Having had this tea a few times now, I’m getting a better sense of it. It’s youthful and loud yet subtle and deep. Complex fruity and astringent herbal flavors with balanced bitterness. Within that complexity, I get peeks of other tastes like clean, white fish meat and crackers. A mouth-filling, oily body and my throat feels full. Very cooling and with a moderate returning sweetness by the time later steeps come around. I really like the energy of this one — it’s centering and focusing with a feeling of oneness experienced in conjunction with the forceful outwardness of teas from the Menghai region. I was as comfortable standing erect as I was in a motherly position on the ground brushing mats out of the dog’s fur for an hour. I guess you could call the balanced effects of this tea ‘adaptive.’
This isn’t an oolong-y sheng despite the long list of impressions below, nor is it processed too green but I do think maybe I need to expose the rest of the sample to some humidity. If this weren’t sold out I’d probably buy a cake.
Flavors: Apricot, Astringent, Bitter, Bread, Cacao, Caramel, Cherry, Decayed Wood, Dry Grass, Earth, Eucalyptus, Flowers, Fruit Punch, Fruity, Ginger, Herbs, Jam, Licorice Root, Mineral, Mint, Orange, Paper, Passion Fruit, Pineapple, Plum, Raspberry, Smoke, Strawberry, Thyme, Umami, White Grapes, Wood
3 years later and they had a cake in stock again <3