I found this to be a little bitter, compared to 2008 Menghai “SPRINGTIME WATER” RAW. I shouldn’t even be comparing, they are different years, different companies. But I’m drinking Sheng now so I’ll be invevitably comparing them to one another.
There is only one tasting note on this and it says this tea has none of the “smokiness” that Xiaguans have. I have no idea what Xiaguan has in terms of smokiness but this one fainly smelled of … errr… (should I say this?) hot dog. I’ve started to recognize it as meaning something savoury and slighly smokey.
I overleafed so I ended up taking half the leaves out after the rinse and saving them for later tonight. Second steep still slightly bitter. I know my tongue is fine so I’m questioning whether there is still too much leaf. Guess I’ll never know. There’s almost the impression of something metallic present at the sides of my tongue.
Can’t say that I like this one all that much but thankful for the sample! I still have enough for several cups so I will give it a go once I rotate through the rest of my puerhs.
Yeah younger sheng has a much different profile to it. Xiaguans can be very smoky which I don’t like much either. The metallic may be some camphor from the leaf. Try this gongfu or in a yixing. The yixing can even out some stronger shengs.