I was prepared to not like this tea. It is the younger sibling of the single-tree Nanzou that I drank yesterday, and I expected it to do poorly by comparison. It turned out to be a very good tea.
The flavor is very similar to the single-tree, whether due to the terroir or the processing, I don’t know. It has that dark, almost meaty flavor that reminds me a bit of raisins or meat broth. The aroma, taste, and finish were all very strong, and it also packed a pretty good cha qi. The main difference between this tea and the single-tree is complexity. This tea is fairly straightforward, though rich enough to be interesting, but lacks some of the fruit/spice/straw overtones that made the single-tree so enjoyable. Still, at $30 a cake, this strikes me as a great bargain for a daily drinker. My problem is that I have more daily drinkers than I have days.
