So I actually drank this last night, but Steepster was still being a butt so I decided to just write down my notes and post them later. I picked up a notebook from work with this image on it, http://www.baxleystamps.com/litho/hasegawa/process_wb_c1953_fuji-wave_13-1.jpg, so I can start keeping notes on tea/swaps/companies/etc (mostly of blends I want to make on Adagio. Lol!). But that’s a different tangent.
I can’t remember if I got this my last order or the order before that. But I wanted to give it a shot because I love lychee (when I can find them), so a tea with lychee sounded wonderful.
1st steep – 4min/180* – I was surprised at the color of the brew. A very bright yellow. And floral smelling. Tasting it, it was greener than I was expecting, though I knew this wasn’t a roasted oolong so it would be lighter. But it wasn’t the grassy taste of, say, a green tea or even a ti kuan yin (I think I’m spelling that right). But a nice, well, green taste. Lol. I need to work on my vocabulary I think. There was also a nice floral taste, not overpowering, but light and just overall very nice. I didn’t really get any definite lychee flavor though. The leaves were still mostly curled/unopened, so I tried another steep.
2nd steep – 5 min/180* – Darker yellow brew this time. The taste isn’t really as green as it was the first steep. It’s alot more faint and mellow. The same with the floral flavor. I think I get a vague lychee flavor on the back of each sip, but I’m not sure if I’m imagining it because I want to to be there or not. Lol. By now the leaves are mostly uncurled, though I think I still could get a third steep out of it. I opted not to because I didn’t really feel like drinking this anymore. It just didn’t really do it for me I guess.
While this was a nice tea that I might reach for if I was wanting something light, I’m not sure it’s one I’d ever want to reorder. It might just be because I’ve been drinking alot of blacks and oolongs at the moment trying to learn the palate for those that the nuances of this tea are whizzing over my head. But what I could get from it, it was nice and certainly a better experience than I’ve had with any of the greener oolongs I’ve attempted to try.
