Filled up the bottom of the gai wan with leaf. Delicious roasted, toasted aromatics.
First steep without a wash is very soft and sweet, a little floral but also bread-like. Delicate, and yet decadent.
Second steep changed to a more toasted rice kind of quality. Also something else in there, like a sweet seaweed quality. Interesting and good.
Third steep: darker, more pungent (stronger tasting), toasted kind of quality, though still soft in the mouth. It’s a curious starchy, salty, toasted kind of taste. Slight astringency in the background, too. No bitterness at all.
Fourth steep: More of the same, though also starting to flatten out a little bit. Clearer sense of astringency.
Fifth steep: a bit flat to me. Not bad per se, but just a basic ‘spent’ black tea taste.
Overall yummy tea that’s definitely worth drinking multiple times. A 100g bag will last a while when in rotation with other teas as you only need 4-5g for a good session. It’s above average to me, but not great. To me, a lot of gentle black teas start out real strong and fade pretty quickly. It may be worth doing a full teapot or hai cha worth of tea instead of gong fu. I’ll check that out next time.
