Dry – Sweet, plummy, woody-vegetal(green), faint floral.
Wet – Sweet, plummy, Thick(in brothy way), savory-bitter, wood-raisins, honey, tart berries and stone fruits >> Later develops a bit of tobacco notes.
1st 4secs – Sweet, thick, vegetal with corn in butter notes, followed by melon/white peach sweetness and very mellow floral (with vegetal) with a tongue numbing thickness and mouth watering bitterness.
2nd 7secs – Sweet, thick(but meh), some vegetal notes but mostly sweet followed by a melon sweetness and a gentle bitterness that waters the mouth(very apparent, yet not aggressive, it lingers for a long time and lodges in the back of the tongue), some astringency. The aftertaste reminded me of the aftertaste of clementines.
3rd 7secs – Sweet, thick, vegetal, bitter floral followed by melon sweetness, stone fruits, the bitterness lingers and lodges, mouth watering, mineral and flroal notes and slowly becoming tobaccoey-herbal.
4th 9secs – Sweet, thick, bitter, astringency, vegetal… perhaps better balanced than previous steeps. All the notes are there but none over take the other.
5th 11secs – Mostly the same profile as before, not as balanced. The ‘brothy’ character was more up front in the beginning, but this tea is definitely in the fruity spectrum of Puerh bitterness with vegetal and floral notes (very faint tobacco).
6h 15secs – (The collapse steep) I’ve had three sessions with this tea and they agree this is the range when the tea collapses. The notes are there, but they all are weak, phantoms of what they were.
Did up to 10-11 steeps
Final Notes
The three sessions were experimenting with temp and time and the results where roughly the same, the 6th ended up being the subtle or not so subtle decline in notes. The mouth-feel was nice the whole time and the huigan was particular with an almost citrus note, but it lacks longevity, after the 6th it mostly delivers bitter notes and ghosts of everything else. I’ll come back to this one later.
Flavors: Bitter, Butter, Honey, Plum, Stonefruit
Preparation
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Comments
I haven’t brewed this with the yixing yet, but I would only slightly disagree on the longevity note. After the 6th or so steep, I find this one releases a certain, nicely thick, mellowed smooth brown sugar/fruity sweetness with mineral notes mixed in.
Gosh, I really should be getting back to work…
LOL! get back to work man. I may go back to this one to retry it, I’ll haven’t had the best sessions lately since my tea table drain broke and I can’t do proper gong fu. I’ll try to revisit it, but I have to admit at least from my sample longevity was sort of short, as I said, might be the lack of proper sessions.
Ugh, I know…I’m way too easily distracted by gu shu!
Longevity could also be determined with how much leaf you use. Sounds trite, but I think it’s easy to make mistakes without a scale, which is what I added to my last YS purchase. I remember my last session with the sample being particularly pleasurable since I may have used at least 9 g of leaf in a 120 ml gaiwan. By steep 12 the gaiwan lid was partially sitting on brewed leaves.
I need to start taking physical notes during each session with samples. Relying on rigorous notes is usually better than impression alone.
I agree. I have a scale that is really useful for when I’m setting parameters, I admit I ignore it when I’m familiarized with the tea, but its not a bad idea to measure after you take out the tea you are going to use. That’s how I discovered I prefered an slightly over leafed Huang Shan Raw, I think that tea lives through its bitter notes.
I haven’t brewed this with the yixing yet, but I would only slightly disagree on the longevity note. After the 6th or so steep, I find this one releases a certain, nicely thick, mellowed smooth brown sugar/fruity sweetness with mineral notes mixed in.
Gosh, I really should be getting back to work…
LOL! get back to work man. I may go back to this one to retry it, I’ll haven’t had the best sessions lately since my tea table drain broke and I can’t do proper gong fu. I’ll try to revisit it, but I have to admit at least from my sample longevity was sort of short, as I said, might be the lack of proper sessions.
Ugh, I know…I’m way too easily distracted by gu shu!
Longevity could also be determined with how much leaf you use. Sounds trite, but I think it’s easy to make mistakes without a scale, which is what I added to my last YS purchase. I remember my last session with the sample being particularly pleasurable since I may have used at least 9 g of leaf in a 120 ml gaiwan. By steep 12 the gaiwan lid was partially sitting on brewed leaves.
I need to start taking physical notes during each session with samples. Relying on rigorous notes is usually better than impression alone.
I agree. I have a scale that is really useful for when I’m setting parameters, I admit I ignore it when I’m familiarized with the tea, but its not a bad idea to measure after you take out the tea you are going to use. That’s how I discovered I prefered an slightly over leafed Huang Shan Raw, I think that tea lives through its bitter notes.