Yet another great White2Tea offering! Admittedly I’m not so familiar with any kind of white tea, and have only tried a few Yunnan black teas. Upon opening the sample bag, I was hit with an intense fruity, apricot, and raisin scent. The leaves are very pretty; they remind me of fallen autumn leaves! A very quick, 1 second rinse later, the wet leaves smelled strongly of the black tea—for some reason reminds me of oven-fresh sweet potatoes? Well, anyways, I actually started out brewing this with lower temperatures, since I was under the impression that with the white tea I would want to brew it at 190 degrees. However, after the third steep I turned the heat up to 200 degrees
1st steep (5s) – malty and sweet apricot flavor. Yup, can definitely tell this is black tea from Yunnan!
2nd (7s) – same thing, but started noticing floral notes
3rd (10s) – feels slightly thicker than before! The floral/hay notes are also becoming more obvious. My mouth also started to feel a bit dry.
4th (15s) – malty, slightly astringent, but still fruity. The apricot flavor is fading away
5th (15s) – The malt is becoming less obvious but I can now taste the sweeter, floral notes of the tea—probably from the white tea. It kind of coats my throat, yet it is becoming more astringent.
6th (20s) – same thing, but with a delightful raisin note at the end
I started feeling the caffeine kick after this, but all in all a pretty wild ride! The way the flavors of the white and black tea interact make this cake is really interesting. I’m ordering a cake of this. I’m definitely going to steep this some more later today.
Flavors: Apricot, Astringent, Brandy, Drying, Floral, Fruity, Hay, Honey, Malt, Mineral, Smooth, Stonefruit, Sweet Potatoes, Tannic, Thick
