2016 W2T Into The Mystic
5g/100ml gaiwan
July 9, 2017
Dry: loose compression, medium-small leaves, gray, silver, yellow-brown.
Damp: vinegary, fruity, wine, pungent, nice.
Wet: fresh green tea aroma
- gives side salivation very quickly. High thickness, green sweet profile. Alerting and very quick uplift.
- Grassy arrival, bitter, converts to lots of sweetness on the roof of the mouth. Feeling of weight on the back of throat. Aftertaste is very long, deep, sweet. Some heat, and some alertness.
- Very green but not much astringency. Sweet later, slight discomfort to stomach. Pungent florals, but mild, not super interesting perfume.
- Now the leaves are properly open. Liquor is yellow gold. More classic young sheng profile , some astringency, and a feeling of penetrating strength on the roof of the mouth. High thickness. Simple sweet aftertaste. Slowing of breathing and a deep pressure in the stomach.
- Much more astringency now, but also a great deal of sweetness. Not feeling usual uplift or frisson but rather heat and alerting and some tension.
- Now get quite a blast of cooling, goosebumps, and feeling a bit hyper. Super aggressive energy, very big cooling and alertness.
- Menthol. Vegetal arrival. Turning more vegetal overall. Still very thick, to the point of being syrupy. Not bad in that sense. More umami, and still sweet in the late aftertaste.
- Still quite thick. A touch of swimming pool aspect… not in a bad way. Oolongy. Frisson. Cooling.
- At this point I started pushing and got some of my favourite steeps. Very oily thick texture which adheres to the mouth and throat on a longer steep. A big wave of frisson. Very oily.
After getting through the initial steeps, it might be worth trying longer steeps (1 min+) of this one. The main draw of this tea was the interesting oily and thick syrupy texture, and the aggressive qi was fun although it’s not my preferred style, due to the hyper/alerting aspect. Processing of this also may signal that it is designed for drinking in the near term.
