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For the past couple of days, I have been rabidly digging through my sample hoard and polishing off some of the Verdant samples I have accumulated over the past several months. My most recent sipdown was this Jin Jun Mei. Part of Li Xiangxi’s collection, this tea was picked on May 9, 2016. It is one of several Jin Jun Mei variants currently offered as part of this collection. I found it to be an interesting take on the style.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 5 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 6 seconds. I followed this infusion up with 12 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, a sniff of the dry tea leaves revealed strong aromas of nuts, ginger, honey, and bready malt. After the rinse, the honey and ginger aromas intensified and were joined by a trace of vanilla bean. The first infusion produced a similar, though slightly more balanced aroma. In the mouth, I easily detected notes of malt, cream, honey, vanilla bean, ginger, and roasted nuts. Subsequent infusions saw the ginger aroma and flavor begin to fade and the nuttiness more fully emerge. At this point, I detected a complex of black walnut, hazelnut, and roasted almond notes. Later infusions were mild, smooth, and somewhat malty. I did not pick up on much of a mineral presence at all, which was more than somewhat surprising considering this is a Wuyi black tea.

I found this to be a nice Jin Jun Mei. I would have liked to see a little stronger of a honey presence and I would have preferred that the somewhat spicy ginger character stuck around longer, but this was still very enjoyable. Compared to some other teas of this type that I have tried, this one was drier, subtler, and more balanced. I could see this going over well with fans of traditional Chinese black teas or those looking for a balanced tea with some depth.