This was another sample I received from the rewards points. This is another dancong I have never tried from anyone, and I have no idea what the translation is. I doubt it can be as amusing as the “Big Hemp Leaf” (Da Ma Ye) that I had the other day! I brewed this the same way, in my 3.7oz yixing that I have dedicated to dancongs. It has a pour rate of 4-8 seconds depending on how much I fill it with water. I did 12 steepings at 205*F with mostly 6 second steeps and made my way up to 10 seconds by the 12th steep. I do find a hint of bitterness with this because I can’t do 2-4 second steeps, but it’s tolerable and doesn’t take away from the rest of the tea.
The dry leaf was charcoal color with some olive color mixed in. They smelled wonderful. There was a floral note and the best way I can describe the rest of the scent if a grilled stone fruit (like a plum) with cinnamon on it! The infusion was golden and held notes of roastyness, a sweet spice, floral, and fruit.
I didn’t find this tea to change dramatically, no whiplash, no wtf moments, no what am I drinking moments. This one rode quite smoothly for me. Sometimes one note would fade in and another would fade out, but nothing drastic like with the Da Ma Ye dancong I had.
It started out fairly floral, with a nice amount of stone-fruit (again I’m going with plum here), and a small pleasant roasty note. These notes (besides the roasty note) lasted throughout the entire session. Sometimes a juiciness would appear and the stone fruit would become a little stronger, sometimes the floral note would come in a little stronger. But those two notes remained fairly constant.
Very quickly a citrus note appeared giving a taste of citrus peel and some pith to add just a hint of a bite, but not making it off-putting, just making itself known. With this citrus note, a note of tree bark came in. Trust me, I know what tree bark tastes like, when I had dendrology class (tree id class), tasting and smelling the tree bark and under the tree bark was a useful way to ID some of the trees. If you’ve never tastes Sassafras or Sweet Birch, I suggest you go do so.
In the earlier notes a slightly thick mouthfeel came in the aftertaste. Not nearly as thick as a tieguanyin, thick enough to still taste everything else and be pleasant. This came in around steep three and lasted for the rest of the infusions but did mellow out the further I took this tea.
Eventually the citrus dissipated and a sweet spice note came in, cinnamon or perhaps nutmeg. It grew stronger as the steeping continued and became more cinnamon than nutmeg.
I like this tea, it was a very nice, well mannered tea. It was like this is what I have to show you, to offer, I hope you enjoy it. It did so without shoving anything in your face or being cocky or being overzealous about it. While it may not have taken me on a fantastic roller-coaster ride, it did take me around to see some of the less visited sites along the scenic route, and I cannot complain one bit.
