Finished the last 3/7 of this weeks cupping for class today a few hours before the actual class. For some reason they were all deeply unsatisfying, especially the Pu’erh which was my favourite of last week’s teas.
The Pu’erh was confirmed, like I expected, in class tonight to be a Sheng Pu’erh, though my instructor did not know the exact age of it – but suspected it to be a young one. What killed it for me this time around with the cupping was that I couldn’t get over the finish which tasted profoundly like sea salt to me! Bleck.
We also revisited the same Orthodox Assam, and I felt I made the same observations this week as last week – it was pretty good. Though it pales in comparison to the Yun Nan Dian Hong I had earlier in the week.
And finally, we did a CTC (also from Assam) which I thought was just terrible. I’ve had CTC from Butiki before; same very uniform crushed black tea balls/pellets that look more like fish food than tea – and they weren’t bad! We were told to expect some “mild astringency” with this one, and I’m sorry but the level of bitterness and astringency was not, in any definition of the word, mild. My first reaction for this one was to immediately spit it out. Which I did, on to the kitchen floor…
Class was otherwise pretty good; other than a few terms used to describe dry leaf in more of an industry setting I did feel like a lot of this week was review for me. Next week I think will be better; the focus is more on tea grading and while I’m familiar with the terms used for grading I have less of a familiarity with what these grades actually look like in practice so I’m excited to visually see some of the grades (I’m sure I’ve seen them before; they’ve just not been pointed out).
It did make me pretty sad when my instructor said that yellow tea isn’t visited at all within the Tea Sommelier course; we’ve been studying/learning about it but it wont be tasted. Such a bummer since I’ve enjoyed the yellow teas I’ve had so much.
Sounds like an interesting class!