2022 Nameless One

Brewing gongfu in a 110ml glazed gaiwan at full boil. Was curious to try out some higher grade shou. While I’ve had quite a bit of shou, I’m still developing my tasting palate, so my ability to parse notes is not the most. I’m curious to try this again later as I develop more.

Steamed scent after warming the gaiwan: Deep earthy notes with a hint of fruit in the back. Not even a hint of bad storage scent. Definitely a shou in scent though!

Rinse (15s): Lid aroma is not particularly powerful – just getting shou, maybe with a bread note. Liquor is pumpkin orange. The cake is fairly compressed, so the tea still has yet to open up. Sipping the rinse reveals a soil and leather flavor, but fairly watery as expected.

1st steep (15s): Lid aroma is earthy shou and butter. Color has darkened a shade, in between burnt orange and pumpkin. Leaves in the gaiwan still remain somewhat compressed. Flavor is warm, lightly earthy, with some mid-notes I cant yet place. The flavor is still light. I’m getting the sense that this is on the lighter side of shou fermentation, which perhaps will allow the underlying leaf to reveal its character vs pure fermentation notes?

2nd steep (20s): Lid aroma same. Liquor is now a maroon-brown, like the shade of a patina’d brown leather chair. The body of the tea has deepened a step. What’s interesting is I don’t get a dominant note like many teas, but instead, there’s a diaspora of notes in the mid range and its really hard to tease them apart even though I can sense they’re there. It’s not so typical shou, though the character is all there. It’s earthy, buttery, little bit of fruit and nut, light leather aftertaste.

3rd steep (25s): The tea remained loosely compressed, so I fused with it a bit to get it to come apart more, as I prefer to hit the body of my tea earlier before I lose steam in tasting and have to focus on other tasks. Lid aroma is earthy and leathery, a slight fish scent, and a bit of sawdust. Liquor is an opaque dark brown leather color. Flavor is deep with more savory fruits, butter, leather in the back, light dough note. Theres a camphor/woody note somewhere in there, but its mixed in the background somewhere.

4th steep (30s): Lid aroma same. Liquor is a similar dark brown, but with amber at the edges. Similar notes as the last steep – overall dark and earthy with a dark/savory fruit body, woody note comes forward with a bite of spice. Comparing to the previous steep, theres a more notable leather-spiciness to it. Butter note is pretty much gone.

5th steep (40s): Lid aroma same. Liquor is now dark amber rather than dark brown, still almost as opaque as the last two steeps. The leather spice note continues to come forward, with the savory fruit in the background. Comparing ti the previous steep, the spice note is more forward.

6th steep: (50s): Lid aroma and liquor similar. Flavor has a bit more spice and incense in it than the last steep. Comparatively the previous steep was fruitier.

7th steep (60s): Got a bit distrcted at this point,

8th steep (~70s): Color has lightened a shade. Flavor is flattened a bit in complexity, bringing it to a more typical shou territory, but not watery or dying out just yet. More or less tastes like an earthy shou.

9th steep (2m): I’m out of time so thought I’d push a final steep. In spite of this, the color is back to the 2nd steep sort of pumpkin-burnt orange and is no longer opaque. Tasting note follows a similar trend from last steep – most of the complexity is gone, giving way to typical shou territory with a prominent but not excessive bready shou note.

Overall: Really great shou. I’m not sure I have the discernability at this point in my journey to justify the cake price, as the base experience is not exactly mind blowing, but I can see why the complexity of flavor would be particularly enjoyable for soeone with a more discernable palate. Still very nice quality nonetheless!