White Peony
Little Red Cup tea
3.1 g, 130mL
180f brita filtered water
Dry leaves have a light basic white tea smell. Agreed with the reviewer who noted that the leaves were not of the best quality. Broken, crumbled, sort of dull and rather sad looking, which is disappointing for the price.
5s initial steep: wet leaves smell of smoke and hay, sort of dry
Tastes like a slightly medicinal white tea
Pleasantly slight sweet and refreshing aftertaste
11s: kind of bland. Getting a strong aftertaste reminiscent of celery but I had lunch before so not sure if that’s just that. (I had chicken quesadillas though and there was no celery involved)
18s: similar to before. Celery note still present.
1 min: all in on timing since I decided this was my last gongfu steep. Not much difference from previous steeps.
Tossed the rest of the leaves and rest of sample pack (1g) into a bottle to cold brew overnight.
Cold brew was refreshing and drinkable, which is just about any cold brew, so I’m not sure that says much.
Overall an aggressively mediocre tea, which is disappointing especially after seeing the packet description of a rich brew with honey and melon notes. Mouthfeel was on the thin side, felt a little thickened only when left to sit and cooled after gongfu steepings, certainly not what’d I’d describe as rich. Would not purchase again. Initially I thought I was too harsh in my review (since the 2 white teas I tried from W2T were so good), but it seems like others here have had similar experiences. This started off good and then was downhill and flatlined from there; the weird celery note did not help.
Flavors: Celery, Hay, Smoke, Sweet
