Canton Raw: Wu Jia Zhai 2012

Just got this in the mail, a beautiful mini Bing, pretty tight compression and lots of silver hairs evident mixed in with the leaves.

6g/200ml

15/s: The liquor is a beautiful amber color, darker than I expected. Scents of sweetgrass, sour melon, under-ripe plums, vanilla, a hint of smokeyness, pipe tobacco. Hits the whole palate which is nice, flavors coating the whole tongue. It has a sourness on the sides in the back of the palate. which, as your mouth drys slightly, spreads. I would call it astringency but it is more of a pungent sour sensation that builds. In this period I taste apricots, underripe plums, citric acid even. The sweeter aspects of the tea fade and the sourness of a young sheng takes over. You don’t get a strong ‘returning sweetness’ but it isn’t as astringent as some Sheng can be. Pleasant for those who like a sour bite with their young Sheng.
20/s Aroma is still young Sheng with a pleasant tartness.
30/s This is the money steep. Sweet, just a delicate licorice-root sweet sensation on the back of the tongue matched with an underripe fruit sourness on the nose. Aromatic wood, vanilla, caramel even coming out slightly.
45/s Unripe plum, apricots, melon, licorice root, Maca, Indian Sassafass with a light sourness at the end. It does that ‘makes you salivate’ thing which is always odd.

This is a frustrating Sheng for me to review. Is it an excellent tea, in my opinion no. Is it a really good tea, yes. Am I glad I bought it, yes. The soup is a beautiful golden color. The problem for me is the taste, way too muted yet at the same time it is very pleasing to drink. There is a very muted earthy/smokey flavor to it with a hint of astringency at the end and as far as I can tell no kuwei at all. I really like this tea, I just wish the flavors were a bolder since that is how I like my Shengs.