100C, 5g/100mL.
Again, received from fidgetiest, I’m uploading a few tasting notes tonight.
The rinsed leaves smell like smoke and green hay to me. On first steep, I just wrote “whoa” and then skipped to the next page apparently. This is thick and rich, not quite like anything I’ve had before but this is my first aged sheng. I wrote down that this smells like wet wood and citrus rinds. Steep 2, this is definitely bitter, but no astringency until like 5 minutes later when my mouth suddenly dried up.
Steep 3: formaldehyde, cinnamon and ginger, the latter two are definitely more pleasant than the first which just reminds me of anatomy lab.
Thankfully by steep 4, I’m getting sweetness, astringency, but no sour acid refluxiness like other shengs give me which is a plus. I also felt like I was floating, feeling light.
By steep 6, most of the taste was in the nose, ether retronasal or aroma though nothing was left in the cup afterwards which I found very odd.
Started to become just sweet+bitter melon by steep 8 but I kept going through and past 13 when I also noted some sort of waffle-cone-y notes, as well as sugarcane and rum.
A really interesting session overall.
Flavors: Astringent, Bitter Melon, Cinnamon, Ginger, Hay, Rum, Smoke, Sugarcane
It’s really fun reading your thoughts on teas I sent you!
fidgetiest, you enabler…..
I’m enjoying them! Just letting a couple of them rest for another week or two. I probably should have waited on this guy too but i was just too impatient
Hahaha enabling is the best! If you ever develop a taste for younger sheng I’d be happy to send over a bunch of little gifties!
(you = brutusk. I mean, I’d be thrilled to send gifties to you=mrmopar too but I get the sense you know more, have tasted more, own more, understand more, &c, than me :)