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“Did 3 rinses because the first sip post 2 rinses was utterly devoid of flavor. To be fair, I did not time them. I recommend double length steeps for this or maybe just grandpa, because it does not...” Read full tasting note
“Decided to do more reviewing of this tea as it is quite likely to be the last cold rainy day I will see for five or six months and I don’t see myself drinking something this rich, thick, and dark...” Read full tasting note
This tasty little brick brews smooth and creamy. The material is from 2017 Menghai area leaf. The wodui was processed in Menghai in early 2018 and was overseen by the same expert who worked on Stormbreaker. This is a full leaf blend. Wodui was stopped around 65% and this brick has good potential for aging.
Toss this in your bag when you’re out and about with friends. Use your favorite portable tea brewer and go explore. Take it everywhere you go. This tea is ready to travel.
Use 5-10 grams of leaves and brew with 75-150ml ( 2.5-5oz ) of water at or near boiling. Rinse twice for a few seconds each. Start with quick steeps under 10s. With each re-steep adjust the steep time to your taste.
There is a discount for buying more than one brick.
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Did 3 rinses because the first sip post 2 rinses was utterly devoid of flavor. To be fair, I did not time them. I recommend double length steeps for this or maybe just grandpa, because it does not seem to reward the focus lavished upon a tea during a gongfu session. It has no off flavors, but also not much discernable personality for now. We are evidently not yet close enough friends to go off on a road trip together. 7 was a minute long but only yielded a faint added note of caramel. I will have to try this again some other time to be sure, but as of this morning I am not too excited about it.
Tried the steep I left sitting since the morning. It was nearly black and tasted of cocoa. My guess is if you brew this grandpa in a thermos and take it on the road, you will get a crowdpleasing neutral chocolatey thing, but I am a weirdo and like both my politicians and teas to challenge me with strong and detailed opinions. In that regard, this tea fails me, but that’s just me. You may love it.
Flavors: Caramel, Cocoa, Coffee, Metallic, Wet Wood
Decided to do more reviewing of this tea as it is quite likely to be the last cold rainy day I will see for five or six months and I don’t see myself drinking something this rich, thick, and dark very often till this autumn.
I put 3.5 grams in a 60ml gaiwan (though it actually measures closer to 50ml). I measure out 40ml of water with a graduated cylinder and boil each steep seperately using a 1/2liter electric kettle. It takes about 15 to 20 seconds to bring 40ml to a boil. I do my water this way almost always when brewing gong fu. I don’t understand why no one else does this and why they boil a big jug of water and let it cool off and boil it again etc. My water technique is very good for having a smooth and steady flow to a session and for upping or lowering the temp on the fly (I tend to start hong cha at crab eye and work my way up to full boil during the session). It’s also good for making sure the water doesn’t get overboiled and lose it’s structure.
After the first rinse I let the tea sit with gaiwan lid on for five minutes or however long it takes for the brick pieces to loosen up. Next I grab the tea and use a bamboo pick to fully break apart the all the leaves. One benefit of this is that the tea will leave a noticable smell on my fingertips which helps me get to know a tea very well. With this tea being so young it of course left some pile smell on my hands but not too funky. Pretty damn clean actually. Second rinse washes away any dust or cloudiness.
This tea gets going pretty strong right away. It’s a dark inky one for sure. Very rich, thick and creamy with a touch of dry aftertaste. The flavor on this tea is big. Big chocolate cherry sweet syrupy awesomness. If you are looking for camphor and chen xiang then find another tea cause you won’t find it here.
I get 5 to 7 dark steeps depending on how hard I push the tea plus several more woody slightly green steeps after.
