After the disappointment with the Huangshan Maofeng, I made sure to wait a while before tasting this for the first time. The first session took place a week or so ago and the pu’er aromatics were mostly absent at that point. Today I re-tasted this Dian hong and could not detect pu’er tainting, but still came to the same general conclusion: I am not a fan.
It is completely possible that I’m being a spoiled brat after tasting the two top grades of Dian hong first (specifically Verdant Tea’s “Golden Fleece” and Teavivire’s “Golden Tip”) before drinking the lower quality stuff. But indeed, this is low quality stuff. Just from the dry leaves I can see all kinds of random treasures that shouldn’t necessarily be there and provide inconsistency: tons of twigs and off-color leaves/stems. The wet leaves provide more insight: to one extreme, a green-colored stem-bud combination that seemed to have escaped processing all together, and overly processed broken leaves to the next extreme. They smell somewhat artificial and highly pungent, masking the yam-like qualities Dian hongs are known for. Subtle aromas of chocolate and malt are present, but I am left grasping for them when it comes to the liquor.
The liquor is ruddy and cloudy in all but the first steep, which has decent clarity. The flavor is aggressive and potent, which by itself is not terrible, but it’s much too metallic for me and leaves a drying aftertaste. There are some nice peppery notes available that are enjoyable on their own, but I can’t really find a base for all the rough flavors floating around, making the brew seem unstable. I can imagine this might be decent to use as a blend as ESGREEN suggests in their description, perhaps to add depth and roughness, but I find it unpleasant on its own. Given a current price of less than four dollars per two ounces, I suppose I shouldn’t complain.
This one I enjoyed quite a bit. I agree it is no golden tips but then it isn’t supposed to be. As an everyday Yunnan I thought it was very good.