Using around 5g, ~190F, at 100ml. No wash
Gongfu style, starting off at 5s + (3s + 2n s) per steep
Very neat first taste. It has a very strong and complex blend of berry taste to it. Blackberries, blueberries, cherries, honey, raisins, grapes, raspberries, goodness there’s a hint of all of that and more in this taste. The faint traditional ‘oolong’ like taste seems to be warped in a sort of caramel like flavour that ties all the other flavours together. Really delicious.
If steeped a little longer, it adopts this slightly bitter and astringent taste to it, but it has an incredibly strong berry taste that lingers for a long time. The berry flavour is so thick, it almost feels like I just drank some sort of berry slushy. Just wow.
On the fourth steep now, no flavour loss yet. One thing to note is that the tea tastes quite ‘dense’ compared to other chinese teas done gongfu style. This lends itself to feel a bit thick, but not an unpleasant experience due to the explosion of berry flavours.
7th steep in and sadly the fruity flavours are leaving =(. Instead, a faint ‘milky’ caramel taste is taking its place, and surprisingly something like cotton candy too. Probably has 1-2 more steeps in it before running out.
Good tea. It’s sensitive on the early steeping, so don’t go too hot nor for too long (otherwise you’ll get a strong astringent flavour on it).
Flavors: Astringent, Autumn Leaf Pile, Berry, Blackberry, Blueberry, Caramel, Cherry, Cotton Candy, Grapes, Honey, Raisins, Raspberry