A Tea Addict's Journal

This is a tea of unclear origins. I think I picked it up somewhere along the way in Beijing…

It’s an aged shuixian of sorts. Emphasis, I think, on the aged part. It does a few funny things. It isn’t bitter — until you overbrew it. It’s very fruity, almost oddly so. It’s got that nice aged Wuyi tea taste to it, but not sour. It’s not high fired. It’s light in taste, but very long lasting (many infusions later, it will still come out bitter if you overbrew it). It’s refreshing in taste, but dries out your mouth a little. It doesn’t possess obvious qi, but along the way, maybe during infusions 4-6, I felt a warmth buzzing in the lower back. The colour is a pleasant orange

But the colour belies the taste — which would normally be accompanied by a darker hue. It’s a bit of a strange tea, really, and I don’t really know what happened to it. I think I bought this bag partly out of curiosity — to see what’s going on here. It’s a tea full of contradictions. I don’t think it’s a very good one — it’s merely ok, but quite entertaining, and will definitely last a whole afternoon no matter what you do. I think I could’ve gone further with the tea, even after a good 10+ infusions. In that way, it’s like a good aged puerh — as long as you let it stew a little longer in the water, something will come out and it won’t taste bland.

The leaves are quite complete, and some are even greenish.

Fun tea, and worth every penny of it.