This was another of my more recent sipdowns. I’m trying to get some reviews of a few teas I drank recently out of the way because my 2022 notebook is falling apart. Each time a page falls out, I prioritize posting whichever reviews are contained on that particular page. I’m sure this notebook would have held up better if my cats didn’t love to wallow it so much. Anyway, this was the most recent Zhangping Shui Xian offered by What-Cha. In general, I find Zhangping Shui Xian to be very hit or miss, but this was a great one.
I prepared this tea gongfu style. After rinsing the 8 gram cake for 10 seconds in 165 fluid ounces of 194 F water, I kicked off the fun part of my drinking session with a 10 second infusion. This initial infusion was chased by 18 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the tea cake emitted aromas of cream, butter, custard, gardenia, violet, bread, and orange blossom. After the rinse, aromas of grass, sugarcane, and vanilla emerged. The first infusion then added a slight lettuce scent. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered up subtle notes of grass, cream, butter, sugarcane, bread, orange blossom, and vanilla that were backed by hints of lilac, lettuce, gardenia, violet, custard, and orange zest. The majority of the subsequent infusions added aromas of orchid, lilac, honey, orange zest, daylily, and apple to the tea’s bouquet. Stronger and more immediately detectable impressions of lettuce, violet, custard, lilac, and orange zest appeared in the mouth alongside notes of apple, pear, plum, cucumber, minerals, daylily, and white grape. I also picked up on extremely pleasant hints of orchid, honey, white peach, apricot, snap peas, daylily shoots, caramel, and butterscotch. As the tea faded, the liquor continued to offer dominant notes of minerals, apple, orange zest, bread, lettuce, grass, cucumber, and sugarcane that were chased by fleeting hints of butter, white grape, plum, violet, daylily, daylily shoots, snap peas, gardenia, lilac, orange blossom, cream, and caramel.
Zhangping Shui Xian can often be gritty, prickly, astringent, and somewhat bitter, but this was a very smooth, elegant offering with tremendous balance. Had I not already known that this was a premium cake, it would have been easy to tell as the quality of the tea leaves used in its production was clearly very high. Normally, tea cakes will be layered so that the highest quality and most intact leaf material is at the top, effectively hiding the lower grade material below it, but that was not the case with this particular cake. It produced very little grit, and most of the leaves seemed to be intact. Overall, this tea was a winner and a wonderful example of what Zhangping Shui Xian tends to offer at its best. I wish I had picked up more than one cake.
Flavors: Apple, Apricot, Bread, Butter, Butterscotch, Caramel, Cream, Cucumber, Custard, Floral, Gardenias, Grass, Honey, Lettuce, Lilac, Mineral, Orange Blossom, Orange Zest, Orchid, Peach, Pear, Peas, Plum, Sugarcane, Vanilla, Vegetal, Violet, White Grapes
Wow!!! The flavors!!!