First off, I’ve really wanted to try this tea for awhile! YS offers 2 options:
1 – the entire basket of tea, 450 Grams of tea, which looks so awesome, what a great presentation, but which would probably last my entire life, not to mention that I probably already have enough tea for 7 lifetimes…
2 – a sample…a 100gram sample, that is! That’s a huge sample!
Granted, it is not an incredibly expensive tea, but as much as I want that basket of tea, I also only want it if I’m going to drink it. So I started looking around to see if anybody had some.
This sample has a history, possibly more of a history than I know about, but what I do know is that it traveled from TeaExplorer’s cupboard to Boychik’s cupboard to Stephanie, & then to me!
I’ve been drinking it for about 3 hours, a couple of cups here & there. Visually it resembles a Shu puerh in shades of mahogony & brown. The dry aroma is of bamboo shot, hominy, & molasses. When I warmed up the leaf I smelled an earthy boston brown bread & buttered grits.
I gave it a rinse & started steeping. Immediately the flavor is sweet , kind of hominy-like, & has that minty ‘fresh’ quality. This continues into a few steepings, while the flavors of cedar & molasses arise. This is a lot like a Shu, but it’s also different in that it is sweeter, & the flavor profile is slightly different. There were a few cups that were creamy textured. Flavors I’ve picked out include cedar, bamboo shoots, sorghum, water chestnut, & that minty fresh quality. Right now it’s like a sweet spring water with a menthol after feel. I think I can get quite a few more steeps out of it, but that is all for tonight.
Thanks to everyone who passed this tea on, so that I got a chance to sample it :)
yay!