Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Following the Crowd

I went through a twenty day cycle of embracing weak teas and I snagged a few shengs that would be gentler on my body- a Guangzhou stored 2006 Changtai 65th Anniversary Ancient Tree and a 2005 Mengku Spring Tips.  Actually, Red Lantern Tea kindly sent me the 65 gratis after the unfortunate feather incident. They are both amiable easy teas.  The Changtai is not unlike the Douji Dayeqingbing full of long stemmed mature leaves. "Ancient tree" probably indicates older plantation and the mostly large leaves have no bites left.  However, they are both refreshing and probably can be served to unsuspecting lucha drinkers.   The two teas pose very little burden on the body but when you get what you want, it's not exactly what you wanted at all.

In a fit of feeling sorry for myself that I was stuck with such wussy teas, I swung the other direction and bought four samples from white2tea which arrived Monday.  My husband who has a cold and can barely smell gave me the hairy eyeball for having the radioactive White Whale(still inside an open plastic bag) on our breakfast table yesterday morning.  When wet stored cakes arrive in a plastic bag- you need to give 'em a few days or weeks to breathe out as the storage aroma intensifies into something more shocking during the journey from China.

This morning after a night of coughing fits,  I'm slightly delirious but want to brew up.  I only have myself to blame for getting this sick. My husband kept offering me preventative zinc and elderberry tablets all weekend and because the zinc completely numbs the palate and I wanted to taste my teas, I refused what was good for me.  Now that I'm sick, I can't taste that much.

The sheepish whale on the wrapping can win any frosty heart including mine.  This mini brick is cute enough for any Japanese school girl but not for what lurks beneath.  First off this little guy is tight- XG tight.  It does not want to give it up. It feels slightly wrong to be wrangling such a tiny brick as I hear tiny squeaks of "No don't hurt me!"  I'm only able to flake off mouse nibble bits for a tiny pot brew.

Man is this tea bitter. I like dandelion greens bitter not arsenic bitter.  I had resisted putting in an order to white2tea mainly because of Hobbes.  The man tends to like strong punchy bitter teas. He also likes 'em drank(dank and rank) and sweaty.  While reading about them is great fun, my unwilling stomach cowers before such leaf.  Cwyn did warned me but the WW is a tolerable stomach burner.  

Am I that "empty husk of a man subsisting on hatred and bitterness alone" that can't quite enjoy this tea?  Me? Drats. The overriding bitterness with the not entirely desirable storage taste coating my upper palate puts me on the fence.  I may or may not like it better after I give it a week to air out more and my proper palate returns after I rid of this dreadful cold.  Plenty of others will champion this tea and so Paul will need not worry about one oddly picky reviewer.  (Sorry Paul...) I look forward to brewing up the other white2tea samples and his Yiwu was quite lovely and worth getting if not for my budget minded ways. 

The White Whale is one of the must-try aged samples like the Hengli Chang just to get a sense of reference points for other bloggers.  You can predict with micrometer accuracy what MarshalN will say of this White Whale.  Nobody fork it over to him- I don't want us to get yet another brow beating.



Can a true tea wraith get joy out of looking at such cupcakes? Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

1 comment:

  1. Ah, nice to read a few flakes off a brick were at least tolerable. I agree on the Yiwu, have got one of those myself. It seems a bit green yet to me now because of the dry storage. I justify the cost of it based on the 30+ steeps I get from it, it is a three day session. But sometimes I don't want a three day session and need excuses to buy more tea...right? I get it. Yep. Cupcake photo.

    ReplyDelete