Sipdown (372)!
It’s a very lazy kind of day, so I figured what better than just milking a tea for all it’s worth and doing a big pot of something Grandpa style. What could be more perfect for this than White2Tea’s 2017 Grandpa (named for this style of drinking it!), which I recieved as a free sample in one of my orders this year!
I’ve been sipping on this one for close to three hours now; in total I’ve probably refilled my pot with hot water three times now, though definitely broken up into many, many different top ups and not just three ‘blanket’ sort of refills.
Overall, this was been incredibly smooth, pleasant and flavourful! It’s got a lot of really sweet elements to it overall too! Obviously, it’s got quite an earthy element but also I’m getting different natural notes too; wet wood, and truffles mostly. The undertones are really fruity but in a deep, rich sort of way evocative of strewed fruits, dates/figs, and really deep stonefruit notes like plum and black cherry. I’d say the date notes in particular have been particularly strong as I sip on this.
Part of the sweetness also comes from a more confectionery/bakery rooted place: a mix of dark chocolate/baker’s chocolate, barley and oats. I’m surprised a little bit by the presence of an oat-like flavour but I’m not turned off by it either. I did notice it much later into this ‘session’, if you can call it that. At this point in the session a lot of the initial wave of robust earthy elements had more mellowed out and the soup produced from the tea was getting thinner/weaker.
Overall, I don’t know that this is a particularly unique or standout tea, but it’s incredibly smooth and I appreciate the sweetness in it a lot too. It works really well for the Grandpa style of brewing, and I think it would be a good intro into Shou as well because it’s so smooth/sweet with those fruity elements.
10/10 – would definitely recommend.
