What caught my attention first was this shengs beautiful dry leaf! My tightly compressed sample was a few pleasing shades of green and brown with beautiful white buds, looking slightly blue under the down. The dry leaves had the aroma of clover honey or very ripe apricots, transforming into steamed dark greens with sweetness after a few rinses.
The soup started off sweet, with a woody tobacco flavor mixing with grape seed and stem bitterness and a vegetal ‘collard greens’ aftertaste. The body started off heavy in the mouth with a dryness that gained momentum with each steep. The sweetness disappeared after four steeps leaving tart apple and stonefruit flavors that lasted for many steeps.
In the middle of the session the mix of sour, sweet and woody tobacco flavors reminded me of a local upland meadow coming to life after fall rains; the sweetness and tobacco from the woody twigs rehydrating, and the sour from the microbial rich soil coming back to life.
Flavors: Stonefruit, Tobacco
