I decided to purchase one of these mini sheng bricks recently after Phoenix told me via Twitter that there was not a lot of bitterness in them. When it arrived, I immediately thought I should have purchased two because they are so cute and the packaging is really lovely!
Anyway, I could hardly wait to try it this morning. I attempted to break a piece off but it is compressed very tightly and I ended up with mostly tea dust which is okay. I steeped that up in my yixing.
Steeps #1 and #2 of this tea were about 15 seconds. What I got was a light yellow tea liquor. For a young sheng, it is fairly mellow with a nice sweetness and a definite acidity, but not one that I am finding terribly bitter. After the first two steeps, it is starting to quiet down a bit more and is becoming mostly pleasant and mild.
I steeped this tea 10 times and after the first 3 infusions, I was enjoying it a lot more.
This is my first Douji sheng tea, but I spent a little time this morning looking up Douji on the ‘net. They certainly seem to have a good reputation and they have these bricks made from different source materials, I’m just not sure which this one is because the label is written in Chinese. I can see more experiments will be required in the future. I think perhaps sheng is an acquired taste, and one I am still getting used to. I think this will be excellent with a few more years of aging.
