Supreme Fuding Aged Dragon Ball

From the EU TTB – Round 3

I’ve never tried white tea dragon balls before, so this was a must-experience! The compressed leaves are mostly dark brown/black, although there are a couple of silver buds evident on the surface. There are also some leaves, so I’m guessing this is a pai mu tan style white. The scent is sweet and a little malty, with a light mushroom note that reminds me of Teavivre’s Xi Gui Ancient Tree Raw Pu-erh. I’m brewing western style at work, so I used 1 ball (they are seriously large!), and gave it 3 minutes in water cooled to around 170 degrees. The ball is still tightly rolled, and nowhere close to unravelling.

To taste, it’s pleasantly sweet with a touch of hay and a light floral note. Pretty standard white tea, in other words. I think more steeps are required!

Second steep, and the ball is just starting to unravel a little. It’s still fairly tightly rolled, however. The liquor this time is a little darker, with an almost greenish tinge. It smells more strongly floral (peony), but tastes very similar to the first steep. Sweet, with notes of hay and a light floral.

Third steep, and it’s unravelled a little further. It’s still a ball, though, except now bits are sticking out! The liquor has retained its greenish cast, and is otherwise unchanged in flavour, although it has taken on a slight creaminess.

I’m sure this one would be good for many, many more steeps, but I’m running out of time at work. I guess I’ll have to call it a day here for now, but this is definitely one I’d be happy to try again in the future, should the opportunity arise.

Quick review as I’m playing Pokemon Sapphire while I try this tea. This was a random tea purchase from AliExpress, I don’t remember trying this tea before as white is not a favourite of mine, but it was cheap enough for me to give it a go. £2.34 for 50g – roughly 10 balls.

I used 2 balls which are large and made of dark brown and silver tipped leaves. They have a sweet yet wooden scent. I used 2 balls as the instructions says to try 3 or 4 in a gaiwan, that would fill my gaiwan with no room to expand so 2 balls roughly 10g should suffice.

Flavour has mild sweetness with a touch of malt and wood. The balls are not breaking down easy, even after a two minute steep. But the flavour does get a little stronger over time. It’s like a black tea, it’s super sweet and malty…I didn’t think this was possible for a white tea.

It’s pretty nice but I just wish the balls would break down a bit…perhaps a few steeps should sort this out. Otherwise the flavour is very pleasant and to my taste. So far, so good.