This was one of my sipdowns from the first half of April. I don’t know why, but I just have had a hard time getting around to posting a review of this tea. I’m guessing the fact that it offered such a roller coaster of a drinking experience has had something to do with that. This tea was different literally every single time I tried it and was up and down over the entirety of every gongfu session I attempted.
It should come as no surprise that I primarily prepared this tea gongfu style. For the review session, I started off by steeping 6 grams of rolled tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 8 seconds following the rinse. This infusion was followed by 17 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of roasted almond, brown sugar, toast, honey, chocolate, nectarine, and citrus. After the rinse, I detected aromas of rose, vanilla, and butter alongside a clearly defined grapefruit scent. The first infusion introduced aromas of candied pomelo, orange zest, and plum. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of grapefruit, candied pomelo, toast, roasted almond, and plum that were chased by hints of orange zest, vanilla, brown sugar, rose, cream, butter, and pear. The impressions of cream, butter, vanilla, and orange zest grew stronger after the swallow, lingering in the mouth and throat for a considerable time. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of pear, peach, cherry, cinnamon, juniper, malt, earth, apple, and grass. Stronger and more immediate notes of rose, vanilla, cream, butter, pear, and orange zest came out in the mouth alongside notes of peach, minerals, apple, cherry, malt, lemon zest, and juniper. I also found notes of honey and nectarine and subtle hints of grass, earth, nutmeg, cinnamon, and chocolate. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, cream, vanilla, roasted almond, toast, pear, cherry, and orange zest that were balanced by hints of lemon zest, grapefruit, peach, grass, juniper, malt, and honey.
This was a very interesting and often somewhat challenging Gui Fei oolong. It was quite heavy on the fruitier aromas and flavors, which I definitely liked about it, but it also did not offer a consistent drinking experience from infusion to infusion or session to session. There were definite peaks and valleys over the course of my review session and every other session I tried with this tea. In the end, I found that I respected it a little more than I enjoyed it as it was a rather fussy, temperamental tea that offered respectable longevity and complexity but not the kind of accessibility and reliability I tend to expect of most Gui Fei oolongs.
Flavors: Almond, Apple, Brown Sugar, Butter, Candy, Cherry, Chocolate, Cinnamon, Citrus, Cream, Earth, Grapefruit, Grass, Herbaceous, Honey, Lemon Zest, Malt, Mineral, Nutmeg, Orange Zest, Pear, Plum, Rose, Stonefruit, Toast, Vanilla
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You got way more out of this than I did. What harvest did you have?
I think mine was from the 2017 harvest. It was an odd tea regardless. I had to dig deep to get much out of it. I should also note that I think I may have been too generous with my numerical score because while I liked some of the aromas and flavors, this just wasn’t a fun tea to drink.
Did you get any of the grittiness in texture, almost sandy? I don’t recall seeing anything floating around in the liquor that would produce that effect. It was a chore for me to finish the 50g bag I purchased. Toward the end of the bag, I packed up what little remained and left it on the community table in my apartment building lobby.
derk, I’m sorry I couldn’t reply to you sooner. I noticed the gritty texture too. It was not that distracting at first, but it did grate on me a little after a point. I suppose I was fortunate in that I only committed to a 25 g pouch of this tea because I very likely would have gotten sick of it had I been required to drink any more of it. For me, this was one of those teas where I liked the aromas and flavors it offered, but everything else about it was a little out of whack. Drinking it turned into something of a chore pretty quickly.
You got way more out of this than I did. What harvest did you have?
I think mine was from the 2017 harvest. It was an odd tea regardless. I had to dig deep to get much out of it. I should also note that I think I may have been too generous with my numerical score because while I liked some of the aromas and flavors, this just wasn’t a fun tea to drink.
Did you get any of the grittiness in texture, almost sandy? I don’t recall seeing anything floating around in the liquor that would produce that effect. It was a chore for me to finish the 50g bag I purchased. Toward the end of the bag, I packed up what little remained and left it on the community table in my apartment building lobby.
derk, I’m sorry I couldn’t reply to you sooner. I noticed the gritty texture too. It was not that distracting at first, but it did grate on me a little after a point. I suppose I was fortunate in that I only committed to a 25 g pouch of this tea because I very likely would have gotten sick of it had I been required to drink any more of it. For me, this was one of those teas where I liked the aromas and flavors it offered, but everything else about it was a little out of whack. Drinking it turned into something of a chore pretty quickly.