Sipdown! (15 | 51)
This has been my latest tea of the morning. I love how the chonks look like tuocha, because they’re chubby round pucks that were broken off of a long cylinder (this tea is compressed inside a length of bamboo and roasted). I actually broke up the chunks and steeped this Western-style. The last piece was quite hard, so I ended up leaving it in bigger pieces, and it still steeped up quite similarly to the other cups. Definitely a low-maintenance tea, to be sure.
It’s nice as a morning cuppa. As hongcha goes, it’s definitely on the stronger side, which makes sense given the name. But it’s still supremely smooth. Taste is primarily earthy and woody, I assume partially from the bamboo. My palate is certainly not refined enough to be able to tell the difference between the natural woody notes of the tea and the bamboo flavor. Regardless, it’s a nicely aromatic woodiness and there’s a bit of a toasty flavor as well, along with plenty of malt and small touches of dried apricot and honey.
Definitely a pleasant tea, I would put it in the daily drinker category. But, for me at least, the price is a bit on the high side for a daily drinker, so I probably wouldn’t order a full size of this one.
Flavors: Apricot, Bamboo, Dried Fruit, Earthy, Hay, Honey, Malty, Mineral, Musty, Savory, Smooth, Sweet, Thick, Toasty, Woody
