mr_mestopheles Send Message

Good, not great, TGY. Awesome for iced tho, and for a kinda big gong fu session.

iced: 8g tea, 240g water @195F for 4 min, pour over 200+ g ice

gong fu-ish: 8g tea, 150g water @195F. 1st steep for 1.5 min, then 30 sec for steep 2-4, then add 30 sec per steep

Had a hard time dialing this one in, but I think I got there.
only time for one steep: 7g tea, 16oz water @boil for 3min
multi steeps: 7g tea, 30 sec rinse with 195F water, 200 ml water for 1.5 min, add 30 sec per steep afterwards

Darker/more heavily oxidized oolong, nice sweet rounded notes of dried fruit competing with some damp woody and slight leather tannic notes

touch of bitterness in the grassy notes, finishes delightfully stone fruit-y

Two veeery different approaches to this one:
Western (6 g to 16oz water @205F for 3’) will give you very floral notes with touches of peach and nectarine on the back end.
Gong fu (6 g to 3.5 oz water @195F for 1.5 min, then 30 sec steeps afterwards) will give very vegetal front that flows into a very bread-y, cinnamon toast crunch-ish sort of finish.

Gorgeous cake, mix of leaves and buds that alternate between being almost white to a dark olive color. Medium compression, I think (I haven’t had much experiences with cakes yet, but it seemed pretty middle of the road), with the ability to break off some nice full leaves.

Recommend western steeping over gong fu, but y’all feel free to do your own thing. My default was 3g tea for 240ml water (8oz), 3 minutes the first steep and then add a minute to both steeps 2 and 3. That being said, I went as high as 9g for 240ml, and while it was a bit intense, it never developed any astringency.

For Gong Fu I tried 6g in 100ml, still at 175F, but for one reason or another I could never get it dialed in. As I really dug the western steeps, I eventually abandoned the attempts.