This cake is a nice piece of sunshine conserved in Chinese leaf. Youle has easily become one of my favourite areas, I like its bittersweet taste, changeable profile, it is never boring and as far as I can say thanks to my brand new experience, it ages nicely.
As I do not have much experience with aged tea, I really cannot say much about its expected characteristics. I can only tell that to me, it tasted almost like some lighter excellent shupu. It is rather sweet and earthy, less fruity and flowery but still sweet. It smells wonderful, like a mixture of old wet leaves and soil with all its richness and beauty.
Drinking this tea, I enjoy the sweetness which turns into bittersweet aftertaste at the back of the tongue. I left the leaf longer than I usually do as I wanted to taste the whole potential of the tea, it reacted nicely. When steeped longer, the amount of bitterness develops and brings with a tone of bitter almond.
To read the whole tea session review, see the blog:
http://teadropping.blogspot.com/2011/12/1998-cnnp-youle-qiaomu.html
