2017 Rock Rhyme Lincang Bangdong

Drank this yesterday and was quite pleased.

Very green. Slight floral/fruit taste. Easy to brew. Forgiving. Good, but would need a price point to compare to others as Bang Dong and I go far back.

Thanks for the sample!!! Quality material – classic bangdong scents on the dry leaf. First few steeps had a great mix of floral and citrus notes with a rich nutty base tone rounded out by fresh grass. Later brews developed a solid bitterness. dense cooling sensation on the midpalate with a slight effervescent tingle. Medium thickness to the body, lots of lingering notes of sugarcane. Tons of sweetness in the cheeks which caused a lot of salivation. Fresh, decent energy, very good characteristics in the mouth. This definitely has some good healthy old trees in the mix (I wont use the G word ;) but would guess this is a blend of tree ages from 50-200 yr old). a great example of bangdong character, good leaf, and good processing.

So I managed to get a mild sunburn everywhere yesterday. That’s pleasant. I need to start carrying an umbrella. …Or frilly parasol.

Used about 85-90C water, just down from boiling; 3g/50mL, prewarmed gaiwan, and did a quick rinse. Steepster again lost my note before I finished, so here’s my quick summary:

First two steeps at 10 seconds, faintly sweet, no real astringency until the second steep, light, almost floral; some people suggested mineral, which I think I agree with. The astringency almost feels roasty, so that the early steeps strongly remind me of a light dan cong. The aroma of the lid was distinctly fruity, but didn’t really carry into the cup that I noticed. It’s quite different from the Mang Fei, which was more smokey and heavy.

Third steep on I upped to 15 seconds. Astringency built for a bit, mostly concentrating on the tip of my tongue; around steep five, it dissipated again. Reminds me of unripe fruit, I think; not QUITE sweet, a bit dry and harsh, but definitely not vegetal or savoury.

I’ll probably edit this later when I get home from work to continue.

Gylx were kind enough to send over a sample of this for evaluation. A migraine meant being able to try this out today instead of over the weekend as planned. Used the entire 8g in a 120ml clay teapot. Did a flash rinse and then steeped for 10 seconds the first three times, before increasing the steeping time.

The third steep was probably the strongest, with a nice balance of bitter and sweet. After the third steep, the sweetness takes over and in total I got ten steeps out of this before the taste began to fade and needed extended steeping times.

There were some nice large leaves in there but also a lot of broken leaf, not sure if that might be from breaking off the sample. This is a good young sheng for drinking now.

Thank you to Glyxtea for this sample.

I started this with 5 grams of tea for 80ml of water in my yixing. I used 200 degree water to bring out more of the flavor. Starting with a quick rinse to wake up the leaves, this is a 2017 and exceptionally clean, so this was more to help unpack the leaves than rinse them. It came pre broken up, so one rinse is sufficient as the leaves opened well enough. I got a grassy, vegetal and light fruity aroma. Not entirely unexpected in a very young sheng.

First infusion I get a light golden clear liquor, tasting it I get floral, grassy, a bit bitter, and stonefruits, maybe apricot? Nice tingle on the tongue from this, and the bitter is pretty restrained as well. Nice sweetness on the finish as well, its actually a bit more intensely sweet than I would have expected from a tea this young.

Second infusion is mostly the same, but the bitter is a teeny bit more pronounced, but so is the sweetness. Maybe peaches? It’s definitely a stonefruit flavor, light, sweet, very tiny bit sour.. Honey now as well.

Third infusion , now getting a bit more bitterness, the liqour is also slightly darker. Tasting of vegetal and flowers. Still quite light but a bit more body than the previous infusions. The leaves expanded considerably now, so I think IM getting the most complete flavor profile now. The balance is actually really good between them all.

Quite a nice tea, and seemingly a very strong steeper as well as the third infusion was the best. Going to brew this out a few more times now.

Highly recommended

First tasting of this tea. Thank you for the sample.
Started with 8g/100ml porcelain gaiwan. Rinse and short steeps of 10-15 sec. Notes of peach in the aroma and taste. Becomes bitter if oversteeped, but the kind of bitterness that develops into sweet gan. Second steep brings out a thick soup. After 3rd proper steep I feel this tea is somehow strong, I can feel some buzz in my head.
Session goes till 10 steeps before starting to fade out and start needing more steep time. At this point I find some leathery and fresh tobacco hints.

Thank you for the sample of this tea. It was quite a nice sheng. It had a fairly sweet note at the start with very little bitterness. Only brewed it eight times because I need to go out and replace my phone because the camera died on it. Just didn’t have time to keep going or I would have brewed it at least twelve steeps. I think I would use the words apricots and stonefruits to describe the sweet notes in the later steeps. It was very good.

I brewed this eight times in a 150ml gaiwan with 8g leaf and boiling water. I gave it an 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec.

Starting this out with an 8 gram sample. The dry leaf has a nice sweet aroma to it.
Using the duanni clay pot. I warmed the pot and poured the water out and tossed in the leaves. Aroma get sweeter in the steam.
Flash rinse and the aroma intensifies with more of the sweet aroma with some honey in there. First steep very quick into the cup. The teas seems well processed as there wasn’t much char in the filter. First sips, sweet , floral , honey in there some mineral and some middle tongue notes.
Second steep, tea gets much thicker and active. Still the underlying sweetness. The bitter has crept in which means shorter steeps as I continue.
I paused a few minutes to soak in. Aftertaste is pretty nice on this one.
Third steep, still strength in this one. Sweet and bitter mixing in. A little of the mineral slips back in as well. Still clean in the filter and the leaf is slowly starting to unfurl.