Moonlight White By Mr. Yan (2015 Vintage)

The dry aroma of these leaves is rather woody and also smells somewhat like clay. That was unexpected. The wet aroma is very fragrant, perfurmed and fruity. I can’t put my finger on what type of fruit aroma it reminds me of. Maybe lychee or grapes. Maybe even peach.

The first infusion is a pale cream color. The flavor is astonishing… I’m reminded of Thai Tea, the popular black tea that is infused with vanilla and heavy cream and often served cold. I would say it has all of those qualities, but in a much lighter way. It tastes and feels very creamy in the mouth. The scent of the brewed tea is radiating notes of cinnamon, almost smells like a cinnamon roll.

The second infusion is a luminous yellow, like a low moon in the sky. In the flavor, there’s some white grape coming through now, along with the cream and spice notes from before. This rather young Moonlight White tea tastes much like you’d expect young white tea to taste. It has that dewy, green edge to it that a few years aging will slowly take away. Truth be told, I generally prefer this quality over older white teas. There’s something very lifelike, vibrant, and wholesome about it to me. I live in the city where I am unfortunately very detached from nature, so the life in young tea often helps to make me feel a bit more free and unbound. Feels like a natural getaway. I know there’s some debate over whether Moonlight White is white tea or Puer, but generally I believe it is white tea unless pressed into a cake, because it shares the processing method of other white teas unless pressed.

Goodness, the whole room smells like this tea. I left for a moment and was greeted generously by it when I came back. I’ve given the third infusion a stronger brew. The taste is now very generous with a medium yellow liquor. Up front, I get a very mouth-filling cane sugar sweetness, lots of cream flavor. It still tastes vaguely fruity to me; I think white grapes might be the best descriptor I can give, though if someone said peach I could see some of that in there too. This tea just has a really generous aroma, flavor, and sweetness. I wolfed down (lioned down?) this infusion, not purposely.

The fourth infusion continues much in the same way as the third, but the fruit-like flavor is waning and there is more of a creamy malty flavor replacing it. The fifth infusion has not diminished in flavor at all, and is similar to the fourth but with a bit more black tea like flavor in the finish.

This tea is a keeper for me. I’ll update the review if anything interesting creeps out in the late infusions, but for now I’m off to just enjoy this tea.