Here is another November sipdown, this one coming from somewhere around the third week of the month. Prior to trying this tea, Wuyi green tea was a new frontier for me. You do not see many vendors offering them, so I was eager to try this one. Overall, I found it to be an interesting and fairly heavy tea. It was a very nice offering, but it was also not something I would rush to reacquire.
I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 175 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of corn husk, hay, malt, lemon, and smoke. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of butter and apricot. The first infusion introduced subtle scents of plum and sugarcane. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of malt, butter, corn husk, and hay that were chased by hints of lemon, sour apricot, and sugarcane. The subsequent infusions brought out stronger stone fruit and sugarcane scents as well as aromas of straw, honey, lettuce, and grass. Stronger malt, butter, hay, corn husk, sour apricot and lemon came out in the mouth along with belatedly emerging plum and smoke impressions and new notes of minerals, straw, grass, cream, honey, and lettuce. There were also some interesting hints of seaweed, spinach, kale, umami, and sweet corn in a few places. At the end of the session, I could still pick out subtle notes of minerals, malt, hay, corn husk, and sweet corn that were backed by fleeting impressions of seaweed, sugarcane, grass, butter, and cream.
As mentioned earlier, this was an interesting and satisfying green tea, but it would not be the sort of thing I would wish to consume very frequently. This tea produced a liquor that had a bit of weight and chewiness in the mouth, which was nice, but it also made the tea seem very filling to me. I could see people who like heavier, less refined green teas being into it. Again, I liked it quite a bit, but I just don’t think it’s something I could do very frequently.
Flavors: Apricot, Butter, Corn Husk, Cream, Grass, Hay, Honey, Kale, Lemon, Lettuce, Malt, Mineral, Plum, Smoke, Spinach, Straw, Sugarcane, Sweet, Umami
