After enjoying a gongfu session with Wuyi Origin’s Meizhan Jin Jun Mei a few days ago, I thought I’d do an impromptu comparison with another JJM I had lying around. Following the vendor’s instructions, I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160, 200, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.
True to the description, this tea has lots of fuzzy, silvery little buds mixed with the dark leaf. The dry aroma is of rye bread, cocoa, honey, florals, and malt. The first steep has notes of rye bread, honey, butter, orchid, lemon cake, herbs, malt, and sweet potato. Steep two adds a hint of cocoa, more sweet potato, rose, and some dryness in the mouth. The next couple steeps feature more malt and sweet potato, plus lavender, florals, lemon, minerals, and light tannins. Steeps five and six are very similar, with a little more bread and honey but with plenty of florals. The final few steeps have notes of malt, bread, honey, florals, earth, minerals, hay, and wood, with a nice honey aftertaste.
As someone who is fond of floral teas, I’m not surprised that I enjoyed this Jin Jun Mei. The long steep times were a bit unusual for me, but they produced strong, complex flavours and surprisingly little bitterness. I’m not sure I could detect that it was made from Huang Guan Yin material without having been told, though the florality does seem similar in my limited experience. I liked this more than the Meizhan JJM from Wuyi Origin, but the rose and other florals had a lot to do with that. I think these are both high-quality teas.
Flavors: Bread, Butter, Cocoa, Earth, Floral, Hay, Herbaceous, Honey, Lavender, Lemon, Malt, Mineral, Orchid, Rose, Rye, Sweet, Sweet Potatoes, Tannin, Wood
