Brewed 8.5g in my 170ml gaiwan.
Rinse: Wet leaf smells sweet smoky incense. Also fresh like a mineral spring.
1st (10s 95˚C): Leaf smells green grapes, tart fruits, fresh hay. Taste very light and refreshing, pleasant. No bitterness astringency or sourness. Minerally.
2nd (20s 95˚C): Scent of a spring breeze. Liquor: now a tinge of dryness (good, a sign of strength). Not sweet anymore. When I ate with a fresh plum, the tea complemented it quite well, adding solid vegetal and mineral base to counter the sweet and sour of the fruit. Smells of sweet grass. This tea is characterised by mostly sour green fruits and vegetables on the periphery, but with a bit of a void on the palate where I’d usually expect flavour to be – it’s mostly like water.
3rd (25s 97˚C): Leaf smells like stewed vegetables + spring meadow. Savoury, medium-bodied. Hint of bitterness like Chinese herbs (linyong) but that bitterness feels necessary – it’s still balanced and pleasant.
4th (35s 99˚C): Wet leaf smells fresh farm grass in an English summer, verdant. Liquor smells and tastes slightly sweet all of a sudden. Guess it was the right time to raise the temp. Still minerally rocky and slight (good) astringency. This is a great infusion.
5th (45s 100˚C): Velvety mouthfeel.
6th (90s 100˚C): The body is too thin already. This tea is done.
Overall lovely and thirst-quenching – could be an unobjectionable daily drinker – but not my favourite and not serve that purpose for the price. It’s what I imagine a really high-quality ‘ultra-premium’ mineral water could taste like.
Rating: 82
Flavors: Freshly Cut Grass, Green, Herbs, Mineral, Smoke, Vegetables, Vegetal, White Grapes
