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Lots of lovely cedar wood for the first few steeps, with a some pleasantly tart stonefruit adding interest around the back edges of my tongue. Really nice cool cedar aftertaste, though it didn’t last as long as I’d like.

Then it went through a bit of a brief hay/straw/fruitier phase with a softer almost floral aftertaste, before getting mellower and richer and smoother and losing the aftertastes as it wound down.

I’m really sleepy now, but I can’t tell if it’s the tea or just that I woke up too early this morning and have been tired all day anyways. There was a moment halfway through where I felt facial pressure like my cheekbones were trying to push their way out through my skin, but it passed fairly quickly.

I tried the gold dragon ball today:

It started out tasting like flowers and green herbs together, nice backbone of bitterness, really intensely flavorful. The aftertaste quickly turns cool at the tip of my tongue and the front roof of my mouth, while I continue to feel those big flavors deeper in my throat. After a short delay, my throat starts to turn cool and almost numbing, too. This tea tastes like a big burly guy dressed in some sort of delicate Brian Froud faerie costume and pulling it off in a super sexy study in contrasts sort of way.

The next few steeps were more bitter and dry brown medicinal herbal instead of green fresh herbal. Verging on exhilarating old books. Fuzzy numb tongue after. Dry thick herbiness sticking to tongue, my throat feeling tight.

Later steeps mellowed out in rich savory bean broth. Not much aftertaste or astringency anymore, just savory yums with eventually some bitter vegetal notes joining in.

I got a lot of housework and stuff done in between steeps – it kept me chill and productive and happy for hours and hours today. Might have to grab a few more.

I got a sample of the 2017 version.

Gongfu’d at home, 1g:15ml, 200F:

There was a bit of toastiness with the first steep and then the rest were big flowers with just enough tangy salt blown on them to keep things interesting, with sometimes a surge of salt/acid immediately afterwards, always finally fading into a long lingering sweetness.

By the 6th steep or so, my mouth had gone pleasantly fuzzy.

I didn’t get much energy or flavor transformations, but it was enjoyable to drink, just sort of endless flowers growing near distant ocean breezes.

Grandpa-style at work:

Started out as slightly spicy wood with some flowers, then settled down eventually into sweet straw for the rest of the afternoon.

Deep forests, happily not too dank. A trace of chocolate for the first couple steeps, too. Huigan is fairly mild, but ohhhh I’ve felt dreamy since the second steep or so. Not much of a flavor journey here, but I’m finding the qi strong so who cares – it’s just floaty dreamy forests forever.

quick rinse, smells sweet and strongly of GUAVA, of all things

7s: Still smelling guava, but mixed with something else now. Light sweet barnyard orchid guava? The infusion is very pale, and the taste is, well, light sweet barnyard orchid guava. Truth in sniffs right there. Faint dryness after, just the barest pinching in of the cheeks, and after a delay the tightness fades out and cool breath fades in.

12s: The scent is now floral straw, the guava seems to be gone. There’s a brief roughness across the roof of my mouth with the sip, and then again with the pinched cheeks but now they’re kinda sticky (which has bothered me in other teas but for some reason I’m kinda into it this time). This time my cheeks stay a bit sticky even when after a delay the brief huigan comes in.

15s/17s: A bit of the guava has returned to the scent, and finally even hit the flavor a bit! The texture is a bit astringent from the start of the sip now, but the huigan is coming in sooner after and feels more floral. I wish it lasted longer. I think my lips are vibrating.

20s/26s/30s: Hay with slowly decreasing flowers. The texture is maybe a bit less sticky dry than before, instead getting just barely a bit fuzzy now. Feeling sort of little muscle twitches at various places around my body. Jumped up after each steep to do chores around the house. Definitely more of a bwee! tea than a sneepy tea.

40s: This is the first bitterness I’ve gotten from this tea. Not really sharp, a sort of floral scented front-loaded dull bitterness that’s fading into into slightly stickyfuzzy cheeks and oh hey the sweetness afterwards is going further down my throat now. Then it finally lingers for longer as sort of an airy floral note by the roof of my mouth.

50s/1min/80s/2min/5min: Floral hay, with vegetal bitterness getting a bit stronger each time (still fairly mild, though), and flowers in the huigan. Could go longer, but gonna stop now just because I’m hungry.

30s rinse, then tried to press the gaiwan lid into it (uselessly), smells a bit sweet. Then I followed the actual instructions and waited for a few minutes before trying to press the lid into the ball again, at which point I was able to basically break it in half with the lid.

30s: Weirdly long, but the instructions recommend that for the first steep to finish breaking it up before brewing normally afterwards. Looks cloudy. For the first time, I’m totally getting what folks describe as “beany”. No other word fits better. (I want the Rancho Gordo folks to try this tea!) Smooth, and there’s a nice huigan that shows up eventually.

9s: Even beanier, with a bit of vegetal bitterness adding some interest. This is so weird and savory, a light but flavorful bean broth. I think this is the best go I’ve had at a dragon ball, gotta remember that this really is the right technique! Makes me more open to them, though I still dislike how big they are (I often prefer 4g to 8g when drinking alone!).

15s: Notably more bitter. It’s not overwhelming, more like instead of plain beans I’m having collards and beans for breakfast. It’s actually pretty yummy, in an unusual way. Maybe I should make actual beans with collards and pork for dinner, that’s sounding really good right about now. After the sip, there’s way more sweetness in the back of my throat than before, and very light stonefruit in the gently cool huigan. I keep liking it more and more.

