feb 16/18
i probably need to be doing this more. i like these zomba pearls quite a lot. a decent thickness to the tea, and im getting bassier notes than i usually get from white tea, more hay, and vegetal than the bai hao yin zen my wife, son and i shared last night while my oldest son was at kickboxing. this is the second time ive had this one since buying it a month or so ago. im 2 steeps in, and from what i remember the rolled leaves give it a good longevity. zomba pearls is my 3rd gongfu of the day after having a white2tea raw flapjack for breakfast, and finishing off my 2017 spring wu yi rou gui, seriously just rambling now waiting on my water. steep 3 and 4 are giving me some good mouth watering and something like a honey mustard note that is really quite nice. also a bit of that tongue numbing thing going on. im going to hammer this for a couple more steeps. i went probably 2 minutes of so for steep 5. the flavour has pretty much left, but still a decent body (im still not prepared to say “mouthfeel” yet), and doubleing down on the tongue numbing. a bit of astringency. if i didnt have steep 6 in the gaiwan already i wouldnt bother at this point, but since its there i might as well. i steeped it about 6 minutes or so on the killshot, and a tiny bit of flavour came back, but i will probably go 4 good steeps here as a rule. after all this the pearls were still more or less intact.
