This is my first Shui Xian Pillow and the first Shui Xian I’ve had which wasn’t pretty heavily roasted. I gave it two rinses at the start to get it opening up, thinking it would be like the puerh balls that take a lot of effort to open up in the gaiwan. Next time I drink one of these, I think I could just drink the second rinse, as it broke apart almost completely by the first “official” steep. The dry pillow had a floral aroma to it. After a rinse, it smelled even more floral with some honey. At this point, it smelled like a lot of green tgy which I’ve had, which I am not a fan of.
Thankfully, once I got into drinking the tea, I found it to be something quite enjoyable. There wasn’t a whole lot of flavor variety or difference between steeps. For most of the session, it was a floral, nectar sweet brew, with decently creamy thickness in the mouth. It had pretty impressive longevity – I got nearly 20 steeps out of it! Part of that was probably because I used the whole 7.3g pillow in a 100mL gaiwan, but still nice. At times, the finish changed from just floral sweetness and became something a little bit different. In steeps 4 and 5, there was an extra sweetness to the finish – it was fruity, but really it reminded me of jelly beans. Around steeps 9 and 10, the finish had a bit of a caramel sweetness to it as well.
This tea was tasty! I was a bit dubious, as I have been gravitating towards roasted oolong more lately, but this was nice.
Flavors: Creamy, Floral, Sweet
