Auggy
drank
Bai Mu Dan by Samovar
I neglected to smell the dry leaf, but the leaf post-steeping smells super-roasty. The liquid smells very light, but similar. And when I say very light, I mean very light.
Taste-wise, this is surprising. I was expecting something sweet and it is, but I was expecting sweet flowery and this is more sweet starchy. Actually, it tastes like a diluted version of the liquid in the canned sweet corn niblets we used to get before I knew that, you know, corn was evil. (And I did love that corn juice so). But there is a slightly different note – a deeper, darker, more intense note – that the canned sweet corn juice didn’t have. I can’t quite place it but I’m guessing it is the roasted walnut bit they have in the flavor profile.
For such a light colored and scented tea, the tastes are very dark. It’s good but the connection my mind has made to corn is throwing me off. In my world, corn = evil. So I sip this and go “mmm, dark… sweet… oh crap, corn – EVIL!”
As it cools I’m getting more of the walnut taste (it definitely is the walnut they mention in the profile – it’s screaming walnut now but I’m not getting as much of the roasted as just straight walnut) than the corn taste and that helps with my mental aversion to it but I think I’ve already got a strong mental block against this tea so even switching to a more walnut taste isn’t making me enjoy it. The last few sips are sweet again but mixed nicely with the walnut. But again, the sweet flavor is very corn-sweet.
After thinking on it some, I’m not rating this tea. Because it’s too mixed up in my head with the evils of corn so nothing I give it would be fair. The walnut sweetness is really nice and the flavors are truly lovely so it deserves at least a green smiley but the corn connection make me think red icky face. But neither the green smiley face or red icky face would be an accurate representation of my experience with this tea. Sorry, I’m just too prejudice against the diluted sweet corn juice to rate this accurately.
