1053 Tasting Notes
A lovely white tea. Its dry leaves smell of grass, fur, meadow, apple leaves. The wet leaf aroma brings more of courgette flowers and sage for example.
The liquor is smooth and thick, and has a refreshing, zesty taste. It is a somewhat savoury and vegetal tea with a long sweet and cooling aftertaste. There are flavours of grass, okra, citrus fruits, curry leaves, cinnamon, licorice, hay, and others.
Preparation
I only just broke in this cake now after a while in my storage. Since the last time I had it, still as a sample, the tea follows a familiar progression. The aroma is a bit more muted, the taste a bit less bright.
Nevertheless, the same qualities are present – a sweet aroma, pungent taste, and cooling aftertaste. The tea is smooth, floral, astringent, biting, herbaceous, and sweet, with flavours of yeast, mint, sunflower seeds, and others.
This is an interesting tea that I am happy I tried. Until now, I have had the sticky rice herb mixed in with pu-erh, but not yet with green tea. In a sense it should work, green tea can be quite vegetal and savoury. And it does, but still this particular blend would not be one I would buy again I think.
It emphasizes nutty and floral aspects in the aroma, while the taste is bitter, vegetal and sweet with a decent umami and complemented by this curious rice-like touch from the herb.
Today, I checked up on this tea, which is slowly reaching quite a mature stage, certainly aging slower in my storage than beforehand. I found it quite refreshing, bitter, earthy, metallic, herbaceous, and bit fruity and funky, including some flavours like pumpkin and beetroot.
Unsurprisingly, this black tea is superb. Its mouthfeel is perhaps not overly thick, but it is a smooth one with low astringency. Otherwise, the tea also lasts for quite a long time, I get almost twice as many infusions from it than from most other black teas.
Dry leaves smell woody and sweet with a hint of smokiness. During the session then, I get aromas of nectarine, red currant, flowers, tyres, thyme, and nougat.
The taste is bitter, sweet, mineral, woody, mostly smooth and cooling as well. There is that characteristic grapefruit bitterness of LaoManE that I love, but also flavours of honey, cocoa, grapes, root vegetables, quinine and others.
Preparation
I love this gaoshan oolong, mainly because it is very well balanced unlike many other examples in this category.
The aroma is vegetal with notes of tropical fruits and rainforest. Likewise, the taste is also not particularly sweet. Maybe also thanks to that, plus the nice astringency, the tea is particularly refreshing. The taste of this full bodied tea is grassy, mineral and floral with a touch of sourness and sweetness. There are flavours of spinach, broccoli, sunflowers, milk, courgette, among others.
