(Autmn Plucking)
This is a tea that I am quite familiar with so I felt comfortable brewing more casually. Feeling lazy so threw in a my hong cha yixing. It been a while so I almost forgot what this tea tasted like so after a little anticipation of rinsing the vessel I threw in the leaves. The warmed pot gave off a wonderful smell, started off burnt sugar to the next huff smelling bitter cacao to the final whiffs turning into fruity dark stewed fruits. With all autumn teas it was more bark than bite and I hate a tease.
{side note}I have been using spring water for about a week now and really started to notice it brought out a lot of fruity sweeter qualities in teas and less bitterness, I am starting to miss a pleasantly bitter taste.
This tea was no different every steeping rather than the caramel toasty chocolately tastes I remember and just smelled from the leaves all I got was fruitiness. Im still pretty confident my yixing having a low pitch will take a while to season properly and as a result is a flavor sucker. I only got 2-3 good brew out of it strangely enough and couldnt get much out of it body wise, although I am impressed with the quality of tea/processing I don’t think I had any tea scum(white bubbles during a rinse) on any steepings which is rare for chinese teas especially hong cha.
Almost done with my sample bag before I reach the bottom I will take my time to throw it in a gaiwan and test out my yixing flavor sucker theory.
Flavors: Burnt Sugar, Cacao, Dark Bittersweet, Stewed Fruits
