This is yet another review I have been intending to post for some time. I bought this tea last year because I wanted to try it alongside Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Jingmai Gushu Oolong Orbs, but until last week, I had yet to set aside time to try this tea. Going back and looking at the note for the other tea, I see that this one struck me as being very similar. I found it to be immensely enjoyable, a hair more enjoyable than the tea to which I planned on comparing it directly.
I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped one dragon ball (a little over 6 grams) in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 15 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, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.
The dry tea ball emitted aromas of honey, smoke, hay, wood, and stone fruits prior to the rinse. A little of that sheng-like funkiness was there too. After the rinse, I found new scents of grass, menthol, tobacco, and malt. The first proper infusion brought out a subtle pine-like aroma. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of malt, grass, hay, wood, and cream underscored by hints of tart stone fruits, honey, and sheng-like funk. Subsequent infusions grew steadily more intense, aromatic, and flavorful, offering distinct impressions of sour plum, longan, sour apricot, tart cherry, oats, butter, camphor, pear, lychee, mushroom, cedar, peanut, minerals, caramel, lemon, white grape, eucalyptus, and tree bark. The notes of malt, tobacco, pine wood, smoke, and menthol managed to show up in the mouth too. On a couple infusions, I thought I could just barely catch a hint of petrichor on the nose. The later infusions were more satisfying than anticipated. I could still find impressions of malt, minerals, mushroom, and tree bark balanced by subtle notes of honey, stone fruits, camphor, menthol, and tobacco that were most apparent on the back of the throat.
These Yunnan oolongs are steadily growing on me. I loved the mix of aromas and flavors this tea displayed. Very challenging, yet simultaneously very satisfying, I could see this being a great tea for adventurous oolong and pu-erh drinkers alike.
Flavors: Apricot, Bark, Butter, Camphor, Caramel, Cedar, Cherry, Cream, Eucalyptus, Grass, Hay, Honey, Lemon, Lychee, Malt, Menthol, Mineral, Mushrooms, Oats, Peanut, Pear, Petrichor, Pine, Plum, Smoke, Stonefruit, Tobacco, White Grapes, Wood
