have been cluttering up my Blogger's post queue...
for over a year...
and where the above image suggests that I was drinking something from Teamasters (where I hope Stephane is still doing his thing)...
and yet where I have absolutely no memory of the tea session. It looked lovely, though, and seemingly took place during one of the few final days of summer in 2013, according to the time-stamps of the photographs. I hope that I enjoyed the tea!
On discovering the blockage in my Blogger, I resolved (i) to clear it and (ii) to drink some more wulong.
I quickly headed for a generous sample bag provided by TeaVivre, an outfit that sends me samples from time to time, and where I have been surprised by the quality of one particularly humble pu'ercha cake to the extent that I actually ordered some for my own collection (as in, I parted with some actual money). Their usual business appears to be the selling of wulongcha.
I tend to give wulong salesmen a wide berth; the tea is hard to trace (and is certainly harder than pu'ercha), and this obfuscation of its sources makes it costly. The price can happily be ramped up, because it's impossible to check what you're drinking - there is no wrapper, for starters. If I were feeling uncharitable, I would say that wulong is a more accessible tea than pu'ercha (certainly, I give it to my relatives, for example), and so as a "gift tea", it likewise tends to get marked up far beyond its value. Perhaps, most of all, I feel as if I do not truly get wulong - I know a few things to look out for, but I don't know that I can tell grade AAAA from grade AAAAA, as it were.
At $50/100g, this is not a tea that you would acquire on a whim. My diary seems to have, "The little green balls smell fantastically sweet - I can imagine oriental stomachs clenching in pain."
This is a decent wulong, but perhaps, to my ignorant palate, rather straightforward. There is buttery, floral sweetness in the usual manner, but, after the second infusion (when the little green balls have unfurled), there is a long, honeysuckle sugariness. I am transported to memories of late spring in our garden, by the scent alone. "The pollenated warmth of this tea is enjoyable", I wrote, but the price is a problem for me.
This is a decent wulong, but perhaps, to my ignorant palate, rather straightforward. There is buttery, floral sweetness in the usual manner, but, after the second infusion (when the little green balls have unfurled), there is a long, honeysuckle sugariness. I am transported to memories of late spring in our garden, by the scent alone. "The pollenated warmth of this tea is enjoyable", I wrote, but the price is a problem for me.
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