72

This was another of my sipdowns from earlier in the year. I’m pretty sure that it was the first white tea I polished off in 2020 and seem to remember drinking the last of it sometime during the first half of February. Though I am a pretty big fan of Yunnan white tea, this one did not do a ton for me. It wasn’t bad though. If I had to say anything negative about it, I would say that it struck me as being too subtle as well as being rather boring and predictable.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After rinsing, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea buds in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 18 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 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, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of hay, grass, malt, vanilla, marshmallow, pine, and sugarcane that were underscored by hints of smoke. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of toasted sweet corn, cream, and cucumber. The first infusion introduced a cooked zucchini scent. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered subtle notes of hay, marshmallow, cream, grass, butter, malt, and toasted sweet corn that were balanced by even more delicate notes of minerals, cooked zucchini, cucumber, pine, sugarcane, and honeydew. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of honeydew, butter, grilled lemon, corn husk, and summer squash. Notes of smoke and vanilla came out in the mouth along with stronger impressions of hay, minerals, grass, cooked zucchini, cucumber, sugarcane, and honeydew. New flavors of spinach, grilled lemon, summer squash, squash blossom, oats, and corn husk also appeared, as did hints of plum, honey, almond, and sour apricot. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, cucumber, sugarcane, corn husk, cream, and grass that were balanced by hints of toasted sweet corn, hay, vanilla, grilled lemon, almond, plum, sour apricot, and cooked zucchini.

There were some interesting aromas and flavors present in this tea, but unfortunately, they were often too delicate and subtle to hold my interest for any length of time. The tea liquor was usually more texture-heavy than anything, so people who spend a lot of time focusing on the texture of a tea’s liquor would be likely to get a lot out of this particular tea. I tend to focus more on aromas and flavors than texture, so perhaps this tea was just not one that was meant to be appreciated by someone like me. In the end, I’m glad I tried this tea, but I also doubt I would go out of my way to try any further productions of it.

Flavors: Almond, Apricot, Butter, Corn Husk, Cream, Cucumber, Grain, Grass, Hay, Honey, Honeydew, Lemon, Malt, Marshmallow, Mineral, Oats, Pine, Plum, Smoke, Spinach, Squash Blossom, Sugarcane, Vanilla, Vegetal, Zucchini

Preparation
6 g 4 OZ / 118 ML

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My grading criteria for tea is as follows:

90-100: Exceptional. I love this stuff. If I can get it, I will drink it pretty much every day.

80-89: Very good. I really like this stuff and wouldn’t mind keeping it around for regular consumption.

70-79: Good. I like this stuff, but may or may not reach for it regularly.

60-69: Solid. I rather like this stuff and think it’s a little bit better-than-average. I’ll drink it with no complaints, but am more likely to reach for something I find more enjoyable than revisit it with regularity.

50-59: Average. I find this stuff to be more or less okay, but it is highly doubtful that I will revisit it in the near future if at all.

40-49: A little below average. I don’t really care for this tea and likely won’t have it again.

39 and lower: Varying degrees of yucky.

Don’t be surprised if my average scores are a bit on the high side because I tend to know what I like and what I dislike and will steer clear of teas I am likely to find unappealing.

Location

KY

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