Sending some of this onward in a trade, so this is a 3g sipdown… for now. This is a raw — not wet piled — Liu Bao.
Notes of basement and forest floor in the first steep; wet leaf in the gaiwan is cinnamon stick and camphor.
Nose briefly becomes pine for the second steep, with flavors of basement, oakmoss, damp wood. Wet leaf is kelp, wet driftwood.
Third: more pine, wet stones. Taste of old books, wet rocks, cucumber. The wet leaf persists with faint cinnamon stick and cooling notes.
Nose becomes beach salinity/lake dampness, a kind of light fragrant wood in the fourth. The taste takes a sudden creamy turn, like a wood dust and basement storage smoothie… WHY IS THIS SO APPEALING I LOVE IT. Wet leaf still a little camphorous, slowly moving toward generic wet wood…
Fifth starts the tamp down: forest floor and wood on the nose. Taste becomes gently metallic, stone, wet wood.
Metal and stone persist in the sixth, with light cinnamon/nutmeg. I had a hunch this persistent cinnamon note might be the betel nut aroma I’ve seen associated with Liu Bao, and sure enough — google turns up cinnamon/nutmeg/cooling.
Steeps continue to have wet wood/betel/metallic/stone flavor. Dungeony, I think Togo wrote… yes. All dungeons are basements, but not all basements are dungeons. No astringency or tannins here. Cha qi is fun and relaxing.
I kept at it for maybe 16-ish steeps; I lost track. The flavor didn’t really develop any more, but it didn’t go away for a long time. I really meant to throw this in a pan for a boil afterward, but home got distracting and I chucked it on accident. :(
I have some more Liu Bao samples coming from YS… I’m very interested to see how younger examples stack up. Buying a basket of this seems excessive, maybe… maybe? I will almost certainly grab some more of some quantity.
Flavors: Camphor, Cinnamon, Creamy, Cucumber, Forest Floor, Limestone, Metallic, Nutmeg, Pine, Salt, Seaweed, Wet Moss, Wet Rocks, Wet wood, Wood
