2017 Fuck What You Heard

aroma of steamed leaves in warmed teapot were very soothing, blend between young sheng turning corner into a semi-aged sheng. no aroma from brewed tea. liquor was too thin and watery for the price of this tea that’s advertised as “thick”. however it was smooth in the throat with no catch. flavor was green/vegetable not complex and weak/light flavor. No huigan, no kuwei, no calming, chaotic chi. whatever blend was used doesn’t seem cohesive. The energy is just as disjointed and chaotic. It was pushing my stomach into my solar plexus, and causing a discomfort, like when you have that feeling of a pit in your stomach, but it was moving upwards. Not much flavor or sweetness. Not my cup of tea. Objectively, its also not worth the current price of $249/200g. Its not so much of a flawed tea, just didn’t deliver. W2T seems to randomly/arbitrarily increase prices every year but sometimes you have to ask why isn’t the price going down, like on a tea like this? Maybe its at a weird transitional spot, is all I can think of if I wanted to be an optimist

This tea is too expensive for anyone to get it solely for this purpose, but here’s the thing. I don’t have a good reaction to it during gong fu sessions, but even 3 grams of spent leaves added to a 500ml pot of more spent leaves brewed grandpa style really elevates the brew and gives it a great energy. :shrug: Maybe this tea just gets good results from straight up boiling?

In contrast to The Oolong Drunk below, I brewed this one at boiling, like I pretty much always do for young sheng. Like him, I found it thick and full of strong qi; however, at boiling, the flavor was anything other than delicate. The front taste fills the mouth with a low-register savoriness that retains hints of prickly tartness even into some of the later steeps; the first steep or two had a distinct hint of orange buried somewhere in there, but that quickly drops. Initially, there’s almost no bitterness, even at boiling, with the finish lingering and sweet. However, somewhere by the fifth steep or so, this finish gets replaced with a long, drying bitterness not unlike the bitter orange of marmalade. Ordinarily, I’d find this off-putting (marmalade is one of the few bitter things I actively dislike), but it mingles well enough with the other flavors that I find myself enjoying it.

On the whole, this is a complex, durable tea that’d almost be worth trying for the heavy, calming qi alone. That said, while I can’t quibble with the quality, the flavor profile isn’t quite to my taste and, at the asking price, I don’t think I’d get a bing. Definitely worth trying, though, and I wouldn’t fault anyone who purchased it.

uck What You Heard was a tea that was exceptionally delicate, and with a lower brewing temperature, more of these delicate tasting notes were able to come out. One thing I like about this tea was its complexity, which came as a surprise. Another thing I like about this tea was its strength, and had great body and energy. Hell, even at one point, it started to taste like a white tea!

You can read my full review here…

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/2017/09/24/Fuck-What-You-Heard-By-White2Tea