Discovery Tea Box – Tea Seven
So, when I first pulled this out of the box I actually thought that it was a shou with blended in chrysanthemum, and it wasn’t until I was actually measuring out the leaf for my session that I realized it was a black tea and not a shou. I pulled this one for a couple reasons; I’ve had chrysanthemum tea but I don’t think I’ve ever had specifically snow chysanthemum and I wanted to try that out, I’d really like to experience a wider range of what Yunnan Sourcing offers because I’ve never been blown away by one of their teas, and if I’m being really honest with myself the biggest reason I pulled this was just because it looked really fucking pretty.
So, I steeped this one Gong Fu – my gram scale’s battery died and I couldn’t find a new one in the house so I had to eyeball my measurement. I aimed for about eight grams for this 150ml gaiwan – though when I was steeping I tried to only fill it to roughly the 125 ml mark. I was trying to leave 7g in the package still so that I could get a second session if I decided to keep this one or, if I passed it along, someone else would still get a reasonable session. I’m pretty good at eyeballing grams – after all I do generally spend a good chunk of my eight hour work day just scooping out tea by weight. It’s one of those “special skills” that I’ve gotten scary accurate with. Very helpful at bulk barn…
Man this tea was different than expected. I really thought I’d be getting full bodied and dark/heavy with floral elements from the chysanthemum but instead it just felt very bright and lively all throughout the session – and sweet. Like, my big take away over all eight infusions that I did was just how much this reminded me of a really sweet, clean tasting shou with a whole lot of chenpi in it. So much sweet citrus notes, and then undertones of things like figs and dates which, while they aren’t weird to taste in black tea, are things I feel like I more commonly experience in shou. Near the end of the session, it did taste a little more floral/conventionally like chrysanthemum but the ride until we had reached that point was just wild – and tasty. So, so tasty.
I just really enjoyed this one and now it’s got my ass browsing through the YS site. I’m happy to see this is actually still in stock; and it’s pretty affordable too. I feel like I want a cake of this, at the very least – but also it’s got me all hot and bothered to the point where I just keep thinking that grabbing a tong isn’t so unreasonable at all…
(Side note – I was picking through the leaf in my gaiwan a little bit after taking some photos for instagram, and the tea/chrystanthemum stained my finger tips orange!)
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bmwl31QHuh4/?taken-by=ros_strange
I am glad you liked it :)