This is unlike any other tea I have ever had. I am not quite sure why is that the case though. Dry leaves give off an interesting and deep aroma that has a little bit of a leather quality. After the rinse, I get a fairly subtle, sweet and complex smell. There are hints of fish, nettle, swamp vegetation – I just can’t stop sniffing it. The liquor smell like dry bamboo and the empty cup more like rapeseed flowers to me.
The first two infusions after rinse are still just a warm-up. They are quite vegetal, salty and a touch bitter with an interesting aftertaste that’s a mix of fish and thistles. I know it sounds strange, but that’s the closest approximation I could come up with. This is a strange tea.
The third infusion is where the session properly starts. From then on, the tea is thick and incredibly smooth with a buttery and numbing mouthfeel. It is a Lincang tea, so naturally there is a decent amount of astringency, but it’s manageable and it only occurs in the mouth, there’s no drying sensation in the throat. Interestingly, the colour of the liquor is quite dark and with a brownish hue.
I enjoy the taste too, although it’s hard to place it. I would say it’s a mix of sweet, floral and alcohol flavours. I think I will need more time with this tea to be able to pinpoint it. The aftertaste is slightly acidic and floral at first and becomes nutty (think sunflower seeds) and sweet over time. It also lasts so long. As I am writing this, it’s been about half an hour since I last drunk the tea and I can feel it in the throat as if I just swallowed it! One quality of the aftertaste that just emerged now is a kind of vegetal (grape leaf) flavour.
Because of the protracted aftertaste, strong cha qi and a very good longetivity of the leaves, this turned out to be a really long session in the end. It’s not the kind of sheng I would drink casually or with little time to spare.
I think I like it a lot, but I will wait with the rating until further sessions. It’s hard to compare the tea with others because of how different it is. It’s a bummer that the cakes are sold out though, I would have loved to have this one in the collection. At least there are versions of this tea from previous years that I could pick up, but now I wonder which one should it be?
Flavors: Alcohol, Astringent, Bamboo, Fishy, Floral, Nutty, Plants, Salty, Sour, Thick, Vegetal
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I’ve had the 2013 autumn, 2014 spring, and 2015 spring – all are quite different – which I’m not sure can be said for Scott’s other pressings. Perhaps Mangfei? I’m intrigued by your description of the 2017 pressing. It’s a shame QMS isn’t in this year’s lineup.
hm, I see you’ve enjoyed all of them a great deal, that’s good to see. Let’s hope that next year it will pass Scott’s tests and it will be back. Or maybe we will get an autumn version this year? The last one is from 2014 I think.
The variability in the Mang Fei cakes actually makes more sense. A quick look at the descriptions seems to suggest that the material used is not always from the same garden(s).
Yes, re: Mangfei. The MF 2014 pressing was amazing in terms of both qi and flavor…and sorta takes my breath away.
Yes, I’m pretty happy with all QMS pressings I’ve tried so far. It’s one of the purest teas (in taste and body feel) i’ve had and it would be a shame if this year’s QMS maocha didn’t pass the EU residual pesticide test…
I think it’s more likely that it wouldn’t have passed Scott’s personal evaluation test than the pesticide tests. They always has to make a choice between a lot of maocha samples, so it’s possible that it just didn’t compare too favorably with the rest of what has been on offer this year.
That’s a good point, as we’ve already seen such variation in each pressing of QMS. I imagine timing the harvest just right has as much of an impact on quality as skilled processing.
I’ve had the 2013 autumn, 2014 spring, and 2015 spring – all are quite different – which I’m not sure can be said for Scott’s other pressings. Perhaps Mangfei? I’m intrigued by your description of the 2017 pressing. It’s a shame QMS isn’t in this year’s lineup.
hm, I see you’ve enjoyed all of them a great deal, that’s good to see. Let’s hope that next year it will pass Scott’s tests and it will be back. Or maybe we will get an autumn version this year? The last one is from 2014 I think.
The variability in the Mang Fei cakes actually makes more sense. A quick look at the descriptions seems to suggest that the material used is not always from the same garden(s).
Yes, re: Mangfei. The MF 2014 pressing was amazing in terms of both qi and flavor…and sorta takes my breath away.
Yes, I’m pretty happy with all QMS pressings I’ve tried so far. It’s one of the purest teas (in taste and body feel) i’ve had and it would be a shame if this year’s QMS maocha didn’t pass the EU residual pesticide test…
I think it’s more likely that it wouldn’t have passed Scott’s personal evaluation test than the pesticide tests. They always has to make a choice between a lot of maocha samples, so it’s possible that it just didn’t compare too favorably with the rest of what has been on offer this year.
That’s a good point, as we’ve already seen such variation in each pressing of QMS. I imagine timing the harvest just right has as much of an impact on quality as skilled processing.