This is an interesting tea. The dry leaf is rolled into small pellets, slightly bigger than gun powder, but smaller than most rolled oolongs or pearl teas. From the dry leaf, I immediately get a whiff of honey, which is always exciting. Honey is one of my favourite notes in tea.
Steeped 1tsp (about 4g) in 75C water for 2:30. The liquor is golden and quite clear. The steeped leaves are only partially unfurled, and smell nutty.
The liquor smells sweet, nutty and umami, and these notes are reflected in the taste. There’s a hint of hone, but not as much as I would have expected from the dry leaf smell. I also get a pretty strong, cooling vegetal tang of grass. There’s also a bit of bitterness and a moderate amount of astringency.
The finish is long, but only on parts of the tongue. The way the flavours develop within the sip feels a bit off – there’s a big punch of lots of flavours at the beginning of the sip, and then they fade out quickly. The full mouth flavour at the beginning ends up being just a sides of the tongue kind of flavour by the time I swallow and then into the finish.
This is alright, but I was hoping for something a bit more balanced.
Flavors: Astringent, Bitter, Grass, Honey, Nutty, Sweet, Umami
