Moonlight White 2011 Pressed Cake

I joined the verdant tomc back in Nov. I sample each month’s selections, & then I hoard them. It’s a habit I’ve been trying to break, in more than one area of my life. So as of a few weeks ago, I’m trying to make an effort to work my way through my entire stash, including the TOMC. Today I’m focusing on November, & this is one of the teas from that offering.

I’ve reviewed it before, & while I was sipping it today, I made a few notes in my tea journal (I have journals for everything).
dry smell of canned milk
wet smell of winter squash
steeped: mildly sweet, soothing, tastes like carmelized winter squash.
After drinking through several steepings, I checked my notes on steepster from previous steepings, & I’m pleased to say that they were pretty much the same!

Thanks so much to Boxermama for parting with a bit of this one! This is one of the reserve offerings that I was most interested in trying, as I seem to have a taste for white pu’erhs.

I didn’t really follow any instructions for this… just kind of winged it. I used maybe about a tsp of leaf, and gave it a 10s rinse with boiling water before 1 min infusion. I have to say… it definitely needed more time. Maybe an extra minute. There’s flavour in there, and I’m pretty sure it’s flavour I like, but the cup has too much hot water flavour. And some random minerally flavour, that I’m hoping is from the water. Or something.

Anyhow, hopefully tomorrow or Sunday I’ll steep this one a bit more and see where it goes! Thanks Boxermama :)

I got my first Tea of the Month box from Verdant today! I already have some of the other two (Silver Buds Yabao and Golden Fleece), but am happy to have more, and this one was entirely new. And entirely unique! The dry leave is very pretty, large flakes off of what was clearly a cake, silvery white and green and some almost black.

The early steeps were more like a normal, if strong and complex, white tea – floral, smooth, mouth-filling. I’ve steeped about a dozen times now though, and it’s getting quite dark and caramelly as I let it steep longer. It’s like a cross between white tea and roasted oolong, or yunnan buds. I can see why this was paired with the Golden Fleece, the later steeps are quite similar. But this is more vegetal – I’m definitelygetting the winter squash flavors.

Very interesting!

I was so ecstatic when I found out that I got Moonlight White tea in my tea of the month package. Ever since I heard about this tea and it’s unique process to make it I have wanted to try it.

Ok, sadly I don’t have a little scale so I just took out a chunk of tea that look likes it would be about 5 grams; I need to get one soon.

Dry leaf Smell: Sweet and light, almost a little earthy woodiness, but faint.

Wet Leaf Smell: This smells so interesting. It smells really sweet, slight dampness and like honey!

Wet leaf look: While most of the leafs had turned brown, there were some that stayed pitch black and super crispy with a slight fuzzy texture…….. interesting.

1st Steep: Sweet light crisp effervescent tingle. very white tea like. Floral as well. Slightest coco malt flavor whit an after taste of pine dew???? Smooth texture, is that the linen maybe.

2nd Steep: Still effervescent tingle. spicy maybe. Very fresh and floral. The Pine dew taste is stronger. Slight coco malt aftertaste that mixes with the dewy tastes. Honey flavor maybe.
Slightly cooled malt coco a little stronger. Still very floral, fresh, sweet and dewy. Mouth is left slightly dry.

3rd Steep: Malty coco is more stronger now but fresh crisp floral taste is still there. Also the dewy aftertaste.

4th Steep: I am detecting a spicy tingly feeling left on my tongue after drinking a lot of this tea. It still taste crisp refreshing with a bit of malt

5th Steep: It is tasting more black- teas -ish then white-ish, but there is a nice floral sweet crisp after taste after the malt coco with the persistence of pin dew.

6th Steep: I did a longer steep about 40 seconds. Even more black tea flavor. It has strong nice honey malt flavor yet with that nice dewy peppery piney crisp after taste.

7th Steep: 1 minuet steep. Very strong dewy pine crisp flavor with light coco malt, and an aftertaste of dew and apples. It is kinda like yabbo in a way, but much stronger and fuller body,

8th Steep: 45sec to water tasting to me. Guess I have to go with western brewing from here

9th Steep: 2 minuet: a lot of the white tea flavor is gone. It has a strong black tea honey flavor to it. There is still a somewhat effervescent and sweet after taste.
Cooled a little. even more strong black tea flavor, but still a pinch of crisp floralness. Also there is some maltyness and bit of astringency, but not bad.

At this point I am going to drink some green teas that I need to log in, so I am going to cold brew the rest of this.

P.S. The liquor color started of pale brownish yellow, but quickly got darker over the steeps and was a nice orangey brown.

P.S.2 I also did a quick rinse.

I would recommend this tea who likes experimental tea and woody tea.
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Specifics
Water: 4-6 oz
Leaf: 5-6 Grams maybe?
Pot: Porcelain
Steep Time: started at 10 secs and added 3 each steep

cake

Appearance: pressed dry calico cake, large leaf sage, whites, mix of browns
Aroma when Dry: lightly honey, herby sweet
After water is first poured: desserty, syurpy vanilla and nutty notes
At end of first steep: vanilla syrup
Tea liquor:
At end of steep: clear
Staple? No
Preferred time of day: unsure, first tasting
Taste:
At first?: light mineral and linen notes
As it cools?: adds bit of a cocoa note, metallic tang and buttery smooth close
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? Yes, the mineral and metallic notes get cloying as it cools

This is my favorite white tea so far. I wouldn’t have identified this as white tea because I have only had experience with silver needle whites and fruity white teas before this one.

The tea is very sweet and the flavor reminds me of honey. The liquor is dark in color, somewhat like a dark oolong.

This tea always lasts me many steepings. I brew this at about 208F with 4 oz. of leaf in a 4 oz. gaiwan. I start at about 8 seconds and go up a few seconds at a time from there after the first few steepings.

Came with my first tea-of-the-month package on Christmas. Steeping temperature was slightly cooler than boiling (wait 5 seconds and pour from a bit higher than normal). Just enough water to cover leaves-start steeping at ~10 seconds and by the end step as long as 30-40s.
I’ve only had a couple white teas, and I’m beginning to think that I’m not a big fan of white tea in general. This one, though, has more flavor than the white teas I’ve had before. There’s a pretty substantial astringency, and early steepings had a lot of that damp woodsy mulch flavor. Later on with longer steeps, the smell becomes amazing and almost sweet (I think I’ve tasted a hint of something similar in an oolong I’ve had)- it takes a while for that particular flavor to come through the astringent texture and dominant damp-wood flavor, but it gets there. I definitely prefered the later steepings.
Overall it’s a very interesting tea—a little more astringent than I prefer but the flavor is a sort of changing mix of the simpler tea flavors I’m used to.

Ze_Teamaker was kind enough to send me a sample of this. Thank you so much.
WOW. This is what I’ve been searching for in a moonlight tea. It starts out light, juicy, fruity, a little earthy, and totally amazing. As you steep it, it just keeps getting darker and darker. It’s still a little earthy, and juicy but it’s getting deeper and more savory. I used boiling water and started with flash steeps, still only at 15 sec by steeps 7 and 8. This is a fantastic example of a moonlight tea.

https://instagram.com/p/4NmhcMuE71/?taken-by=dex3657

Hmm, I must have screwed this one up. Tastes very bland to me. According to other people’s notes it sounds like maybe I need to try again. Oh well.

Thanks Terri!