Another solid sheng from CLT! It was one of the greener feeling sheng from the CLT lineup – not meaning it seemed really young, but just that it had some flavors I associate with greenness. . .I guess. The dry leaf smelled mostly floral, but after a rinse I also picked up a bit of a marine, seaweed aroma, along with straw. The rinse left a slight sugarcane aroma in the cha hai.
The first steep opened up with a bit of a seaweed note. I also tasted a pretty distinctly sweet grassy flavor, along with a light apricot aftertaste. The second steep saw the seaweed recede a little bit, a floral layer replace the grassiness, and a pretty thick creamy texture emerge. By the third steep, the creaminess was so intense, and the associated with a bit of a vanilla taste, that I was drinking custard – or so it seemed. Pretty friggin delicious.
Unfortunately, custardtea didn’t last long. The next three steeps were still quite sweet and thick, just not in the right proportions to get that real custardy vibe I got earlier. The taste was vegetal in the front, kind of brothy, with a slight lettuce bitterness, followed by the sweet vanilla floral creamy flavor.
The tea took another turn around steep 7, taking on more of an herbal quality in the front, but still with a sweet aftertaste. For the next few steeps, there was a slightly citrusy flavor in the finish, with the sweetness moving more into the front. Probably more lemongrass than lemon.
As it began to wane, the tea got more uniformly sweet. It went on with relatively pleasant sweetness and thickness through around 14 steeps.
I think my favorite steep of this one was the custard sweet one. The whole session was quite good – deep and creamy sweetness buried under a vegetal (emerald?) sea :P
It was also enjoyably complex, with a lot of different flavors and changes going on through a session.
Flavors: Apricot, Broth, Creamy, Custard, Floral, Grass, Lemongrass, Lettuce, Seaweed, Thick, Vanilla, Vegetal
Nice review! I wonder how you’ll think of this 10 years down the road.