Yangyngdeyi (The Ram)

Received this one a LONG time ago from Liquid Proust.

So, spent a few hours this evening hanging out with my ASM/friend Everett. The one who I play the ‘game’ with at DAVIDsTEA where we both pick out teas for one another. He came over for tea/supper. Turns out he’d never drank Gong Fu before so we had a really nice, relaxed Gong Fu session while just talking/hanging out.

In the spirit of LP who constantly has friends over for tea drinking/sharing, and who is just one of the most incredible people on the website when it comes to sharing tea and bringing people together I decided to put down the note pad and just enjoy the company I was sharing the tea with instead of tracking every minute detail of the experience. So, I have no idea how many infusions we had or how long each of them steeped for. I just know we drank until we were ready to move onto something else. Also, I picked this tea specifically because it’s one he shared with me and I thought it appropriate to continue the chain of sharing it with others.

That said, the things that stuck out in the session for me in between just enjoying everything for the experience were that this tea seemed to start off rather smooth for me. I know Everett didn’t like the first few infusions so much (he’s not a big Pu’erh fan generally speaking), but they were much better to me than a lot of initial infusions I’ve experienced with other shengs. I just know I braced myself for bitterness, and I didn’t really get that. Maybe some astringency though? In the tail of the sip in the first portion of the session. Also, I recall some veggie notes and roughly in the middle of the session more of a tangy, fruity sweetness that made me think of apricots.

This would be fun to revisit Gong Fu when I am tracking everything much more carefully and being a far more observant tea drinker just to see whether the more memorable things that poked out from this session would also be true for that one. However, judging from this experience alone it was really positive! Of course, the atmosphere I was in is reflected in that at least a little bit obviously.

Also, I didn’t take pictures because I felt kind of weird taking pictures of our session/the food while someone else was with us but for supper we had a freshly made Greek Salad, sans tomatoes because neither Everett nor myself like the texture of them that much. Also, ‘dessert perogies’. This was my very first time making dessert perogies and I wasn’t totally sure what to expect but basically think perogie dough wrapped around strawberry pie filling! As a supper, they were a bit odd paired with the salad – especially when you factored in the onion in the salad. However, on their own they tasted delicious and I bet they would have been even better with some cinnamon sugar dusted over them or hot with a scoop of vanilla icecream on top. You know, as an actual dessert.

Just… overall it was a good session, with a good meal, and good company.

This tea wasn’t too enjoyable. I think it would need quite a few years of age before it became really palatable. The leaf was pretty chopped up (plus I had a kinda dusty sample). There was some sweetness in the flavor, but I found it was overwhelmed by bitterness and astringency. I really enjoy bitter flavors, but there was no balance here. It was pretty darn impossible for me to steep this in such a way that drinking it didn’t make me shudder.

This tea had a lot of power to it – to the point where I think it would be a pretty decent one if it had about a decade of decent storage behind it. There was some alright thickness that developed in the texture and a decent bit of energy, though the energy was pretty harsh. Not really one for drinking now, but possibly would be good in the future.