I finally got back to another tea from the Pubertea group buy! I have only tried a couple teas from Essence of Tea, but they’ve been pretty good. This one is I believe the oldest sheng I’ve yet tasted. It’s not too tightly compressed – it looks like it is, but it comes apart pretty readily when subjected to boiled water. The dry leaves have a light, slightly musty aroma. After a rinse, I smelled some woody sweetness, along with a bit of a sour/sweaty note.
The tea started out earthy with a bit of sweetness in the first steep – the tea was really still opening up. The next four steeps were probably my favorite from this tea. They were nice and clean, with a pleasant nutty sweetness – none of the astringency often associated with a nutty flavor. There was still a good bit of earthiness to it, along with some deeper sweetness, almost reminding me of very dark chocolate.
After this, the tea took a rather unwelcome turn, gaining a bit of a sour note which I couldn’t really shake for the rest of the session. There were some really nice and clean wood notes in there as well – not aromatic or spicy wood, but just straight up wood. Unfortunately, there was also a bit of a sour finish, and the tea got a bit drying as well. There was also a bit of a salty note at times.
I brewed this up in my Jianshui pot, which doesn’t have the fastest pour time – I’ll have to save the rest and brew it in a gaiwan to see if keeping infusion times low for longer helps with the sourness. Also to see what differences I might notice in brewing this one in Jianshui vs. Porcelain. Based on this session, I wasn’t a huge fan of this one – it was alright, but not too great.
Flavors: Earth, Nutty, Sour, Wood
