I liked this tea a lot more than I thought I would! I used 7.5g in my 120mL gaiwan with 200F water. The dry leaves, which looked quite interesting, with different shades and large leaves and stuff in there, smelled slightly of honey and a bit sour. Once rinsed, they gave off an interesting aroma, part sour plum, honey, and a bit of a medicinal aroma.
The tea didn’t break apart quite as readily as I thought it would – took probably 6-7 before it was most of the way broken up. My first three steeps were plummy with those same medicinal notes and a honey finish. I also detected kind of leaf-litter autumnal flavors in there too. The plum note started to fade after these initial steeps, but throughout the session the sour aroma remained kind of in the air whenever I took the lid off the gaiwan. This flavor sort of reminded me of oriental beauty, but this was way better than the oriental beauties I’ve tried.
A couple steeps later, I started pushing the tea a tad bit more, and it got a bit drying with the medicinal flavors taking more of the fore. From about the 7th steep on, the flavors (still honey, medicinal, autumn leaf) seemed to be in constant flux from steep to steep. One steep the honey would be the front, the next the medicinal, etc. It was pretty interesting and fun to drink.
I’d be interested to try more aged white teas. Apparently the next W2T club shipment is going to be a white tea cake, though from this year I believe. Interested to see how that’ll turn out. I would definitely put this on the same level as sheng puerh as far as how enjoyable I found it. At least from this one example.
Flavors: Autumn Leaf Pile, Fruity, Honey, Medicinal, Pleasantly Sour, Plum, Sweet, Thick
