Gong Fu!
Something like eight infusions total, with life left in the leaf for more – I just never want that much Sheng in one go, it seems. I paired this with starfruit, mostly because I had a lot of starfruit sitting in the fridge that was going to go bad soon. I was going to steep one of the “pieces” off the bar, but this ended up being surprisingly tightly compressed and hard to break apart that neatly. So, it was like 2/3 of a piece…
I was a bit taken aback by the upfront/forward sweetness in this tea. I say this completely uninfluenced the starfruit I was also enjoying, but the taste was sort of like drinking a really nice fruit salad, with perhaps a bit of citrus mixed into it and a pinch or two of good quality sugar on top. Definitely lingering sweetness, as described by Bitterleaf themselves, too! It was really damn nice! Broken up by some intermittent bitterness in some of the steepings; not sure if that was a more bitter undertone to the tea coming out or a result of my being lazy with measuring the time for each steeping. Maybe a bit of both? Regardless I was still really pleased with the session as a whole!
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Starfruit is one of my favorites. I should try pairing some with various teas when I get home from the funeral on Wednesday. Also one of my favorites is Dragonfruit. That stuff is wonderful in cottage cheese. I wonder how IT would pair with tea?
You’d definitely need to go with a light bodied tea if you don’t want the flavor of the tea to swallow up the taste of the Dragonfruit since it’s such a mild taste. General rule of them in flavor pairings is to match intensities. I’d recommend a Chinese green that’s on the sweeter, fruitier side (less nutty like dragonwell), a white tea like Silver Needle, or something with more floral notes like a jasmine silver needle or pearl tea, or a delicate floral leaning oolong like Baozhong where both the floral and melon notes in the tea would be great complimenting flavors.
**rule of thumb
Starfruit is one of my favorites. I should try pairing some with various teas when I get home from the funeral on Wednesday. Also one of my favorites is Dragonfruit. That stuff is wonderful in cottage cheese. I wonder how IT would pair with tea?
You’d definitely need to go with a light bodied tea if you don’t want the flavor of the tea to swallow up the taste of the Dragonfruit since it’s such a mild taste. General rule of them in flavor pairings is to match intensities. I’d recommend a Chinese green that’s on the sweeter, fruitier side (less nutty like dragonwell), a white tea like Silver Needle, or something with more floral notes like a jasmine silver needle or pearl tea, or a delicate floral leaning oolong like Baozhong where both the floral and melon notes in the tea would be great complimenting flavors.
**rule of thumb