Hilo Coffee Mill

A perfect session with a perfect tea, in a perfectly lovely new teapot: just a few leaves of this tea, in 100mL teapot, water 205 degrees, and several infusions of fruity (plums/grape), lightly spicy (cinnamon, peppermint), sweet (honey) tea. More infusions after an overnight rest, totalling probably a dozen infusions from not much tea. Wow.

Another marvelous session with this tea, and some 6-8 infusions in the tea is still entirely bright, rich, fruity, tart, sweet….deeply satisfying stuff. Mmm mmmm.

Finished my sample of this tea, and it was most impressive. I underestimated the quantity of leaf and ended up with my gaiwan jam-packed with leaf, and got 20-30 infusions out of it. By the very end, it was mostly sweet water, but still pleasant.

I hope to be vacationing in Hawaii in the not-too-distant future, and will try to score some of this while I’m there.

I’ve been given a sample of this tea as part of a tea swap.

Dry leaves: strong tart/fruity aroma.
Infused 2 grams of leaves in a 50mL yixing pot with 190°F/88°C water for 30 seconds. The tea is fruity, sweet, like ripe plums.
A second infusion for 30 seconds brings out a little spiciness in addition to the rich fruit.
3rd infusion at 60 seconds is still strongly, deeply, fruity.
4th infusion at 120 seconds is sweet, fruity, not much tart left.
5th infusion at 4 minutes is losing strength, a little sweet, a little fruity, warm and friendly, but not strong like the earlier infusions.
6th infusion at 10 minutes (just couldn’t let it go) is still pleasant, mildly plummy, sweet, but again rather dilute.

I think I may actually buy a little of this for a treat. It doesn’t have the legs of a great Dan Cong, but the fruit up front is pretty incredible. Even the aroma of the wet leaves after the infusions are over is still quite nice.