Pouchong Tea

This tea made a nice introduction to this class of teas. It is yet another one I found at the local Korean grocer and is packaged and sold by a company that controls a Taiwanese grocery chain. It comes packed in plastic within a cream carboard 60g cannister with a green label. The plastic did not seem to contaminate the tea.

The dry tea smells like raisin dominated dry fruit and contains long olive to forest green leaves. I brewed it 5 times but it still had a little life in it.

35s 1st steep – scent- sweet, slight raisin, soft sweet floral and sugar and cinnamon, colour, pale yellow.
– Taste more intense than smell, buttery, sweet cooked apricot and clover nectar. sweetness intensifies as it is held in the mouth and becomes almost candy like, hay, light spice hinting at cinnamon.freshening feeling towards back and top of mouth, Aftertaste of sugar, cooked peaches and clover.

48s second steep- scent -strongerand slightly more of dried stewed fruit.
– taste sweet dried stewed fruit, sugar, hay and strong sweet floral notes like honeysuckle and clover. Tingling ay bak of mouth, still buttery with hints of cinnamon. aftertaste cooling with sweet, floral with slight hint of cereal vegetal.

50s third steep – taste- more floral with a mineral vegetal note that is slightly bitterand a hint of yam. still buttery and slightly sweet. freshening feeling in back of throat and sinuses.

120+ fourth and fifth steep – tastes of a pleasant slightly sweet green tea with a thicker mouth feel, and a slight reference to seaweed and peach. still lots of flavour.

I was surprised how naturally sweet this tea was. On the first steep the sweetness almost tasted like Stevia. However this tea is unsweetened. It tastes pretty nice on its own and this tea is affordable enough that I don’t feel guilty experimenting with blending with it.