December 2020 harvest.
Worth steeping this gongfu with high leaf:low water, so that when you initially warm the leaf and every time after the tiny teapot or gaiwan lid is lifted, you’re greeted with incredibly complex and nuanced aromas. Chocolate (milk and dark), almond and macadamia, soft grainy malt, mouse fur and cedar chips, heavier notes of pomegranate molasses, old leatherbound books and dank forest earth. Plenty of musk melon-papaya weaving throughout. The bright acidity of raspberry lemonade and orange-ginger seems to aid in differentiating those rich aromas. The complexity and range of aromatic notes remind me of an Ehtiopian Yirgacheffe coffee.
The taste is less spectacular, kind of alkaline.
Brewed western is also good. A thick and chewy cream taste and texture can dominate. But it still tastes like a golden tip tea.
Grandpa, not so much. The leaf leaves a firm ring of tea scum around the glass.
The visual is off-putting.
Flavors: Alkaline, Almond, Cantaloupe, Caramel, Cedar, Citrusy, Cocoa, Coffee, Cream, Creamy, Dark Chocolate, Fir, Forest Floor, Fruity, Fur, Ginger, Grain, Hay, Leather, Lemon, Lemon Zest, Malt, Milk, Molasses, Nuts, Nutty, Orange, Orange Zest, Papaya, Paper, Pomegranate, Raspberry, Wet Earth
Do I want to know how you can identify mouse fur as an aroma?
Had a snake for 10 years.
Ah, that would explain it. :)
:D