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Oh. Warming leaves smell like bacon. I was not expecting this. Okay, little one, let’s go.

Black olives on the nose. Argh, there is something else really familiar here and I can’t place it. The taste is wholly umami and smoked meat and vegetables. Smoked, but moist and soft. This is so good.

I learned 122-140 degrees is the temperature range for gyokuro; the lukewarm temperature might be nice in summer, even though the flavors here are big and cozy. My first steep was actually 135, and I bumped up to 140 for the second — just those 5 degrees changed the profile so much. Amazing.

A little bit of sauteed celery, toasted sesame seed in the second.

Third steep brings sweetness on the nose. Not honey, like fruit-sweet. Tastes like okra chips, those packages by salad bars that say “air fried” but taste of indulgent browned oil. OH, MAYBE THAT’S IT… that smell I couldn’t place earlier, it might be roux. There’s some crunchy mushroom here, too — not earthy, not fresh — like oily roasted shiitakes.

Notes are lighter as the session moves on — celery seed and minerals on the nose, cucumber and light nuttiness in the mouth.

Wheat germ and pretzel, slick with just a hint of drying. Steeps remain nicely drinkable and tea-ish with smooth minerality, but the flavor burst is pretty well gone by steep six or so.

I’ll have to source some more black gyokuro at some point (this was part of an LP Hookup and doesn’t appear available to order), as well as some classic gyokuro, which I’ve never had, and see how they compare. LP kinda blowing my mind the past couple days, jeezo.

Y’all. LOL.

I peeled myself off the floor after this session.

Dry leaves smell like dry oak barrel. Steaming leaves open up to fermenting red fruit, grapes, wet wood, musk, mint, and camphor. Whew.

First pour is largely transparent gold — honey, minerals, hay, and funk on the nose. Spiky in the mouth — tastes like a barrel, like alcohol, like tea tree, like grape skins, like sucking on green hardwood. Sandpaper astringency on the back of the throat.

Wet leaves now smell like opening an old cherry chest of drawers, like getting lost in the basement of an antique store, like fruit must and weird dessert liqueurs only your grandparents drink. Medicinal fennel, Jazz Age toothpaste, peppermint schnapps, dark oily incense, a dusty crystal and tarot shop. My upper lip is tingling from being pressed against the pot to inhale.

Second pour is slightly more opaque, thickly golden, with a nose of tingling and ethereal hay vapor. The barrel taste is morphing from wine barrel to bourbon barrel. Dandelion smear, pilsner, Spanish wine cave, tropical fruit, brut champagne, varnished pine. GOOD LORD.

Back to the wet leaves is back in the basement of a Midwest antique shop, a cherry chest of drawers inside a cedar closet, creamy menthol. Third pour smells of yellow cake, dry summer. Sipping produces astringency reminiscent of carbonation and booze, a mouthfeel I’ve only ever gotten from alcoholic drinks. Hops and iodine and green wood. Where this started off tasting dark-and-brooding boozy, it’s now light-and-crisp boozy.

Back to the pot. Resin and wood oil. What the 1950s and 60s smelled like in my imagination, when everything was made of wood and hard work. Liquor off this pour smells like melon, a wet clarinet reed, yeast. Tastes of white grapes, crisp astringency, green wood essence, menthol, beer.

Feels like I’m getting indulgent at this point, but I can’t get enough of these shifting specters. Wet leaf has become the most fantastical basement you’ve ever smelled, the wardrobe to Narnia. I feel heavy and not even here. Pour smells of white grape, fermented gardenia petals, champagne. Mouthfeel is still drying but not sharp, flavors have started persisting rather than transposing. Here is cup-captured nostalgia, curiosity, history, wisdom. I am absolutely floored, brain and body both.

Mushy cantaloupe rinds and German lager. The end.

I’ve had this a few times now, and I’ve found myself just a little disappointed each time. Mouthfeel, florals, creaminess all just feel a bit middling to me. A sort of teasing-at-grass-emptiness along for the ride. A riddle.

More than drinkable… might take this to work for some grandpas.

I have no idea what the hell this is, and I will probably never be able to drink it again. Came as one of a handful of surprises as part of an “LP Hookup” I blindly and happily trusted. Cheers to the weirds, y’all.

Warming leaves are wintergreen and honey, with some forest notes. I accidentally poured 135 degree water on this, then poured it off, so it had a bit of a non-steep/barely a rinse.

Pour at proper temp is light amber; smells of minerals, faint manure; tastes of stonefruits and some bright citrus notes — more classic red/black tea notes than the wintergreen intro led me to expect (though the manure is keeping things interesting).

I steeped by color, and the second one ventured into 15 seconds — probably a touch too long. Some tannins, more crisp and bright citrus, just a touch of that minty note. The nose is fruitier and juicier than the body ends up, but in tandem they manage to work.

Pot smells of a meander through a damp camphor forest… it’s lovely. Slightly shorter steep this time, and the color remains a strong amber; nose has moved to barnyard and fungus; body is light and juicy with minerality, tannin, crisp fruit (peach pit, pear/apple, maybe grape skin?).

Next steep vacillates between refreshing spring water minerality, fruit, barnyard. The wet leaves have moved into wet wood territory. Further steeps don’t uncover much new, but it steeped satisfyingly into 10 or 12 pots. Fun little romp.

Sipdown. Meh.