Medium Roast Shui Xian (2018)

Here’s another review of one of my summer sample sipdowns for everyone. I think I finished what I had of this tea in either June or July, but at this point, I can’t remember. It doesn’t really matter anyway. At the time, I was plowing through as many 2018 and 2019 Old Ways Tea samples as I could, and this was one of the ones that impressed me the least. It should be noted, however, that medium roast Shui Xian is not my favorite thing in the world. If I’m drinking Wuyi Shui Xian, I almost always favor light roast or heavy roast variants over the medium roast teas.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a standard 10 second rinse, I steeped 5 grams of loose tea leaves in 3 ounces of 203 F water for 6 seconds. This infusion was chased by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 9 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, and 10 minutes.

Prior to rinsing, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of cinnamon, baked bread, roasted almond, butter, and earth. After rinsing, aromas of roasted peanut, pine, smoke, and char emerged. The first infusion brought out black cherry, blackberry, blueberry, and elderberry aromas. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of cinnamon, char, smoke, cream, pine, black cherry, and blackberry that were balanced by hints of roasted almond, butter, earth, and baked bread. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of black raspberry, minerals, roasted barley, and toasted rice. Stronger and more immediately noteworthy impressions of earth, butter, roasted almond, and baked bread appeared in the mouth along with mineral, moss, elderberry, blueberry, rock sugar, black raspberry, orange zest, grass, roasted barley, and toasted rice notes. Very subtle hints of plum, nutmeg, and roasted peanut could also be detected at times. As the tea faded, the liquor began to emphasize notes of minerals, grass, baked bread, cream, butter, roasted almond, moss, and earth notes that were chased by hints of nutmeg, cinnamon, toasted rice, roasted barley, roasted peanut, blueberry, blackberry, and orange zest.

This was such a perplexing offering. Compared to many of the other 2018 and 2019 Shui Xian offerings from Old Ways Tea, this tea stood out in a couple of ways. First, it consistently emphasized its grainy qualities and its heavy minerality over more typical spicy, earthy, woody, and roasted notes. It also displayed an absolutely lovely fruitiness. That unexpected elderberry presence was truly wonderful. Unfortunately, there were many times in which the tea did not pull all of its components together harmoniously, and some of the tea’s most appealing, memorable qualities disappeared or were too greatly muted by the end of my drinking session. Overall, this tea was enjoyable, but it was also a mixed bag. I wanted to like it a little more than I did, and part of me feels like it could have been so much more than it was.