Amazing nuclear orange, the dry leaf is an agreeable generic sheng smell that does not accurate preview the result. This tea creeps up and hits you HARD. I thought I was doing fine until about steep 8, not really expecting anything much when I started dropping all the teaware all over the table and realized it was here, when did that happen?!?!
I’m still a bit tea drunk, I must admit, so this isn’t the most lucid review, but here’s my attempt. Opens up with a strong medicinal dried herb flavor and a bitter tinge that lingers and intensifies into an aftertaste something like hot concrete/dirty gravel after the swallow. This is the main flavor for a while, maybe a hint of camphor that plays with smoke, if you keep going for long enough, you’re rewarded with a surprising sweetness and a mellowed out version of the previously maybe too intense flavors, but the sweetness doesn’t really last too long.
Not a lot of throat coating or throat taste, this one has a bit of astringency that matches the bitterness to start, but stays more constant (which is to say, not ever all that much) while the bitter ramps up and then dies down throughout the brewing process. Overall, the taste wasn’t a favorite of mine, but it wasn’t wholly unpleasant either and calms down throughout the process which is fairly generous at around 15 steeps, I think, wasn’t counting, but when it’s done, it’s done, dropping off very steeply in flavor, which felt abrupt to me because of how strong it is in every aspect while it lasts. If you’re looking for a stoner tea on a budget, however, this one definitely caught me by surprise and clubbed me while I was looking, might be one to look at.
Flavors: Bitter, Herbs, Medicinal, Smoke
