The dry leaf, and the first few steeps, have a nice perfume/incense/pastel smell that is very familiar but I can’t place. It’s this delicate but old smell that I like about it, and I didn’t taste sugarcane as much. Flavor was quite strong for a white tea. I enjoyed it but I’m not a white tea person and I would still go for something like an oolong that gluts the senses. On some steeps, the notes given by the company were just barely noticeable to my taste buds.
Buds were quite small and covered with hair so fine that they looked steel gray, very lovely. When the hair washed off in the first two steeps, it was almost imperceptible in the soup, except to give a certain dense flavor.
I did three flash steeps, then increased the time by 5sec every one or two steeps. It was hard to make this astringent and when I did, it acquired the nice pointed taste of darjeeling white teas. A slight tartness set off all the steeps. Middle-to-late steeps were sweet and it was particularly graceful in the endgame steeps; whereas some unoxidised teas will start tasting of stewed watermelon rind, here the steeped-out flavor was a delicate, sprouty sweetness. You could probably drink it for ages, especially iced, without getting tired.
Energy hit the head immediately, clearing out my eyes and pressurizing my skull. It wasn’t bad at all. The lack of astringency was relatively good on the stomach (for a tea this young and strong).
