In its youth, this tea only worked for me with 200 degree water. Sessions with boiling water were overly astringent and short-lived.
This session started out simply enough with vegetal, zucchini notes and slightly sweet finish. This lasted for about three steeps, each one getting thicker and having a longer lasting finish. The finish and lingering aftertaste were like baking spices to me, like how a house smells when you’re baking a pie. Around the fifth steep, the flavors and feelings, mainly the thickness, started coalescing and coming together beautifully. The front of the sip got less vegetal and more sweet. By the seventh steeps, the astringency which had been lingering under the sweetness was just about gone. The tea had a thick, buttery texture. A bit of a hay note was all that remained of the former vegetal notes, and the sweet finish began almost immediately and lingered for quite a while. The tea started giving up after about 13 steeps. The last couple after that were mostly astringent bitterness returning, so not entirely pleasurable.
I think the most apt word I’ve seen to describe White 2 Tea’s tea is “gestalt,” used by fellow Steepsterite moot, whose reviews I’ve been greatly enjoying the past few days. I’m not too proud to say I had to look up what word meant – essentially a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. I think that could be used to describe most of the teas I’ve tried from W2T, including this one. Having recently read some of what moot wrote about W2T, I had it in my mind while I was drinking, and when the flavor and thickness really synergized on about the fifth steep, I found myself agreeing with him on the appropriateness of his word choice.
Another good one from W2T, though I think it might be the first puerh I haven’t been able to enjoy with boiling water. I think this tea might be a little better once it gets just a bit of age on it, to take off that bitter/astringent edge. Then I could’ve used boiling water, and I bet it could’ve been even thicker!
Flavors: Butter, Hay, Spices, Thick, Vegetal, Zucchini
Preparation
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Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what might be called, for lack of a better term, “tasting note culture”. Certain old-world wines and Chinese teas seem more about this harmonious whole gestalt, where a lot of, say, American wine culture and some of the new tea culture seems to fetishize the tasting notes – the more the better. Some of the w2t stuff is so hard to describe, so about so balance of flavor and texture and other hard to describables…
Which is not to say I don’t sit around talking flavor notes with my fellow tea drinkers for hours. It’s half the fun. But some of the glory of the w2t stuff really defies explanation in terms of flavor notes
plus they got bangin’ art style, yo
Can’t say I have enough experience with wine to agree with you on that front, and just getting my tea-legs as well. But I certainly do agree with how you’ve described W2T’s “house style.” They are very enjoyable, but I often find them hard to describe as one might in a normal tasting note.
And yes, the aesthetic value of the wrappers is part of the appeal, Rasseru :) Though I’ve still gotten mostly samples from them for now!
Yeah, I dont know anyone else that does comedy & tea like W2T. Its bold & I like.
Some certainly are comedic/satirical :) Others just really cool!
Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what might be called, for lack of a better term, “tasting note culture”. Certain old-world wines and Chinese teas seem more about this harmonious whole gestalt, where a lot of, say, American wine culture and some of the new tea culture seems to fetishize the tasting notes – the more the better. Some of the w2t stuff is so hard to describe, so about so balance of flavor and texture and other hard to describables…
Which is not to say I don’t sit around talking flavor notes with my fellow tea drinkers for hours. It’s half the fun. But some of the glory of the w2t stuff really defies explanation in terms of flavor notes
plus they got bangin’ art style, yo
Can’t say I have enough experience with wine to agree with you on that front, and just getting my tea-legs as well. But I certainly do agree with how you’ve described W2T’s “house style.” They are very enjoyable, but I often find them hard to describe as one might in a normal tasting note.
And yes, the aesthetic value of the wrappers is part of the appeal, Rasseru :) Though I’ve still gotten mostly samples from them for now!
Yeah, I dont know anyone else that does comedy & tea like W2T. Its bold & I like.
Some certainly are comedic/satirical :) Others just really cool!