I sent this tea to Daylon a while ago and thought I’d made a note about it, but I guess not. This is a summer 2015 harvest that has been languishing in my tea museum for seven years, so most of the tropical fruit notes mentioned in earlier reviews have dissipated before I could enjoy them. Why pay for aged tea when you can age it yourself, right? :P I’m following Daylon’s gongfu parameters to see if I can get more out of this tea, steeping 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 195F for 25, 35, 25, 45, 50, 70, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of dark chocolate, cherry, pastry, wood, and malt. The first steep has notes of cherry, raisin, dried fruit, cocoa, pastry, honey, wood, and malt, with hints of maple syrup and some bitterness. I get whisps of papaya in the second steep, plus cherry, darker chocolate, wood, and pleasant sourness. The fruit is less noticeable in the next couple steeps, with honey, pastries, wood, malt, brown sugar, and tannins becoming more prominent. The tea is also quite drying. The next couple steeps retain their cocoa, honey, and pastry notes, but veer more toward wood, malt, earth, and minerals. The session ends with notes of honey, hay, malt, earth, and minerals.
This is an enjoyable tea, though I think I would have found more of the flavours I gravitate toward if I hadn’t waited so long to drink it. It fades rather early and can get a little drying in later steeps.
Flavors: Brown Sugar, Cherry, Cocoa, Dark Chocolate, Dried Fruit, Drying, Earth, Hay, Honey, Malt, Maple Syrup, Mineral, Papaya, Pastries, Pleasantly Sour, Raisins, Tannin, Wood
