Wow! This tea is fascinating, unlike anything else I've ever tried, and very enjoyable.

The dry leaf smells faintly Darjeeling-like, but it has a distinctive hint of an aroma that I can only describe as reminiscent of the forest floor in coastal Maine woods, that sort of mossy, acidic, gravely soil with wintergreen growing in it. The leaves are fairly large but broken. They look like oolong leaves after brewing, with their dark olive-green color, large size, and clearly visible serrations.

The brewed cup (following Upton's instructions) is exceedingly complex...one moment it is malty and edgy like an Assam, and at another moment it is fruity and ethereal like a lighter Darjeeling. Very strong wintergreen in the aroma, but with fruity undertones. Strong flavor and very full bodied, but with a very smooth finish.

What was absolutely remarkable, however, was what resulted when I brewed a second cup of this tea. I was expecting the leaves to be spent after one 3-minute brewing, as most black teas are. But the dry leaf still smelled good, so I gave it another spin, of about 4-5 minutes. The resulting cup was astonishing: strong, aromatic, completely unlike the first cup, and completely like any other black tea I've tried.

This second cup strongly resembled young (~5 year or so) sheng Pu-erh, like a sharp, almost-smoky green tea with some of the edge taken off. It also had some herbaceous tones that I have found are characteristic of the final infusions of green, high-grown oolongs. It also had a strong savory or umami flavor, and a peppery quality in the finish. Flavor of this infusion is sour and sweet.

I find the aroma hard to describe, but it struck me as having notes of celery, lemon, lime, maybe orange, and caramel, with a hint of licorice. There was almost none of the wintergreen, fruity, or malty tones that dominated and defined the first infusion. The citrus was so evident that if I were served this second cup alone, I would imagine someone had added a dash of lemon juice to it...it's almost a candied lemon character.

My only complaint is that the second cup was rather astringent, although this might be able to be minimized by proper brewing.

I look forward to experimenting more with this tea. It is quite extraordinary and I can imagine it is one that I could brew in a number of different ways to bring out different aspects of it.

And it's such a bargain buy! Very low price for such an interesting tea! Seriously...$8.40 for 125 grams...snatch it up!

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