I placed a couple of orders recently.

The first was with Stockholm based In The Mood For Tea. I was really impressed with the beeng of Fengqing 2017 Gushu I bought from them a couple of weeks ago, and decided to buy another cake from the same manufacturer, the Sanning tea factory.

The other order was with perennial favourites House of Tea, and consisted of three teas – an Indian Oolong made from Assam raw material, yet another Japanese Oolong, and a Taiwanese GABA green tea.

I’ll be covering those teas in upcoming posts, but the subject of this one is a tea that was also included in the package in the form of a free, 3 gram sample.

The last time I encountered this particular style of tea was way back in mid-April of 2016 – also a small, free, House of Tea sample. I was looking forward to re-acquainting myself with this class of tea, and seeing how this year’s vintage stacked up.

Babelcarp gives a brief but useful breakdown of the two component parts of this tea’s name – Wen Shan and Bao Zhong.

Other than that, House of Tea’s notes tell us that the oxidation level on this Spring 2020 production is 10%, and that the roast is described as medium.

The dry leaf reminded me of white raisin cookies, but after a few seconds in the warmed up pot I picked a roasty, toasty aroma, as well as a subtle hint of smokiness.

The first infusion added sweet floral notes to the mix, with the liquor packing a deliciously milky body. There was still that teasing flicker of clean smoke, like a far off hedge trimmings and grass cuttings bonfire on a Autumnal evening.

My tea strainer was almost totally free of dust and debris, quite unusual for a small sample of a roasted tea, all things are considered.

The second round saw only a slight drop off in quality, but the third infusion was clearly the end of this mini-session.

Once again I was impressed by a sample of this tea, and I suppose that it’s about time I made room for it in a future order, as I’m still intrigued as to how it might perform à la gong-fu.

Watch this space, etc…