I was grumpy about White2Tea’s Halloween minis pack selling out before I convinced myself to order it again this year so I consoled myself with a tea club membership. This tea was in my first box (November) along with a 2018 Sun Fu heicha. I’d normally stuff a pu-erh this young down into the bottom of my tea box and try to forget about it for a while but the included information sheet suggested tasting it now. This is probably the freshest/youngest pu-erh I’ve ever had a chance to try so it seemed like a good learning experience.
Teeny baby gaiwan, 2-3g leaves (my scale decided to turn off in the middle of weighing out the leaves, it was awesome), water just boiled, house freezing (okay, about 63°F), quick rinse and steeps starting at around 10sec.
I didn’t think this would be a favorite right now and it isn’t. To me it has more smell dry than the wet leaf or brewed tea does. Dry it has a nice zingy sheng smell. The most interesting steep for me wasn’t even one of the real steeps but the rinse. The rinse had a little more flavor to it than the following steeps. After that, it was just kind of a light bitterness and not much else. I could be out of practice with my gongfu. I also don’t really have any experience with old arbor raws so I’m not sure what to expect compared to other raw pu-erhs . And I tend to prefer raws that are a few years old. It’s possible I’ll absolutely love this tea after letting it age a bit but at the moment it’s pretty meh for me. I’m glad I tried it now but it’s not something I want to keep drinking in its current state. It didn’t kill my stomach so at least there’s that. I wish the growing region had been mentioned in the description for this tea…White2Tea doesn’t seem to include that information for most of their teas. I try to compare information for teas I like (or dislike) to help me choose new teas instead of just randomly picking things so I’m always a fan of more info in descriptions.
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Hi, I tried this same tea recently and I found it really rich and delicious. What’s your gaiwan size? Have you tried using more leaves?
@Tea_Ass – I was using a little 50ml porcelain gaiwan. I may have underleafed…I tend to be a bit cautious with new shengs and then with my scale causing problems I might’ve ended up with even less. The dry wintery air here has been making my sinuses grouchy and could be affecting my senses of smell and taste a bit too. I haven’t tried the tea again yet. It’ll be interesting to see if I feel different about it next time.
Hi, I tried this same tea recently and I found it really rich and delicious. What’s your gaiwan size? Have you tried using more leaves?
@Tea_Ass – I was using a little 50ml porcelain gaiwan. I may have underleafed…I tend to be a bit cautious with new shengs and then with my scale causing problems I might’ve ended up with even less. The dry wintery air here has been making my sinuses grouchy and could be affecting my senses of smell and taste a bit too. I haven’t tried the tea again yet. It’ll be interesting to see if I feel different about it next time.