, and pear. The smell in the empty cup is wonderful! As the session goes on, salt, minerals, grass, butter, and florals continue to appear at the front of the sip, while the fruit blooms in the aroma and aftertaste, which can last for minutes. The fact that the fruit doesn’t show up as much in the tea itself is a little annoying, but that aftertaste makes up for it. The tea continues to be floral, saline, and sweet until the end of the session, with the honeydew, stonefruit, and pear in the aftertaste. I can also leave it overnight for one final steep without tasting any bitterness.
I’ve steeped this Baozhong in both clay and porcelain using temperatures from boiling to around 185F and various infusion times. Lower temperatures brought out more of the fruity notes, though boiling water never made the tea bitter. Clay seemed to produce slightly better results, though maybe that was due to the longer pouring time of my pot.
This is a fantastic Baozhong! I’ve rarely encountered such dewy, pronounced fruity notes in a tea, combined with such longevity and lack of bitterness. I wish more of these notes had shown up in the body of the sip instead of the aftertaste, but this is a minor quibble. This is one of my favourite teas of 2022 and I’m sad to say goodbye.
Flavors: Apricot, Butter, Cookie, Coriander, Custard, Egg, Floral, Gardenias, Grass, Herbaceous, Honeydew, Lilac, Melon, Menthol, Mineral, Orchid, Peach, Pear, Salt, Sweet
825 grams…wow…I know you already told me about it, but wow.
Yeah, it was a big order. :) I’m sending 75 g to someone else and just finished another 75 g, so I’m down to 675 g. I have a feeling I’ll get through it fairly quickly.
I just sipped down quite a bit of my Taiwanese oolong too, and am about to finish the Jasmine Shanlinxi from Wang. I really want to get more and keep some for a future swap so you can get to try some of the ones I’ve been writing about. I’m also very tempted to try some of the Zhena Magic Hour tea. I don’t like the health nut marketing, but I used to really like Green Coconut Chai and Mint Tea. They’ve become more ambitious with blends and have a vanilla doublefolded pu-erh black blend with pomegranite and other flavoring that could be really interesting, along with so many others. They still lean towards Ti Kwan Yin for bases and blending for the oolongs, but have a Gaba and a Golden Monkey for other blends. I’m trying to figure out the best samples to get, but they are a minimum of $8 for roughly more than an oz.
That Jasmine SLX sounds interesting, and they also have an Osmanthus Alishan. I tend to avoid scented teas because I don’t want to have anything mask the flavour of the base and I worry that they might use inferior leaf, but I don’t think this would be a problem with these guys. It would be interesting to try the Jasmine SLX if you end up getting it. I just opened a bag of spring 2021 Cui Feng, and wow, is it good! I get lots of citrus, pineapple, and maybe even stonefruit, plus cream, orchids, and other flowers. As with their other teas, it doesn’t get bitter with long steeps.
Those Zhena teas look interesting, though as you said, the health claims are a bit much. Maybe it’s a California thing. They do have some unique blends. I wonder how Tie Guan Yin works as a blending tea.
It’s a pretty common base. Fraser Teas in Michigan uses it for most of theirs, and it blends better with fruitier flavors than more vanilla ones imo. As for the Jasmine Shanlinxi…it’s easily one of my favorites since their regular Shanlinxi is the base. Cui Feng is always a win in my book too.
Interesting to hear that TGY is often used for blending. It would be fun to try one of these teas sometime.
The final few steeps of the Cui Feng were a bit grassy, but overall, it was great! I’d say it was up there with the Shanlinxi Wild Garden. Of the five Wang teas I’ve tried, I’ve enjoyed this one, the DYL, and the SLX Wild Garden the most. I have many more to go!
Lovely!
Yes! :) I kind of intended to send some of it in swaps, but the temptation to finish it was too great. It was also starting to fade a bit by the end of the bag, so I think I made the right decision.