Finally home to drink this sample which was graciously sent to me a couple months ago by mrmopar. I’m pretty sure this is the right tea. My first tea from CLT, and the second session in my new Jianshui teapot from CLT, which I’ve already fallen in love with. I haven’t quite gotten the pour timing down, so some of my early steeps were a bit intense, but nothing I couldn’t handle!
The leaf smelled a little bit smoky, but this didn’t really come through to a great degree in the flavor. The first three or four steeps held a pretty hefty bitterness to them, but also got floral and honey sweet notes to finish. I also sometimes picked out a nutty note on the front and the occasional resinous piney inclination. Over the next few steeps, the bitterness began to recede, and this became very sweet, but still powerful feeling in a nice Bulang-y way. For these steeps I was getting almost all sweetness as far as taste goes, with honey and mineral notes most notable. The final five or so steeps became a little less flavorful and also lost a bit of their edge, taking on a more gently sweet taste/feeling.
This tea was decently thick in the mouth through most of the session. I also picked up some qi, which made me feel just a touch jittery – quite possibly due to two tea sessions in rapid succession rather than this tea only – but it definitely has some power to it. I quite enjoyed this one, and I look forward to drinking through my samples of CLT’s 2016 lineup to get a better feel for their style and their teas.
Flavors: Bitter, Floral, Honey, Mineral, Nutty, Resin, Smoke, Sweet
