Shoot, I’m thinking this tea won’t get the chance to age much in my hands! I keep getting these random cravings for this specific tea… maybe I’ll just have to buy a whole tong and hide it somewhere that I can’t access very well.
This time I feel I sort of hit a sweet spot for the first infusion, though durability of subsequent infusions suffered a bit.
Used a lighter concentration with my trusty old, larger Duan Ni clay Shi Piao pot I’ve seasoned well enough to change the color of. 5g in 210ml water with a single rinse at 88 degrees C immediately poured off. Pour time is about 15 seconds. Infusions progressed: 45sec-87C, 45sec-83C, 45sec-78C, 1min10sec-87C, 1min15sec-85C, 2min30sec-80C. Sixth infusion still had staying power, but most of the complexity had leveled out and any brews after it would probably be just a bunch of the same diminishing to the ether. O’course, I really couldn’t take a seventh cup in this instance. I know Lu Yu’s tea was heavier, whisked tea, but I felt much the same way tonight.
Very close expression to the first time I played with this tea, but incorporating the toasty, cocoa-and-spice characteristics I got at high concentrations. Strange, since this is the lowest concentration I’ve brewed this at… This tea seems to really want to please the more frugal tea drinkers who don’t want to expend a lot of energy on controlling the parameters.
Grape-sweet, orchid-floral, celery-astringent, toasted French white oak woodiness (as expressed in a dry Chardonnay), steamed cauliflower vegetal note, cassia-spiciness, rose-afteraroma, peppered roast beef savory, with a wet granite mineral quality. Later infusions become more minerally and 3rd infusion onward carries a pleasant long-lasting light astringency across most of the tongue and throat. By the third infusion I’d sort of developed a sweat from the savory-spiciness even though it’s pretty cool tonight.
Once again, very yummy and satisfying. I had a churning stomach and three cups of this and a couple pieces of sprouted wheat toast took care of it (probably not as well as a shu puerh, but I had a craving).
Hmm, I think I’m starting to beat this bush to death… Better put this tea away for a while.
hello, sir. im trying to put together a sample purchase from yunnansourcing.com and there are a lot of choices. i am not yet very well versed in puerh. any suggestions? dont hold back, it is all appreciated. thanks.