2003 Wistaria Qingteng
Aug 23, 2016, 5.2g/90ml gaiwan. [6.2]
The dry leaf has a very unique pungent floral smell. Not urine but a kind of fragrant perfumy ammonia. The damp leaf has an unusual school warehouse smell – this is the storage which will persist throughout – it isn’t overpowering but it is present.
The wet leaf perfume is very attractive, there is a furniture polish part but there is also a candy-like dancong aroma in the wet leaves at the start.
The strength of this tea is present from the wash, penetrating the surfaces of the mouth and going back along the throat. The strength feeling I sometimes describe as gasoline which is also present in the Zipin, this feeling is very similar to the penetrating strength of melatonin pills in the mouth. The strength builds and builds through steeps 1-6 and then slowly peters out.
In the early steeps there is a clear sweet arrival with a sparkling fruity aftertaste. The pungent floral aroma is also remarkably strong, filling the head and extremely pleasant through the first 6 steeps. By steep 3 I can feel prickly heat on the face and I can feel a slight amount of uplift, not a lot but definitely there and accentuated by breathing in and feeling an upward motion.
Steep 4 was a particularly intense feeling of salivation and heat on the rear neck. Lots of strength penetrating the tongue and similar to the gasoline strength of Zipin but infused with big floral aromas.
One key aspect is that the aftertaste and pungent aroma persists long after swallow and after subsiding return again over a 5+ minute period, so really strong ability to affect aroma and taste after swallow.
Another aspect of the tea which may be viewed as a criticism is that there is a very distinct and coherent storage note, warehouse/basement/furniture polish, and then there is a very distinct coherent floral pungency, and they are somehow separated and not unified.
The strength on the tongue persists after florals subside past steep 6 or 7, sweetness is also present long-term, does produce heat and relaxation but I would say that while the body effect and uplift are there they are not extreme.
