Hot Brandy is interesting. I’m still relatively new to gongfu-ing teas and in my head white teas are delicate and light like silver needle steeped western style and blacks are all sort of English Breakfast-y. Combining those two things sounded weird and not especially pleasant to me but I added one Hot Brandy mini to my order because it was cheap and other teas that didn’t sound great to me have been surprisingly delicious. Hot Brandy is more like aged pressed whites that start tasting a bit like black tea. There are sweet and fruity flavors like I’ve come to expect from shou mei or moonlight whites and then there’s that thick and creamy, feels-like-you-could-chew-it mouthfeel I’ve noticed in fancier black teas like gold needle. It seemed like earlier steeps tasted more like white tea and as it went on the black tea flavor got stronger. At one point I thought I could taste cherry…that reminded me I need to re-order more of that aged dahongpao I thought tasted like dark chocolate covered cherries. Toward the end I wasn’t getting that thick tongue-coating feeling anymore and the flavor weakened into lighter somewhat fruity black tea. It was nice. I don’t know that it’s amazing enough to order in bulk but I’d drink it again without any complaints and might even sneak another ball or two into a future order.
7 tsp
4 OZ / 120 ML
I’ve never done any gongfu-ing, but this sounds like an interesting experiment.