Backlogging. Last Thursday afternoon.
I’ve waited too long after first trying this tea to write a thorough and good tealog of my initial impressions. So I shall save that for the next time I have this tea and just briefly record my initial impressions.
The dry leaves were large fuzzy whites with a few twigs and lots of black current berries. I don’t know what black currents smell like but the smell was sweet, slightly tart, berry, and just a bit artificial but in a yummy way. It oddly nostalgically reminded me of purple smelly markers from when I was a kid, you know the ones that smelled like foods. I don’t remember much about the wet leaves except that they didn’t have as much scent as I would have expected.
My first steep was very light in color and light in flavor as well but good. I increased the water temperature by 5° for the remaining steeps and that seems to have done the trick. The remaining steeps were darker in color and I could taste both the white tea and the smooth yummy berry flavor. The forth steep was still quite good and I would have gone on steeping if I’d continued to drink more tea at that time.
Next time all the steeps will be at 160° F and I will steep the first steep for the full two minutes. In the future, I might be interested in trying a slightly higher water temperature depending on how that comes out. I might also be interested in trying increasing each steep time by 30 seconds instead of one minute at some point.
I’ve rated this tea a 74 on the higher end of my good range (60-80).
1st steep: 1 min 30 sec. 155° F.
2nd steep: 2 min 30 sec. 160° F.
3rd steep: 3 min 30 sec. 160° F.
4th steep: 4 min 30 sec. 160° F.
