Pekoe & Imp

A nice dancong! I got this tea from a local online tea retailer and I decided to brew it in my Chaozhou teapot. I jammed the teapot with leaves and started the session. The leaves were pretty nice, relatively whole and uniform, and the aroma was pretty good as well, with wafting pungent floral and honey notes in the air. Liquor was clean and vibrant, and the flavour was decent as well, albeit having a slight bitter note to it but it was still good. Texture is smooth, slightly oily, slightly juicy, and the finish & aftertaste was really good, with lingering notes of honey and florality refreshing the mouth. Cha qi is okay, slight buzziness, and steep longevity is okay as well, with the tea lasting till around steep 8-9.

There are definitely better Dancongs out there, but this one isn’t bad especially for the price.

Did not live up to my expectation. I got this tea from my recent order with local brand Pekoe & Imp, hoping to try out an exquisite aged baozhong, especially since it costed $1+/g. However, I was mostly disappointed. Beautiful leaves to start off with a nice black and brown sheen to it, but had slightly more stems than I had anticipated. The wet leaf aroma is really nice, pungent, strong, and nuanced in its own right. The dry leaf aroma was lacking however, which was evident when I first opened the packet and when I heated my teaware up. Liquor is very nice, beautiful vibrant reddish hue to it.

Flavour was okay, had to really push the tea to get any decent enough flavour notes. Without that, it was quite weak, but somewhat multi-dimensional with a nice tang to it as well. Reminds me of aged raw pu-er, but having a fluffiness about it as well. Character was not bad, somewhat decent complexity with its own unique citrus note that I thought was interesting. Texture was decent, milky and smooth with some slight astringency at the end. Aftertaste was okay, not much to say about it. The tea did have some effect on me, sitting in and churning my stomach away with a slight buzz to it as well, but nothing substantial. Steep longevity is poor, the tea lasted till steep 5-6, when I expected it to last till 8+.

All in all, not worth the price, probably not a good representation of aged baozhong, and frankly quite disappointing despite showing so much promise at the start. The tea just seemed to run out of steam.