2013 Shoumei

Infusions

1. Noticing Thai basil right off the bat followed by a more resting galangal - kind of a fruity/floral spiciness with a grounding aspect. The first infusion came out enjoyable but a bit light. This could've been because I kinda eye-balled the leaf since I forgot my scale at home today. Still a good time.
2. Some simple syrup or demerara. Compensated the lightness of the first infusion by knocking it down to 75ml and upping +10 sec. The color of the liquor is more amber with a tiny bit of a pink-red hue. Still quite soft, light, and delicate. You could absolutely nuke this stuff with western style times on gong fu ratios.
3. Trying 50ml with +10s again while giving the pot a light stirring agitation. Now it's perfect. So assume I prolly misjudged the leaf quantity quite a bit until I can chalk up some numbers on that dump truck of a leaf. I'm new at the whole caked whites thing - those leaves look like they're gonna come fuck me up in the first level of the euclidean realm they're so big and 2-dimensional. Good thing I'm armed and dangerous with this Damascus steel cake pick.
   
   But anyway the tea's good. It's warm. Tastes like tea. Ok but really, there's some geranium and soft, fresh sheets kind of floral thing. It's like a pretty person giving you a hug with a voice that makes you feel so good. The finish is drawn out. Like 25 seconds out and it's still got solid hang time. It's a bit of a woody, sweet, smooth vegetation, finish with pear and soft minerality.
4. Went wild with a 1 minute 10s 50ml infusion to see what would happen. This brought the red fruits out into this much deeper side of the brew. Super deep old and wise fruits or something, I don't know - it's really different and cool. I keep envisioning big red apples that are very ripe on a warm autumn day, California raisins, fruit sugar. Brewing it hard really brings out the smells in the leaf at the start, but it's really cool how much room to play you have on this one to get different aromas and flavors without bitterness or much of an 'over-brewed' taste at all.
5. The harder you brew this the more it takes on the characteristics I love of a good fruity & floral black tea. Red dates for sure with a much darker liquor. Did about 2 minutes on the steep time.
6. Upping the water content brings out more of the demerara and sweetness that this stuff has to offer. This is all around pretty fun to brew with since you can really do just about anything to it.