I steeped this a little heavier than usual due to the almost nonexistent aroma off the dry leaf, 7g to 100ml at 198-200F. Very light flavors with cooler water, borderline boring was my first impression, actually, as it was a pretty one note, unchanging tea for the first 6 or 7 steeps or so. Not an unpleasant note, by any mean, in fact, it was quite mellow and calm and pleasant with an herbaceous, bassy sweet note to it and a soft, moderate thickness with a bit of roof drying astringency.
Later steeps the astringency dies down considerably and so I pushed it with hotter water (upped to 205 F and longer steep times that I would have called slightly overbrewed in most tea) and it returned a nice bit of sour-almost-not-quite citrus bordering floral notes alongside the sweetness, creating an interesting mouth feel dynamic with the astringency. The taste reminded me of sweet and sour stir fry sauce with a more vinegar than citric sourness at parts that helped contrast the sweetness. Nothing mind blowing, but a nice little last hurrah from this tea which had been quite boringly polite up til now. I haven’t tried this at boiling yet, but soon enough we’ll see what that brings out of this.
Flavors: Citrus, Herbaceous, Sour, Sweet, Vinegar
