Jingmai Moonlight White

Backlog from March 2021. Sample from Martin of 2018 harvest. Thankee :)

More aromatic than flavorful; bright and oily; deeper, unique flavors brought out by higher temperatures. Too much of that weird, primal, ephedra-like energy I get from high quality Jingmai teas.

Summer 2018 harvest

Well, lazy morning again.
I do not want to do anything, so I decided to do a gong fu with another new tea. As I never had a compressed white tea, I took this one.

Clean up the gaiwan (oh, come on, I even left leaves in water and forgot it for two days). Dang! Clean up the cup. Boil water to thermos.

And 15 seconds rinse. 5 grams of tea.

It woke up some aromas. Hard to describe, but closest one would be probably raisins? Is it even possible? Certainly it is some sweet aroma.

1st steep is 15 seconds long (as usual for me).
In taste it is mild, but nothing really distinctive.

2nd, much longer – forgot about it a bit. Around 45 seconds.
I was counting and then I thought, oh I am already on fourty.
It won’t be bad, I was complaining it was not distinctive for first steep. It get some floral notes. More thick too. In aroma of wet leaf I notice something refreshing, like a mint.
Yep, it is floral and nicely round. Little astringecy is there, but not really making it bad.

3rd, 1 minute
Cake chunk broke completely. It is loose leaf now. Haha.
Pours golden, with slighlty woody aroma. In taste it is nice, thick tea, kind of honey smoothness.

4th, 75 seconds
It is really bold now. But still so nice smooth, little, almost unnoticable astringency. No bitterness.

And following ones (adding 15 seconds)
are quite similar. It is not very complex tea in tastes, but easydrinking, warming cuppa.

Food pairing: Vanilla yoghurt for breakfast, haha. Not enough. Bread with salami.

Teabox Tuesday! This is another of the old samples I snagged from the Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox, so thank you to tea-sipper for organizing and to all those involved who were nice enough to share their teas! I decided to prepare the 3.1g sample I had gong fu style and sip on it while watching a movie I brought home from the library.

Apparently this is the summer 2016 harvest of this tea, according to the note I wrote on the front of my sampler packet. I do not drink white tea very much — most of the white tea I do drink are flavored blends that I prefer by and large to cold steep and drink in water bottles as refreshing iced teas — so pure white tea brewed warm is very much still in my realm of exploration, so I wouldn’t take anything I say too seriously. I’ve always brewed my whites warm in the 175-185F realm, but after reading the other reviews on this one that recommended bumping up the heat on this one, I just decided to opt for those suggestions and turned up the heat on my kettle from the get-go.

3.10g / 80ml (in a 100ml capacity shiboridashi) / 205F / 20s|30s|40s|50s|60s|75s|90s|120s

The wet leaves were very aromatic, smelling of damp autumn leaves, grapes, and floral perfume. The tea steeped a light yellow color, and the first steep had a soft floral and muscatel aroma. The flavor was very grapey, with strong muscatel and floral notes, and a more subtle leafy note in the background. It was a very sweet infusion! The second infusion brought out a more fruity aroma from the tea, and the flavor was less sweet, with a fruity flavor at the beginning of the sip with notes of grapes, berry, and currant, but the end of the sip was more of a vegetal note of autumn leaf and hay which settled toward the back of the tongue and left a mild astringent/drying after the sip. The third infusion brought out a citrus flavor in the fruity notes, tasting very much of orange rind; the vegetal notes were still quite strong in the third infusion, but the citrus note became more pronounced in the next two infusions, hitting its peak by the fifth. The fruity notes started to drop off quickly after that, and the rest of the session was mostly a soft but pleasant floral tea. By the eighth infusion the aroma on the tea was fairly weak; I was still getting floral flavor in the tea but it was noticably weaker, so I wrapped up the session there.

I really enjoyed this tea! It had quite a bit of variety in flavor and I was surprised by how much it had to give, especially for the age. Maybe I’ve been sleeping on whites for too long. Most of the ones I’ve tried in the past just tasted really strongly of autumn leaves, occassionally of florals, and I don’t think I’ve ever had such a strong fruity presense. It was a fun exploration!

Here’s Hoping Teabox – Round Seven- Tea #45
A standard moonlight type white tea. The flavor is tough to describe though. I don’t think it compares to to Butiki’s White Rhino though… even if I’m probably seeing the White Rhino through the rose colored glasses of the past and love for Butiki. But this is a good example of a moonlight with all its unique colored leaves, some light, some dark, some fuzzy, some like old autumn leaves. The flavor doesn’t have as much smoothness and depth as I expect a moonlight to have though.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug// 30 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 25 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep

I’ve done a couple sessions with this one, both with boiling water, and would say that it is a good tea. Not interesting or dynamic or anything, but solid and drinkable. The leaves smelled like a white tea mixed with a sheng. Mostly floral and straw, with a bit of that strong shengy aroma that often comes off of young leaves.

The flavor starts out light, with mostly floral notes, but moves quickly into a sort of sugary sweet, lightly green hay (not straw) flavor. The texture is a little bit milky, but not super thick or creamy. This is one that I enjoyed guzzling while I was playing video games – it didn’t require too much in the way of thought on my end.

I’ll probably try it at lower temps as well to see what sort of different flavors I might get out of it, or if it will be more complex or anything like that.

I have drank this tea around 10 different times at this point because I have a friend who came over with another moonlight and told me that this one was odd.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOWjklcAqED/

I have recently found out that this particular one does not provide a great result at 90c. It might be good, but not great. Ramp that temperature to 100c and the strength comes out for sure. The taste is much bolder and more enjoyable. Generally I am gentle on moonlight white so I can find the soft aspect to it, but this one seems to need some real heat to get it going.

$16/100g is a pretty solid deal to be honest. Really liking this stuff and the value is great.