Tea and Zen

This is part of my Sample Demolition: Verdant Tea series. 

There is nothing quite like being dead tired and feeling like you're on autopilot. That just about sums up how I've felt the last few days. I had my blood drawn on the 1st. I've had much more than that drawn at once, so I wonder if the heat has anything to do with this.

Wet leaves

Anyway, despite feeling very "meh" I was excited to try this tea. It smells kind of like roasted chestnuts, a hint of nutmeg, and wood. Something sweet as well, perhaps melon and blueberries. After heating up the gaiwan and gently shaking the leaves, they had a wonderful, dark chocolate smell mingled with lilacs.

I used 5g/120ml, 95C water, rinsed the leaves twice, the first steeping was five seconds and I added 3-5 seconds for each steeping thereafter.

Brewing 1-5

As I have already stated, this tea has a very lovely aroma. My scent cup didn't show me anything I hadn't already smelt, yet. The liquor had an incredibly smooth, almost silky mouthfeel. For the first cup, there wasn't much to taste, just a hint of chocolate. But, it had a very lovely aftertaste. It reminded me of melon, honey, raspberries, and blueberries.

Dry leaves

The liquor of the second cup was very lovely, a nice shade of gold. I picked up on notes of pine/evergreen (pine being 'spicy' and the evergreen being 'vegetal') in the taste of this cup, mingled with orchids, and a hint of dark chocolate. The aftertaste was much the same as before, except with orchids and it clung primarily the sides of my tongue near my throat.

The scent of the third cup was very chocolatey. It was much more present in the taste as well. The after taste was now more like chocolate mingled with orchid, the orchid lingering on the sides of my tongue, and pine at the back of my throat. A slight astringency showed but, but it wasn't anything abrasive.  

2nd brewing liquor

I sipped on some water after the third cup and it strengthened the aforementioned aftertastes. Before sipping on the water I didn't taste anything on the roof of my mouth, but this revealed the flavor hiding up there. This is why when making rock wulongs you sip on some water after the third cup! Sipping on water after drinking some teas can bring forth wonderful surprises or enhance and already lovely tea.

The fourth and fifth cup tasted primarily like the pine mingled with the orchid, as was the after taste. The orchid flavor was particularly pleasing on the fifth, it tasted as if it was mixed with vanilla.

Brewing leaves, apologies for image quality, I had thought it was better

Brewings 6-8

The aroma of the 6th cup reminded me of sugarcane. The liquor tasted like sugarcane with a hint of wood. At this point the tea appeared to be on it's last legs, so I decided to do two more brewings.

The following two cups had a strong aroma of wood, but only tasted like orchid. However, the 8th had a very silky mouthfeel without any astringency like the first few cups.

Various wet leaves

Rating

Overall I think this was a pretty good tea. However, compared to other rock wulongs I've had of the same price range, I don't think it was that good. The aftertaste was very pleasurable but didn't linger for nearly as long as the other rock wulongs I've had in the same price range, regardless of leaf varietal. While good, the overall flavor of the liquor also didn't stand out as much as others I've had. With that in mind, I'll give this tea a six. Nothing to truly celebrate out especially for the price.

If you're interested in buying this tea, you can purchase it here.