Not rating this yet, since I probably screwed up the steeping. I’m still a novice when it comes to white tea, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be quite like this (deep honey color, somewhat bitter/astringent but not enough to make it unpleasant). Note to self: 2 tbsp leaf for your 2-cup pot is probably too much. Maybe try a shorter steep or hotter water.
On second thought, maybe I’m not too far off… I drank the liquor that spent a little longer in the pot first, and now that I’ve gotten to the first-poured cup it’s a lot more enjoyable. It does have some astringency, but the sweeter flavors are much more present. One irritating thing about Whittard is that they don’t always give brewing instructions on the packaging or website, and the search results for brewing white peony varied quite a bit, so trial and error it is. Oh well, that’s why we have Steepster!
Based on the second cup I drank, I’d probably rate it somewhere around 78.