The first steeping brewed up quite light, a pale green-ish yellow, so I left the second steeping for two minutes instead of one and it worked out much more the sort of flavour that I was after. The colour of the liquor was still quite light compared with other oolongs, which isn’t surprising considering that baozhong/pouchong is the least oxidised of all oolongs.
The smell of this tea right after you pour the water on the leaves is distinctly vegetal, and yet there isn’t a lot of that in the taste. It’s very smooth to the taste at first, almost bland, but the further you get through the cup the stronger the character of this tea, without ever being astringent. The aftertaste is distinctive, quite strong and a not quite sharp mix of floral notes and… not quite sure how to describe the rest. About the best I can do is: strong (proportionally, considering the light nature of this tea) but not bitter.
I was only going to have two cups of this tonight, but writing this review has really put me in the mood for a third, so now I’m going off to put on the kettle!
