365 Days of Tea Challenge – Day 34
This tea came from tea-sipper!
I followed TeaVivre’s recommended parameters for this session. The time progression was interesting, I’m wondering if the shorter steeps in the middle are where they expect the dragon ball to unfurl.
Anyway, I wasn’t very impressed with this one… It started off extremely light in flavor. About halfway through the session, I started to help the leaves unfurl a little bit since they were still mostly compacted in a ball and I felt like that was why I wasn’t getting much flavor. It did definitely help a lot!
Overall, this had a very smoky and mineral taste that I wasn’t expecting. There were also some more classic white tea notes of oats and hay, along with a light honey sweetness and some date and golden raisin flavors. I also tasted some apricot notes and a bit of malt. There was very little bitterness, but a slight astringency did develop as the steeps grew longer.
I found it somewhat meh. Happily, I still have one dragon ball to try, so I’m thinking I’ll try Western or grandpa style for that one and see how it compares.
1 piece – 130ml – 200°F – rinse/50/60/70/50/50/30/40/70/90/110s
Flavors: Apricot, Astringent, Dates, Dried Fruit, Hay, Honey, Mineral, Oats, Raisins, Smoke, Stonefruit, Sweet
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Meh was my impression of this tea as well. Those dragon balls just don’t want to fall apart.
Yeah, that sucker was really stuck together LOL! But it’s only fair to give it another chance with a different steeping method. :)
Fair warming, though likely not the same tea, I had a highly compressed Moonlight White dragon ball from YS that was terribly bitter steeped grandpa.
Hmm.. I’ll have to steep one of these guys up and see if I still like them. I liked my sample steeped Western, enough that I bought 100g, but maybe the 100 grams I bought weren’t the same as my sample…
Meh was my impression of this tea as well. Those dragon balls just don’t want to fall apart.
Yeah, that sucker was really stuck together LOL! But it’s only fair to give it another chance with a different steeping method. :)
Fair warming, though likely not the same tea, I had a highly compressed Moonlight White dragon ball from YS that was terribly bitter steeped grandpa.
Hmm.. I’ll have to steep one of these guys up and see if I still like them. I liked my sample steeped Western, enough that I bought 100g, but maybe the 100 grams I bought weren’t the same as my sample…