I’ve had previous iterations of Camellia Sinensis’ Li Shan and enjoyed them, so I picked up this spring 2020 harvest in their September sale. I’ve had it three times now and have gotten slightly different flavours in each session. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of brown sugar, coconut, spinach, honeysuckle, and lilacs. In the first steep, I get lilac, sweet pea, gardenia, butter, coconut, grass, spinach, and pastries. It has a nice, viscous texture. The second steep is sweeter, with custard, cream corn, green apple, and honeysuckle. Steep three offers more honeysuckle/gardenia/other florals, particularly in the aroma, and the veggie, grass, and spinach notes become stronger. (I also got pineapple in previous sessions, but sadly, not in this one.) The next couple steeps display more of the cream corn sweetness, which I guess could be interpreted as custard or condensed milk. The tea is also still very floral. The steeps become more vegetal after this point, but with lots of floral sweetness to balance them out.
This tea is full of florals and is sweeter than many Li Shans, with some of the tropical fruit flavours I like when I leaf it heavy. I agree with Daylon that it’s kind of midrange, and I also prefer their less expensive Shan Lin Xi. Still, I might pick it up again if it’s on sale, simply because of the relatively reasonable price and the convenience of buying from a Canadian vendor.
Flavors: Brown Sugar, Butter, Coconut, Corn Husk, Custard, Floral, Gardenias, Grass, Green Apple, Honeysuckle, Pastries, Pineapple, Spinach, Sweet, Vegetal
