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[I had the red tin version of this tea, not the yellow tin]

[Eat before drinking this tea it weighs you down a little bit]

I am fairly new to tea, and for a few weeks I have been learning about tea. So, I am really eager to start, but shipping from china is kind of lengthy. So, I found this tin in my mother’s cabinet. I don’t know the age or anything about this tea, But I just wanted to practice some gong fu style brewing, and further my knowledge about the different flavors I am to expect from tea (I will explain more later).

I rinsed the tea for 10 seconds (because it was quite old) and then brewed with a 25ish second infusion for the first infusion. To be honest I didn’t expect much out of the tea, but I at least wanted some flavor. I got very little flavor at all, just a flash of bitter at the tip of my tounge, and then just flat until I swallowed it. It left my mouth quite dry and it made my throat want to close up. The second infusion was the same too, just greatly fainter (I added +10 seconds for each infusion). But the third infusion it was like this faint sweetness for a second, and then choppy flatness that made my throat really dry down my thoat. That was the only flavor I got out of it, a very faint almost one pinch of sugar dissolved into a little cup of water sweetness and then nothing.

But, with this tea I do now understand what an aftertaste is like. The sweetness that I mentioned earlier stuck to my mouth, and I don’t notice it until I drink water. When I drink water the water becomes smoother than normal and much sweeter than normal.

This tea makes me fearful of white teas, because if white tea is going to be as flavorless and bland as this, than I may aswell not bother.

I started into tea (or should I say researching tea) because I was browsing teavana and I stumbled upon their white tea section (I have since abandoned teavana teas and gone with Yunnan sourcing) but, when I saw this section it just awoke an interest in me. I just saw the picture of the brewed teas and read the description of how it is smooth and gives a honey like taste, I was instantly sold. So, then I went onto youtube to try and learn more, and found Don from Mei leaf. This is where I learned about Gong fu brewing, and the benefits of switching over from western style. His descriptions of the tea were amazing and I just had to learn more! He then introduced me to puer, and oolong teas, (something I never knew existed), and how they have differences in flavor and how they can calm the whole body. It just seemed like heaven in a glass. But, I have been brewing western style my whole life and drinking from tea bags, so it confused me how a tea could have all of these characteristics without adding any sugar! So, then when I saw the jasmine tea in the cabinet, I thought that I might try some, to see for myself how the teas don’t need any sugar at all to give all of these characteristics. But, this tea broke my heart, it had nothing and was very astringent, with only subtle sweetness, but mostly water. I really hope that tea is much more than this!

But if I am going to be honest, it wasn’t bad either, I probably just don’t like jasmine tea, but I was just disappointed at a lack of flavor.

However, this tea smells amazing with a fruit like, sweetish bitter smell. I wish it tasted as good as it smelled.

[UPDATE]

So, since I have a whole tin of this tea and I was kind of bored at home I decided to try and put some sugar into the gong dao bei when I poured the soup in. It made a world of difference! I could taste the nice jasmine flavors, and a very sweet fruit aftertaste followed it. It was very enjoyable! It also took all of the astringency with it, and the tea was very smooth and sweet. But, it still had a mouth drying effect.

The aftertaste is wonderful too! Every sip of water I drink turns sweet and tastes like how the tea smelled. It was very nice, but still kind of basic.