Gongfu!
Another tea from last weekend; and in case you haven’t been following the trend from the last few weeks worth of Gongfu sessions I’ve had, this tea was also paired with fruit. In this case, I enjoyed munching on several slices of Santa Claus melon while drinking the tea! It was my first time ever trying Santa Claus melon so I wasn’t totally sure what to expect from it, but it was delicious (as was the tea).
The Santa Claus melon was fairly mellow and sweet, sort of like a tamer version of a cantaloupe? Also super crisp! I’d 100% eat it again – I was very taken back by how much I enjoyed it and how familiar the flavour was, even though I’d never experienced it before.
This was also probably one of the better white teas I’ve ever had from White2Tea! I find, personally, that their aged/compressed white offerings are very hit or miss for me – there have been some that have totally blown me away, and others that are just kind of mediocre. In this case, I thought the tea was very flavourful and nuanced, with great longevity (10 steeps!) and evolution of flavour. It was light to medium bodied, and sweet throughout the session – in an appropriate and non-cloying way. I observed notes of honey (not creamed, but more fresh and raw), red fruits, white peach, and fresh straw with undertones of springtime flowers. That sweetness present throughout the session lingered right on the back of my tongue, as if I’d just had a giant bite of sweet, juicy fruit – even in the sips when I hadn’t had any fruit at all, which is how I know it was a quality of the tea and not of the melon. Later infusions had a deeper peach note, more like an overripe peach and less of the clean “white peach” I’d observed earlier. Less straw notes were present, as well.
This was insanely good!
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/BxX1TuZneeu/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgfK62zpQvk
