Thank you kindly Verdant for sending me a sample of this in my last order!
Everyone else has been raving about their Jasmine white tea but I was rather glad I got this one instead. Upon smelling the leaves I decided to brew them up in the xi ying and let it steep for about 1.5 minutes, very bitter. I thought perhaps the clay was throwing off the taste a bit so I transferred the leaves to the gaiwan and let it steep for about 20 seconds, still very bitter. Then I finally decided to heed the gong fu directions on the bag and let it steep for 8 seconds which basically meant I poured water over it and poured it back out into a cup. They recommend 205 F for whites but when I did that it got brackish really fast. I had to brew this like a green. Now I am getting the clean vegetal aromas were described. This is very interesting and reminds me more of a green tea than any other white I have had. I think I need to start all over again on a new day with a little less leaf and very short steepings. I was very surprised at how easy it was to mess this up but I really don’t have a very good track record with white teas. I will be glad to increase my rating if I can figure out how to make this more palatable.
