Rich and potent Gushu from Mang Fei near the border with Myanmar from estimated 200-250 year old tea trees. Sweet and indulgent with a herbaceous and almost alcoholic bite before leaving the mouth with sweet pears and lily. WARNING: potent Cha Qi on this one.
I love the teas from the far East of Lincang and Yongde, moving into Myanmar. They have a jungle-like vibe - mossy undergrowth and humidity with a deep starchiness. This tea had something extra though - very distinct lily flowers and fruits hiding in those forest flavours.
So we decided to try a little experiment to try to tease out more fruity floral funk. We bagged the loose Maocha (raw finished tea) airtight for 10 months to see if we could just encourage a little ferment to happen before pressing the tea in February 2022.
It is impossible for us to say how much the bagging process helped this tea (we stupidly did not make a control batch) but I can certainly say that the fruits and flowers have been amped up beautifully, and the tea has a little spicy, botanical alcoholic quality - think strawberries macerated in vodka, London Gin or Zubrowka! Don't worry, it isn't alcoholic, but there is a character there which turns this sweet and starchy sipper into a more adult brew.
Oh, and the body sensation is no slouch either. At first, it feels like an easy drinker, but once you hit the 4th or 5th infusion, things start to get interesting! Fun, fizzy, drunken - be prepared to talk a load of wonderful nonsense or lie back and float into the wavy body buzz with a smile.
