Brewed with a glass gongfu tea pot . Steeping times: 45, 30, 45, 60, 90.
The dry leaf initially smells buttery and flowery, and when my nose becomes used to the aroma, sweet barn hay (maybe because the sample is almost a year old….). The wet leaf has classic dong ding aroma notes: roasted, much more floral, and chlorophyll-filled.
The liquor is slightly green gold, pale, clear. Full-body. Creamy texture. The first infusion is sweet and floral, an embodiment of mid-spring with a calming effect. Roasted vegetables are dominant in the second, and in the third – the peak of the session – they tone down, and a sugarcane sweetness appears, along with a honeysuckle note. Strawberry aftertaste. After a two and half hour break, I resumed the session. The fourth infusion is light and floral, and the fifth is roughly the same, although a little tangy.
I didn’t want to ingest anymore caffeine for the day, so I cold-brewed the rest for fourteen hours. Not…recommended. The leaf didn’t yield much. Not complex at all.
This dong ding didn’t give me a wow factor, but it was still lovely to drink, especially on a not-too-warm, sunny spring Sunday.
