Fuding 2015 White Peony

Gongfu Sipdown (884)!

Sipped this one down yesterday evening after getting home from work. It’s got some surprising thickness to the mouthfeel, and the flavor reminds me a lot of the smell of hay on a hot prairie summer day, and clover – LOTS of clover! I’ve been on a bit of a black tea binge this week, but my insta friend teajay9 got me craving some aged white tea that morning. I had to wait to get home from work to brew some up though, but it was worth the wait…

What was really good was that I chose this Mansa sample completely by chance, but then they ended up doing a livestream that overlapped with my session so I got to drink one of their teas while following along with their live. There have been SO MANY instagram livestreams since the pandemic started, it’s been very fun but also hard to keep track of.

Two final thoughts about the tea, though…

1. Despite tasting pretty good, the leaf quality was pretty questionable visually. You’ll see it in my photos if you take a look, but it was VERY broken up…

2. Mansa describes this as tasting like white chocolate, which I did not personally observe in my session. However, it got me thinking and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that flavour from a straight white tea. It’s just an interesting (to me) and standout flavour descriptor…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_YS9DAAwwZ/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQOaarIvjh0