This is my only non-sipdown tea from yesterday.
It’s an interesting tea. The tea leaves are twisted & layered into delicate little ‘ropes’, which I’m sure takes a lot of practice, & then the tea is aged in cakes. It’s amazing looking, & I’ve wanted to try it since the first time I saw a picture of it. I used to actually do rope braids with my hair, so I admire the people who spent hours creating this interesting looking tea. And of course, I’m always a sucker for novelty in presentation, right?
So I gave this one a try, treating it like I would any other Sheng. I tend to go conservative on Sheng, so I dropped 3 G worth of pigtails into my pre-warmed green yixing (it’s really sand colored, IMO), & let the leaf relax for a minute. Opening the lid, the aroma was light smoke, greenness, & a little spice. Nice!
Steepings of 5/10/15sec/etc…
The earliest cups were a pale green taste with a pinch of salt. Gradually the flavor of Cherrios built up, which later transformed into the flavor of oatstraw tea (yes, I drink it sometimes. It’s a great source of minerals, like calcium & Magnesium, & it actually tastes pretty good too). A creamy vanilla sensation emerged, & at 40 seconds the cup was sweet & mild, still with a pinch of salt & an almost buttery taste, and a touch of almond.
The later steepings took on a slick texture, reminding me of Aloe, & a soapy aftertaste.
At this point I had a bad memory of drinking blue unicorn horn tea, which had a salty soapy tasty & made me sick to my stomach, so I ended this session. Overall, it was a pleasant session. It’s a very mild sheng, & I have enough to drink it one more time, so I think I’ll try to go a little stronger next time. :)
