2024 Jamrock Steady

Yet another one of the many W2T teas I sampled for this winter, largely shus but this one presents itself as a bit of an oddball. It’s a sheng and shu mix; the idea on its own is a novel one, bordering on the sacrilegious, but I was open to giving it a shot. Jamrock Steady is designed to mimic the profile of an expensive aged sheng, and it is in this pursuit that it falls flat. The first few steeps, where the shu component is most evident, tastes a lot like Mei Leaf’s Playground Rendezvous, an experimental shu which was fermented in kombucha. I was not a fan of that tea, even though it presented an interesting flavor profile which reminded me of the dark colored Airborne gummies that I used to snack on (yes haha) as a kid.

After the first few infusions, the sheng takes precedence, and in that it does taste like an aged sheng, but a wholly unimpressive one. It was an interesting concept, but one I doubt should be tried again. Best to classify this one in the wacky tea experiments category and move on.

This tea is smooth with a pleasant woodsy aroma. The flavor is much lighter than the scent, with a mineral bitterness and a cooling mint-like finish. I’m not sure how I feel about this tea, as it’s missing the funkiness and flavors I look for. The flavor profile did not change over several different brewing methods (gaiwan and grandpa style). I think this is one tea I’m just happy to sample and move on.

Gongfu!

From a taste perspective, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this tea. It comes off more like a rather thin tasting and lightly bodied ripe pu’erh with to me, and as someone who typically enjoys their ripe sessions very heavy-handed and intensely brewed, it’s hard not to immediately perceive this as somewhat watered down. The notes of the sheng is rather lost to me, as well. With that said, I came to two different conclusions the longer I sat with this session and continued brewing. The first was that there was a very strong and grounding body-feeling to this session. Taste typically trumps all for me, but I just started feeling really GOOD as I drank this despite the milder tasting notes.

The second thing I landed on was this sense that this tea would actually probably be quite accessible to a new pu’erh drinker less familiar with shou or who had been turned off in the past by really intense earthy or woody tasting notes and “funky fermentation”, as weird as that might sound for such an experimental blend. The tasting notes I did get were really, really smooth and inoffensive with a bit of a sweet brown notes I’d characterize as carob or date-like. Probably a pretty safe way to dip your toes into the pu’erh world from a flavour standpoint!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHZbpXMSLun/?img_index=2

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y993yWQUOfc&ab_channel=UnderTheRug

Backlog

Sheng/shou blend which lands flat and surprisingly bitter with a sheng bite. I’d’ve imagined this to be more balanced, but the sheng takes charge, and it’s not very good. I think the idea of blending sheng and shou is interesting, on account, Yunnan Sourcing succeeded with their 2015 Green Miracle; however, I’ve not had anything like that since then.