This was one of my sipdowns from early in the year. I actually forgot that I had this tea in my cupboard and only got around to trying it shortly before its 36 month best by date expired. Fortunately, the tea was still vibrant in the mouth and seemed to have lost little of anything in extended storage. I greatly enjoy Ya Shi Xiang, so I would have been angry with myself if this tea had ended up being stale.
I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a 10 second rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 fluid ounces of 194 F water for 7 seconds. This infusion was followed by 18 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 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, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of roasted almond, orchid, orange blossom, cherry, vanilla, cream, and custard. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of smoke and cannabis. The first infusion introduced aromas of coriander, cooked lettuce, grass, and pomegranate. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of cream, roasted almond, orange blossom, orchid, and butter that were chased by hints of custard, vanilla, baked bread, lychee, pomegranate, coriander, grass, cooked lettuce, pear, cannabis, and smoke. The majority of the subsequent infusions introduced aromas of minerals, earth, orange zest, plum, peach, steamed milk, lychee, spinach, violet, and green wood. Stronger and more immediately notable impressions of custard, vanilla, baked bread, grass, cooked lettuce, pear, and lychee emerged in the mouth alongside impressions of orange zest, honey, oats, peach, plum, caraway, violet, steamed milk, sugarcane, cherry, and green wood. Hints of earth, apple, cattail shoots, and spinach also appeared. As the tea faded, the liquor continued emphasizing notes of minerals, cream, butter, steamed milk, grass, pear, orange zest, sugarcane, green wood, and roasted almond that were chased by a swell of subtler, more delicate notes of custard, vanilla, cooked lettuce, plum, apple, lychee, coriander, orchid, orange blossom, honey, earth, spinach, and cherry.
This Ya Shi Xiang displayed good complexity and balance on the nose and in the mouth and produced a liquor with good body and great texture, but it was not the most vibrant or consistently engaging tea of this type that I have tried. I will say that this was obviously the product of a very high quality picking judging by the appearance of the tea leaves. Maybe I’m being too hard on this tea, but I found it to be a very good, very solid Ya Shi Xiang and nothing more. It did not really surprise me or captivate me in any way, but it was also simultaneously very enjoyable and very far from disappointing.
Flavors: Almond, Apple, Bread, Butter, Cannabis, Caraway, Cherry, Coriander, Cream, Custard, Earth, Grass, Green Wood, Honey, Lettuce, Lychee, Milk, Oats, Orange Blossom, Orange Zest, Orchid, Peach, Pear, Plum, Pomegranate, Smoke, Spinach, Sugarcane, Vanilla, Vegetal, Violet
I wonder if this is the same tea as the Ya Shi Xiang I bought last year. If so, you got more fruit out of it than I did.