This guy arrived courtesy of Mrmopar. The dried leaves were mostly broken up with some tea dust. The tea soup, while started out a cloudy orange due to tea dust, was quite clear with an attractive golden hue after the 4th steep. This made it initially challenging to assess the tea’s qualities, as it made steeps 1 to 4 quite intense.
I’m in the market for intense teas and this was powerful and bitter, in a rough-and-tumble but refreshing sort of way. The huigan is good here and lasts for quite some time. Body is light to medium. After steep 4, I found the rest of the tea quite balanced—comforting sweet wood notes with hints of honey accompanied by that bitter Bulang base.
This one goes for many steeps. I found steeps 5 through 7 the most enjoyable. This one is like a complex IPA with Bulang steroids. Perhaps my favorite aspect of the tea is how clear-headed and awake I was for many hours after the session was over. I’m forced to drink teas with heavy somatic affects, such as Mangfei or Yong De’s Da Xue Shan, less often than I would like, but this one isn’t the case. It could easily be incorporated into my weekday morning routine. I did, however, find this one quite citric, perhaps a little too much for my tastes.
It has a little kick to it.
Remind me in 2 years to send you some more. I want to see how the storage is coming along.
The clarity of the tea soup and the sweet wood are really nice. If only the tea dust hadn’t brought out the unpleasant astringency. I can see how another year in your storage could increase sweetness in later steeps.