20: A bit less beany, maybe some… citrus? And the start of mild astringency, very light mouth fuzziness and then brief stickiness.

25s: The citrus is early in the sip, then it’s beans again, and the astringency is getting a bit stronger. The end of the cup as it cooled a bit had some more bitterness, briefly. Then, again, sweetness in the back of the throat and maybe an earthier cool breath after.

30s: The savoriness has become just sort of a muted base. Some citrus remains. The fuzzy stickiness remains mild but present. The ending bitterness goes further down my throat, takes a bit to fade into moderate dryness. My forehead is starting to feel a bit heavy.

Later steeps became sort of citrusy (but without being sour!), with everything else about it becoming less intense. I didn’t get much energy or body feels aside from that bit of head heaviness, but I really liked the flavor and the aftertaste for a while there and could imagine maybe grabbing a few more at some point just for the yums.

This one started out with light bitterness in the front, then gentle deep flowers on the exhale. It felt SO BIG – it’s not that the liquid is thick, exactly, it’s that the lingering aroma in my mouth felt like huge flowers physically just crowding my mouth full. I felt like I was suffocating on giant petals, and what a way to go!

In later steeps, the bitterness lingered a bit longer and the aftertaste got correspondingly sweeter. Eventually I started getting a touch of woodsiness in the sip, some fuzziness in the mouth, and the aftertaste lost its flowers and moved towards sweet straw.

tldr so very worth it for the bizarre and beautiful sensation of a mouth crammed full of enormous flowers.

1 rinse, smells sweet and light

8s: Salty! A little buzzy feeling on the tongue, like licking a battery. Light woods linger, not actually particularly sweet but pretty nice. Texture was fairly soft.

12s: Still super salty and more clearly acidic. Roof of my mouth feels dry after, then oh hai huigan. Cool dry breath.

17s: Mostly the same, but a bit of woodsiness is the first flavor creeping in, and I feel like I’m starting to get overall buzzy too.

25s: Feeling wild-eyed. I don’t love the dry sensation, and the buzz is starting to veer a bit manic (though the huigan is getting milder). This one is purely about sensation and texture for me – I’m getting almost no flavor to speak of.

32s: Less salty by far, smoothing out, though some of the acidic buzziness remains.

40s: I’m stopping here because the dryness has reached my throat and is starting to bug me, and I don’t want to feel any more buzzed right now. I have a bit more sample and a dragon ball of this, think I’ll put them aside for a few years then check in again.

Last night I drank a sample I got from Liquid Proust, labelled only with “1998 dry-stored xiaguan”:

1 rinse, smells like smoke and forest

5 mississippis: smells overwhelmingly smoky, tastes like smoke and the way tobacco ash smells and light bitterness, what the heck is this stuff oh hey the aftertaste gets cool fast. I like this and don’t understand why.

10s: More distinctly charcoal smell and initial taste. I just found myself singing “what the f***… is this s**t? I don’t understand / but I think I might be happy!” I feel the charcoal down my throat. It’s lingering for ages, coolness in the throat and light charcoal breath on the exhale.

15s: Mostly same, except I think there’s something else trying to peek out from behind the charcoal, I just can’t figure out exactly what it is. Some sort of dark fruit, maybe?

20s/25s: I feel like I’m drinking the fire out [under the open grill at my parents’ beach house] once it’s down to smoldering coals and [my grandmother, who passed away a few years ago] is just sitting there watching the corn husks blacken into the night.

30s: A trace of something lively is coming in. I don’t think it’s bitterness? More of a texture thing maybe, a very mild astringency. This is not a sneepy tea despite its age – this is an alert tea. Not manic, just alert. Wish I’d tried it in a morning instead, but 20 years old felt so safe for late at night!

35s/40s: Smelling something.. sweet?… peeking out. Wat. Maybe straw? But not quite. God I’m so confused. The smoke has receded a bit.

45: A bit simpler. Back to tobacco maybe. Bet I could push it much further, but I gotta get to bed and it’s already been a lovely journey, full of charcoal and happiness. I really wish I could buy more of this, but it’s basically a mystery sample.

Here, have a copy of the notes I took for myself while I was trying my sample of this tea:

1 rinse

10s: Petrichor and gentle bitterness. I can smell honey and light woodsiness but not taste it. Warmth and a bit of roughness in the back of my throat. Immediately relaxing, which I desperately need this morning. Texture is soft.

15s: A bit less bitterness, a bit more woodsiness, otherwise pretty much the same. Oh, and texture is getting less soft and more oily – I’m starting to feel it coat my mouth. There’s not much flavor, it’s just a very calming experience. I think I could fall asleep to this tea pretty happily.

20s: Mostly same but getting sweeter, especially around my teeth afterwards. I shouldn’t have started this one before work, wish I had more time to push it.

25s: My ears just popped. That was weird. Maybe unrelated. Anyways, getting a bit more astringency I think. No, wait, my left ear definitely feels warmer inside. What is going on here.

35s: I think I just hit a floral note? Both my ears now feel like they’re filled with warm liquid, and my mouth is getting a bit fuzzy. It’s naptime, but I’m hella late for work. This is pretty decent tea, and I have erred.