2016 We Go High

I feel like I drank this one time before, but the session was unremarkable, so I waited to note it. Decided to give it another go this past weekend one evening.

A skipped the wash and this poured out like liquid gold with a very light, but slightly throat drying initial flavor. The aroma of this tea is syrupy sweet, though the flavor is not. I only get a couple of steeps in before passing out, but finish this tea up the next day. It settles into a green bell pepper flavor, which I expected, but no feels and not much of an interesting mouthfeel, which I did expect since I only had like two steeps the night before. But perhaps all that power went into putting me to sleep!

This tea still is rather unremarkable to me in comparison to some other sheng I’ve had, including from W2T, but my sample isn’t gone yet so I suppose I’ll see if my opinion changes!

Leaves have a sweet hay smell. The color started a rich yellow and quickly moved to gold. The texture is fairly thick with a nice mouth feel. There is a mild sweetness and I get a slight bitterness, which I don’t mind. The flavor was a little bolder than I was expecting. If a soft Yiwu is a 1 and a bold Menghai is a 5, this was about a 3.5 for me. I began to notice a mild body feel at the end of my second steep and increases slightly into my 5th steep where I took a break. It did not upset my stomach at all which surprised me for such a young sheng. This tea seems to have some serious backbone so I would drink it w/ respect. I think it is almost too much for me to be a daily drinker but definitely want to enjoy from time to time. I ended up getting 13 steeps out of the leaves. Using the Richmond Rating Scale, I give this a 4.4 which equates to a 88 on Steepter scale. Richmond scale:
1 I hate this tea. I’m not sure I can finish my cup, and I would never purchase it.
2 I’m not a fan of this tea. I may finish my cup or pot, but I probably wouldn’t buy it.
3 This tea is okay. I might drink it from time to time. I may purchase if it were inexpensive or someone gave it to me.
4 I like this tea. I want to drink it regularly, and I would be willing to pay up to the mid range of my budget for it.
5 I love this tea. I can’t get enough. I would be willing to pay at the highest end of my budget for it.

This tea will get you rekt.

The flavor is potent, even in early steeps. Strong vegetal flavor and a good amount of bitterness (think young bulang) and dryness. There is some floral, stone fruit, and buttery flavors. Boiling temperature got some excellent thick texture.

But really, unless you like bitter sheng, you are drinking this to get completely blasted and forget all your worries.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2016-go-high-sheng-puer-white2tea/

Well,

This tea started out very oily and had strong body feels. I stayed tea drink for four hours, and now a day later, I feel hung over. It’s crazy because this tea is already so young, yet so strong. It’ll be crazy to see what this tea is like a year for now.

Edit:

I wrote a review here

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/2017/04/07/They-Go-Low—-We-Go-High