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So here I was drinking the same tea two days in a row. Inconceivable! (Yeah, also just finished reading The Princess Bride).

A couple of days ago I had my first session with this tea where I pushed it pretty hard with the timing (15/10/10/10/15/15/15/20/25/30/45/90/…) and thought it was good but not very complex. kieblera5 noted in the comments on that tasting that they really enjoyed it, so I decided to give it another try.

I did a second session last night with much shorter steep lengths (5/7/9/11/…seconds) and got a lot more out of it. Aromas of tart stone fruits (sour cherries through apricots) dominated the session, but hints of cloves and stewed figs made brief appearances toward the end. The cup had wonderful sweet, spicy, citrus, tart and herbal notes, with cloves making an appearance or two.

The first steep felt like the tea was still opening up, but from then on it was a great ride. Steeps 5-8 were my favorites with a well-integrated flavor profile of the above tastes and numerous exclamation points in my notes. Steep 19 was a bit of a hail-Mary at 10 minutes. This tea did not give me heartburn like so many young shengs do, so that’s a big plus.

I did all this in a single session starting at 10:30 PM and finishing up at 1 AM. I was pretty tea-drunk by this point and the wife was fast asleep so I woke up the cats, arranged them as an audience in front of me and proceeded to recite the history of Florin as documented by the great historian S. Morgenstern (not the abridged version that William Goldman did; it left out all the subtle satire on the excesses of European royalty). By 4 AM the cats were asleep with limbs akimbo and two were snoring, so it was time to call it a night.

I’m upgrading my rating on this and will probably procure some more as it’s a great sheng to drink now. Recommended for those who like an accessible young sheng that’s primarily sweet-tart-spicy.