When brewed right, these tiny, fuzzy, tender leaves work wonders. When brewed wrong, you’ll be lucky if the liquor merely turned out insipid: oversteeped biluochun takes on the taste and feeling of rubber bands. I got through the majority of my bag making it various degrees of Wrong before the tea gods blessed me with a ~20oz pot of ambrosia. I was completely winging it, turning off the kettle when it felt right and counting off 40 sec before starting the pour from the pot, which I’d left unlidded this time. I have a kyusu, a gaiwan and a Korean infuser mug—which can all pour much faster than this ungainly 32oz pot that drains slower than glaciers do—but past attempts to strictly control all the parameters ended up failing anyways. So imagine my surprise when the mug touched my lips and the liquid poured in as a sweet, gentle caress. It had an amiable sweetness and an airy lightness. The fragrance was fruity (specifically like honeydew, if you want my subjective, unreliable observation), which is a quality I find a lot more pleasant than the grassy or floral notes from other greens or green oolongs.
