The leaves here are really small so it is indeed most probably an early spring harvest as the name suggests. Despite ten years of age, it still tastes very young. It delivers a taste profile one might expect from a Ban Pen tea, but it doesn’t really add anyhting extraordinary in my view.
Dry leaves smell of honey and thyme flowers, while the rinse bring out a strong coffee scent. Shortly after, the wet leaf aroma is quite rural with notes of barn and peat. Later it transforms into a mix of mushrooms and cabbage.
The taste is bittersweet and savoury. There are notes of hay, nuts, fenugreek leaves, green peppercorns and licorice in the first few steeps. Later I detect flavours of burnt food, leather and rainforest. The aftertaste is peppery with a good huigan and an intriguing flavour of white grape juice.
The tea is medium bodied with a velvety and slightly powdery mouthfeel. The cha qi is mild and energizing.
Flavors: Barnyard, Bitter, Bittersweet, Burnt Food, Cabbage, Coffee, Flowers, Hay, Herbaceous, Honey, Leather, Licorice Root, Mushrooms, Nuts, Peat, Peppercorn, Rainforest, Sweet, Thyme, White Grapes
