Himalayan Amber 2020 FF No.644

Found it!

I was stoked about this one. I haven’t had a first flush in close to a year, let alone Jun Chiyabari. I only had 5 grams of it, and I divided it up in 3 oz for some small cold brewing, and 2 grams for semi-gong fu and western.

I have only started it recently, not letting it exceed 30 seconds. It’s got some green woody bitterness and some typical first flush peppery astringency. You can read their notes too get an accurate idea of what you will have. It’s pretty green to me, bordering on being olive like with a bit of hoppy and citrusy zest. Woodsy camphor and balmy menthol definitely in there too. Tiger Balm was always citrusy for me anyway, so I’m not surprised. I actually didn’t camphor was a tree, and an oil used in balm, so it was cool to learn that. Every time I journey into more obscure teas, the more flower language and modicums of herbology I come across.

I’m still not finished with the tea yet, going through 1.5 minutes second time, and it’s more citrusy and blamy. Still twiggy.

I’ll have to write another note to see how far I get. I usually stop early with first flushes because of their astringency, but this one has very oolong like, so we’ll see.

… next morning, and the leaves smell too bitter and astringent for me. I disposed of those, and then retrieved my cold brew from the fridge. So much smoother. Citrus, orange, creamy, floral, refreshing and juicy in layers. Sip starts out honeysuckle, then light orange blossom, full on citrus, light spice, and creamy, juicy finish. Tasted like orange or lemon water. Yeah, this one was significantly better cold brew for me.

Overall rating is above an 80. High quality tea, and definitely for first flush lovers, though cold brew is the easy way to go. Despite drinking tea for over 20 years, I still like the more flavor forward teas. I’m so thankful to get to try this sample. I cannot recommend Zhao Zhou enough.