My cupboard clearance continues with this tea from 2014. This is my first Keemun Mao Feng, so I don’t have any benchmarks for comparison, even if it would be fair to judge such an old tea. Not surprisingly, the aroma is almost nonexistent, although I detect faint notes of smoke and hay. I steeped 5 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 203F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The first steep has notes of honey, hay, leather, smoke, and tannins. The astringency increases on the second steep, although it’s compensated for by more sweetness and what may be a hint of tart, unripe plums. Subsequent steeps offer a suddenly prominent note of buffalo grass, along with earth, malt, tannins, and minerals.
Especially in the initial steeps, this reminds me of Yunnan Sourcing’s Bai Lin Gong Fu, a tea of which I wasn’t particularly fond. Although I liked the progression of flavours, few of them appealed to me. I’ll have to try another Keemun Mao Feng to see if this one is typical of the style.
Flavors: Buffalo Grass, Earth, Hay, Honey, Leather, Malt, Mineral, Plum, Smoke, Tannin
