2014 Autumn Moonlight Pavilion Pure Bud Bi Luo Chun White Tea

A good tasting and decently complex white tea, and one which goes a long way brewed gongfu style. The first couple steeps (I keep them around 10-15 sec.) are pretty heavily floral. The next few keep the floral flavor but also add an interesting flavor to the mix, to me it tastes like nettles, but I could see other’s descriptions of it as “peppery.” It finishes off pleasantly, as I can go up to around 10 infusions which are a progressively lighter floral flavor. Pleasant bitterness brushes the mouth when brewed with slightly longer times in the early steeps, but if brewed with too hot of water, this bitterness becomes rather unpleasant, as I learned.

when i smell the leaves dry, they smell like peppers and flowers.

when i smell the leaves wet, they smell like strong flowers

when i smell the brewed tea, it smells like honey and green tea.

when i taste the brewed tea, it tastes like pepper, honey and green tea

many thanks to scott wilson and yunnan sourcing for this nice tea

The leaves are a blend of dark to medium greens with a lot of silver tips present. Also they have a high reflective shine and lots of downy hairs. In shape they tend to be long and thinly rolled but rather curly too. It smells so sweet and fresh, resembling mixed flowers (geranium, jasmine, sweetpea), soft grass and gently toasted hay.

Steeping Method: Chinese Glass Tumbler
6g leaf with 75C water

As I smell the steeped tea the flowers stand out even more, not to the extent of being perfumed, instead though they are strong it is still fresh and sweet.

Flavour is crisp yet sweet and floral enough to match it’s scent. Some grass tones and astringency though very mildly. Clean tasting and very beautiful. Along with geranium, jasmine and sweetpea I can also taste honeysuckle and lily.

Altogether this is a very floral tea that remains sweet and fresh throughout, part of that is due to this being a white Bi Luo Chun rather than green.