This one starts with a delicate and mild aroma of sweet tobacco and dank moss. There is an immediately elegant sweetness to the over all light flavor to the liquor but with added notes of cedar and the incense of floral resins. The age does provide an element of austerity to the cup which, for me, really brings the flavors home. Brewing with hotter water brings out a typical aged “tang” and highlights the cedar and heavier wood notes.
The finish is slightly dry on the tongue and carries a cooling mouthfeel with a particularly interesting hui gan of eucalyptus and lavender.
Later infusions develop into more subtle interplays of lavender and sweet, mild incense. This one stays pleasantly heavy on the tongue yet light on the palate.
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Does it strike you as strange, or perhaps somewhat consequential, as you drink, that what you are drinking is over 50 years old?
Some guy who perhaps made that in his 20s is now 70 years old!
It is a testament to the beauty of the God-given gift of the tea plant that with proper care and attention something grown so long ago can not only taste good but so unique as well. I’m 27 and it’s definitely a trip to get a hold on anything that’s older than me let alone ingest it. Perspective is a funny thing and usually very humbling. It reminds me how delicate and transient our lives are in the grand scheme of things yet how resilient life is in itself. Amazing, really.
And then if you think of things in the grand scheme, 50 years doesn’t seem too long at all. To me, it is amazing to think that God had the tea plant in mind (and all of the various kinds of tea he knew people would come up with from that one plant!) when he created the world. It’s kind of like jazz or laughter, difficult yet really cool to imagine that those were his ideas.
Does it strike you as strange, or perhaps somewhat consequential, as you drink, that what you are drinking is over 50 years old?
Some guy who perhaps made that in his 20s is now 70 years old!
It is a testament to the beauty of the God-given gift of the tea plant that with proper care and attention something grown so long ago can not only taste good but so unique as well. I’m 27 and it’s definitely a trip to get a hold on anything that’s older than me let alone ingest it. Perspective is a funny thing and usually very humbling. It reminds me how delicate and transient our lives are in the grand scheme of things yet how resilient life is in itself. Amazing, really.
And then if you think of things in the grand scheme, 50 years doesn’t seem too long at all. To me, it is amazing to think that God had the tea plant in mind (and all of the various kinds of tea he knew people would come up with from that one plant!) when he created the world. It’s kind of like jazz or laughter, difficult yet really cool to imagine that those were his ideas.