Purchased from Life in Teacup’s blog sale: http://gingkobay.blogspot.com/2011/05/blog-sale-some-rare-teas-and-new-green.html
A session this morning involved stuffing my lone yixing with a healthy quantity of leaves. It is obviously a very tippy tea, even from the onset, with copious single, white, furry buds. To me, it is nearly a hybrid puerh-white tea, finding a balance between sun-dried pu’er delight and floral, humid whiteness. This might explain the lack of bitterness and astringency. The tea carries a lot of tropical, juicy fruit smells and that faintly oxidized note you would find in silver needles.
What I really appreciate about this tea, in addition to the wonderful fruit character, is this tea’s consistent, blazing bright yellow color. There is nothing orange about this tea, until it reacts with air over a period of fifteen or twenty minutes. Clean production, with no over-processing nor softening to make it more approachable. Although, perhaps the leaf blending was an effort to do so. Not quite as pure as Essence of Tea’s cakes, but pleasantly yellow and bright.
Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=519
