This tea was surprising, and delicious.

The biggest surprise was unusual aroma, and the disconnect between that aroma and the taste. I should say: for me, the smell of tea is a thing to savor, as much a part of the experience as drinking it. Unless you buy something after drinking a sample, the smell is probably your first exposure, your first hint of what it might be. Sometimes I go into tea shops and just smell things.

This tea had a completely unexpected, intoxicating smell. It was intensely smoky. Like, new age healing ceremony smoky. It wasn't what I've come to expect from green tea at all. I thought it was like Lapsang Souchong, but more herbal.

I only had one small sample to play with, so I steeped it Gong Fu style according to the directions on the packet - relatively large amounts of leaf, relatively small amounts of water, and very short steep times.

The taste wasn't anywhere near as smoky as the aroma would imply. It was balanced and floral. The description said it tasted of honey, which I would not say, though I did taste some sweetness in it. Each steeping brought out something different - perhaps an effect of the tea's considerable complexity, or in variations in duration and water temperature from steeping to steeping. Or both.

The description claims that you can steep it up to 12 times, and perhaps this is true; I gave up after 9. However, throughout all nine steepings, the tea remained complex, balanced and tasty - sometimes floral, sometimes herbal, sometimes a little bit grassy, and never overly strong on any one dimension.

For my personal tastes, this tea was very good and obviously of high quality - though not among the very best I have ever encountered in terms of pure taste - but even more than good, it was interesting. For me, where it really shines is as a comprehensive sensual experience: the smell, the surprising taste, the multiple infusions, the variations from cup to cup. It was an experience I found myself paying more conscious attention to than I usually manage, and it rewarded that attention.

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Comments:

Alex Zorach wrote: on December 5th, 2012

I definitely had the same experience with regard to the smokiness--the aroma initially seemed smoky, like Lapsang Souchong, but then upon drinking it was much less so.

I also found it among the most interesting teas I've ever tried, very unlike anything else I've sampled.

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