Well, I was planning on going to bed after I posted my last review, but I can’t sleep, so I’m doing laundry and sneaking in another tea review. Insomnia sucks, by the way. Funny enough, it’s not caffeine related. I go through seasonal bouts of insomnia, and I have no clue why. Anyway, this was another of my late 2020 sipdowns. I noticed that previous reviews for this tea were kind of hit or miss, but I pretty much loved this one.
I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 fluid ounces of 194 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 17 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minutes 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of baked bread, orchid, malt, black cherry, honey, cinnamon, and pine. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of orange zest, roasted peanut, and roasted almond that were underscored by a subtle smoky aroma. The first infusion introduced aromas of cream, butter, and geranium. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of baked bread, malt, cream, butter, cinnamon, orchid, and roasted almond that were balanced by hints of smoke, honey, sugarcane, oats, black cherry, orange zest, pine, and pear. The majority of the subsequent infusions added pear, chocolate, red apple, plum, sugarcane, violet, and grape leaf aromas to the tea’s bouquet. Stronger and more immediately notable impressions of sugarcane, pine, oats, orange zest, and pear emerged in the mouth alongside notes of minerals, red apple, violet, roasted peanut, plum, grape leaf, caramel, and lemon zest. Subtler impressions of peach, anise, chocolate, red grape, and geranium were also present. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, orchid, malt, baked bread, sugarcane, violet, and orange zest that were balanced by lingering hints of butter, honey, red grape, red apple, plum, caramel, roasted almond, grape leaf, and lemon zest.
This was a very nice Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong. Its dominant syrupy, floral, and fruity characteristics made for a pleasant change of pace from the other Wuyi black teas that I was drinking at the time. While this was primarily a very sweet black tea, it was not unbalanced in any way, remaining drinkable and appealing over the entirety of the span of time I spent working my way through what I had of it. At this point, all I can really offer is that I thoroughly enjoyed this tea, but I can kind of understand why some people may not have been as into it. You would have to either be into sweeter teas or able and willing to overlook this tea’s dominant sweetness to appreciate the nuances it offered to find it enjoyable.
Flavors: Almond, Anise, Bread, Butter, Caramel, Cherry, Chocolate, Cinnamon, Cream, Geranium, Grapes, Honey, Lemon Zest, Malt, Mineral, Oats, Orange Zest, Orchid, Peach, Peanut, Pear, Pine, Plum, Red Apple, Smoke, Sugarcane, Vegetal, Violet
