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“Sipdown! (67 | 271) My swap sample of this was actually from the 2019 pressing, but that doesn’t seem to exist on the white2tea website or Steepster, so I’ll leave the note here. Steeped the little...” Read full tasting note
“I haven’t had many Moonlight Whites but I think it’s a style I really like. I think this is the youngest one I’ve tried so far. It’s perhaps not as smooth and creamy as older ones I’ve had but it’s...” Read full tasting note
“Gongfu! As I’ve shared previously, I’ve been having tea outside lately either on a hill a few blocks from my house or in this construction-ish area with a bunch of overgrowth; but yesterday I...” Read full tasting note
The 2020 Moon Waffles is a shade dried Yunnan white tea with a bud heavy picking standard.
A bright and floral fresh white tea with a supple sweetness and creamy, heavy body. Delicious tea at a great price.
Cakes are pressed into a tight waffle shape that can be easily broken apart without a pick or tea needle.
Each cake is 200g.
Sipdown! (67 | 271)
My swap sample of this was actually from the 2019 pressing, but that doesn’t seem to exist on the white2tea website or Steepster, so I’ll leave the note here.
Steeped the little chunk using 200°F water for 10, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90s.
It was tasty! Very smooth and creamy with nice sweet hay and rolled oat flavors. Some stonefruit notes came out a couple of steeps in, giving it more of a peaches ‘n’ cream sort of feel. I also got a little floral hint at the end of the sip, which was nice.
I feel like I don’t have a good palate for these aged white teas, as they always taste similar to me and I didn’t detect much shift in flavor during the session. Next time I’ll have to remember to try grandpa style instead.
I haven’t had many Moonlight Whites but I think it’s a style I really like. I think this is the youngest one I’ve tried so far. It’s perhaps not as smooth and creamy as older ones I’ve had but it’s still pretty tasty and might improve with age. The waffle shape of the cake makes it super easy to “measure” out a chunk without picks and scales, a definite plus for travel, lazy days or people who don’t yet have an arsenal of tea tools.
I put a couple of squares in my gongfu bottle and enjoyed this tea all day while I cooked and cleaned. I didn’t really keep track of how many steeps or precisely time them. It took several steeps for the squares to come apart. There are nice fruity white tea flavors and some steeps had a hint of that sort of creamy vanilla flavor I’ve gotten from other Moonlights and absolutely love. More careful brewing might be able to bring out that flavor a bit more. I seem to get a zillion steeps out of Moonlights and this one isn’t any different. Although I did take some breaks between steeps, this tea lasted me literally all day. It’ll be a good one for times when there’s not a convenient place to dump dead tea leaves because it never dies. It’s the energizer bunny of teas. This tea, a gongfu bottle and a big thermos of hot water is all you need for hours and hours of delicious tea.
I think I’m going to need at least one more cake of Moon Waffles because I want to keep drinking it now but I also want to see how it ages. The struggle of wanting to re-order EVERYTHING but also be able to afford to try new teas…
Gongfu!
As I’ve shared previously, I’ve been having tea outside lately either on a hill a few blocks from my house or in this construction-ish area with a bunch of overgrowth; but yesterday I decided to venture further out to one of the two parks that I live near. The one I went to is the slightly father one, but it’s significantly smaller and less crowded than the other – which is actually the biggest park in the city.
I was shocked that it was practically abandoned, aside from a few people jogging laps around the track field and what looked like a couple having a picnic on the top of the large hill in the center of the park. So, I situated myself in the dugout of the baseball field, where there was some shade and a bunch of pea plants growing on the mesh on the back of the seats…
I was so excited when I saw that W2T was doing a compressed white tea version of their Waffles series; Waffles is one of the most approachable shou that I’ve come across – and obviously the tea is gonna be quite different because it’s a different type of tea altogether, but it still has the unique waffle cut compression shape that makes portioning it out a breeze.
The dry leaf smells great; macerated strawberries and brown sugar!! Sweet and fruity even through both layers of wrapping, but so much more intense when you unwrap it. It’s also just a beautiful cake in general; lots of contrast visually between the leaves and the buds and you can clearly see many much larger leaves pressed into the cake.
Steeped I’m getting hints of brown sugar and molasses but the taste is primarily creamy lemon and soft florals. It does still have a brightness to it, especially from those more lemony fruity notes – but it delicately weaves the line between a light bodied tea and something more medium bodied and rich. The mouthfeel is very smooth. It’s pretty strong and possibly over leafed, but I did snap as small a piece off the edge as possible because I was using a 50ml gaiwan. In a way you could say I “ordered off the kids menu” for this one!!
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CCPOMWFArNs/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bt2HXrj0oc
