Here’s yet another sample sipdown. I way overloaded on caffeine the last couple of days, but could not go without my daily sipping session, so I did something I don’t do often-I broke out a white tea. It totally hit the spot too.
I brewed this tea gongfu. After a 10 second rinse, I steeped the entire 6 gram dragon ball in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions was as follows: 12 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the dragon ball emitted aromas of hay, honey, eucalyptus, and apricot. After the rinse, I began to pick up on grass, nectar, wood, toast, and camphor. The first infusion introduced hints of butter, pine, cucumber, and malt. In the mouth, I mostly picked up on notes of butter, malt, cucumber, damp grass, hay, pine, eucalyptus, wood, and honey underscored by touches of apricot, camphor, and nectar. Subsequent infusions saw the camphor, apricot, and nectar intensify in the mouth. I also began to detect impressions of almond, wheat toast, puff pastry, cedar, dates, oats, cream, minerals, golden raisin, cinnamon, vanilla, and clove. The later infusions were smooth, displaying pronounced buttery, creamy qualities with hints of minerals, hay, pine, eucalyptus, spices, toast, and apricot in places.
I normally don’t go for white teas, but I have had a soft spot for Yue Guang Bai for a little over a year now. This one was excellent. It was deep, complex, mellow, long-lasting, and well-balanced.
Flavors: Almond, Apricot, Butter, Camphor, Cedar, Cinnamon, Clove, Cream, Cucumber, Dates, Eucalyptus, Grass, Hay, Honey, Malt, Mineral, Nectar, Oats, Pastries, Pine, Raisins, Toast, Vanilla, Wheat, Wood
