I’ve been avoiding this one because its mushroomy earthiness hasn’t sounded appealing lately, but today I thought I’d see what else I could get from it. Compared to my first tasting note, increasing the amount of tea and brewing with boiling water resulted in a very citrusy tea with the earthiness pushed to the background. Not too bad, but the citrus is a bit too much.
For the next cup, I lowered the temperature. This brought out some sweet chocolate in exchange for some of the excess lemon, spice, and earthiness. It’s much more balanced now; however, that sheng-like weirdness that I mentioned in the first tasting note isn’t there at all when brewed this way. It’s just a nice, mellow black tea, more casually enjoyable yet somewhat less interesting. I’ll have to try gongfu again. My first attempt was nothing but mushrooms…
Flavors: Chocolate, Citrus, Earth, Mineral, Mushrooms, Pepper
