Finally rating it. Since I opened the bag and just let the leaves spread around the tin, the flavor and aroma has been far more forward. Opening up the tin now smells like pineapple sage and cream next to a bundle of lilacs. Brewing it in my Eclipse also improves the flavor significantly leaning harder into pineapple overall than just the heavy amounts of soft lilac and cream. It’s sweet enough to use the condensed milk description I hoped for.
Overall, I think this tea could replace a lot of the Qin Xin’s I buy for a slightly cheaper price. I’m glad that Steven Smith opted this tea to be a regular on the lineup instead of their Alishan because I think this tea is superior. It doesn’t quite beat out my favorite Lishans or Shan Lin Xis, but it’s up there.
I was very tempted to rate it 90, but I think 87 is fair. This is a really good 4 grams western or 3-5 grams grandpa/tumbler tea, but it’s been too soft for me gong fu. It’s easy for me to over or under-leaf it causing an overly soft or overly grassy session, which I know is an error on my part, but I get more of the lilac gong fu and don’t get pineapple until later in the session. Western and grandpa makes all the flavors more forward. I’d still suggest gong fu to people trying to look for dimension because it does change in very subtle ways, but the profile wasn’t as layered as it was with longer steeping times. Thus, it loses a little bit of points gong fu.Easily, this tea is one of my favorite pure teas from Steven Smith. I’m very tempted to refill my tin in the future. We’ll see how my budget is.
