Last time I brewed this western style once at 3 minutes, now I’m going to short steep it.
The liquor of the first steep felt really silky in my mouth. This short steep brought out some new flavours: floral, cinnamon, and the now familiar malt and barley flavours from my first tea session.
Second cup is very similar to the first, except the grape flavour really starts to come out here. Nothing really tastes out of place, and the floral notes are not strong enough to rub me the wrong way. The tea body and liquor colour are very light, with still no trace of bitterness or much astringency (much like my first experience with this tea).
Third cup left a nice sweetness at the back of my throat, but the flavours seem to be weakening.
Drinking on from the fourth to sixth steeps, the tea flavour continued to fade but the grape notes still built up in my mouth.
I tried extending the steep times a bit on the last two cups, but it was still really to light for my tastes. If I try this again I’ll probably do 3tsp of leaves, since 2tsp didn’t really fill up the gaiwan too much anyway.
Overall it reminds me of a few other black teas I’ve tried, but the grape flavour (reminds me of grape jam) makes this tea very unique and memorable. It didn’t turn out to be a great resteeper for me, so I’ll probably be drinking this western style in the future.
100ml gaiwan, 2tsp, (45s, 1min, 1m15s, 1m30s, 1m50s, 2m10s)
