I took this cake (and its amazing Fu Dog wrapper) to work after comparing it to another very affordable cake I picked up from LP, a 7543 that I decided I liked more and wanted to keep at home. The lovely thing about cakes I take to work is that I feel I get to know them intimately and in a concentrated amount of time — a knowing that slowly picking through my tea drawers at home just doesn’t facilitate.
This way of drinking through a single cake also, perhaps, encourages broad-stroke descriptions, judgment in swaths after dozens of cups rather than a quiet sit with a tiny gaiwan.
What I’ve come to expect of this tea is a little funk up front, which (usually depending on the earliness of the hour and my corresponding constitution) I have rinsed a time or two. I tend not to rinse, for better or worse. This cake strikes me reliably as vegetal and tobacco; I have had exactly one second steep that was delightfully full-bodied with a touch of sweetness, and I’ve been waiting for a return of that bit of lovely ever since. There is not a pronounced amount of sweetness, spice, camphor, or forest here.
Most of my “sessions” (an overstatement if there ever was one) have been grandpa-style in a ceramic tumbler. I’m very often disappointed after adding a second round of water, and sometimes will throw a few more leaves in to compensate. Not a terribly long-lived expression. I’ve added ice a few times, to drink with takeout Thai, and it’s nice for that.
It’s been a solid little workhorse for a couple months now, but as I near the end of my cake I’m looking forward to cracking into something a little more exciting.
Great way to use up a cake! I have missed your notes. Hope your life is exuberantly joyful!