So Keta Send Message

I’ve been painfully waiting for TWO MONTHS for my last order of tea, it got help up in customs for like six weeks which is just crazy. Happily, it’s finally arrived and I can’t wait to try everything out.

This white tea cake is the first one I’ve selected mostly because I haven’t drunk any white tea in a long while now and because it was the cheapest part of my order (save the best for last and such). The compression on the cake is quite nice and airy, very easy to pull apart, however the leaves are brittle and are dusting quite easily. I hope that doesn’t bring out the bitterness too much. The dry aroma is fruity and slightly floral with hints of balsamic vinegar. Very interesting nose for sure.

For this brew I used a 140ml teapot with 7.5 grams of tea (although I wish I had used a little more than that), and 85°C water. A quick wash was followed by steeps increasing in 10 or 15 second increments up to 1 minute long.

By the second or third pot the soup becomes a lovely sunset yellow/orange colour, and the flavour finally presents itself fully. I found the first couple pots to lack some flavour, perhaps this tea takes longer to “wake up”? Anyway, the taste is quite nice, but it’s not blowing me away or anything. There’s a bit of a raisin flavour mixing with peppercorn which is tasty. Not getting as many floral notes as I anticipated. The mouth feel is really what’s winning me over though, it’s very creamy and thick, thankfully with no astringency or bitterness. Nice. I think generally it’s a sweeter tea which somewhat makes up for a generic flavour profile.

All in all, a decent but forgetful white tea. The price definitely reflects the experience in this case. Also, as per the name, I did notice three distinct aromas between the dry leaves, the tea soup, and the wet leaves. Very interesting in that regard.