The 2019 December White2teaclub is an exclusive 200gram cake of 2019 XXXmas Love Pistol Edition. 2019 XXXmas Love Pistol is a huangpian (big ugly yellow leaves) blend of sheng puer. I had to drink this for Christmas, despite not trying all the October and November White2tea club teas yet.
This year’s huangpian holiday cake is my favorite wrapper so far. I was planning to frame the wrapper but with my Black Friday White2tea order, I got the matching chabu!
As a side note, after reading on the wrapper this is the “love pistol” edition, I cannot get this EXO song out of my head.
Leaf and Steeping Method
This sports a huangpian appearance with the big yellow leaves on the front of the cake. The cake smells like the paper around crayons and sourdough.
As usual, I used 1 gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size, gongfu steeped in boiling water. Rinsed, the tea smells like sticky rice and banana leaves with a touch of acrid.
Tasting of 2019 XXXmas Love Pistol Edition Sheng Puer
First and Second Infusion: The smell doesn’t match the taste at all. XXXmas Love Pistol sips in thick and milky, with the flavor starting light as a bland pear poached in milk getting sweeter as the sip finishes. 2019 XXXmas texture is thick like lumpy pudding with a balmy feel on the lips after drinking.
Third, Fourth, and Fifth Infusion: 2019 XXXmas Love Pistol is starting to develop a juicy flavor stalk taste, with a soft sweet honey pear note. Through this session, I have had a weird sticky mouth. At first, I thought it was the revenge of my Special K with Strawberry cereal gluing my mouth, but after a drink of water reset, it is the sheng adding the strange texture. My mouth feels gritty and sticky all over, but it’s not dry.
Sixth and Seventh Infusion: This tea is sticky! My mouth feel like I drank tar that is a paste of mowed parsley stems and buttercup flowers. 2019 XXXmas is still buttery balming to drink, with parsley stem, steamed rice in banana leaf. It isn’t bitter at all but it is astringent. My cheek feels dried out like I have a cold and dehydrated.
Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Infusion: I did an extended infusion as long as it took me to go to the bathroom while viewing silly weight lifting Instagram videos. XXXmas is rock sugar sweet and minerally, with no bitterness. The ninth and tenth infusion were incredibly astringent that dried out my entire mouth
Comments
As usual, 2019 XXXmas Love Pistol is good tea. This one isn’t bad to drink now with the sweet notes and thick texture, though it is quite dry. Many of the previous XXXmas cakes were best to be aged and tried for next years’ winter holiday. In comparison, I got more resteeps in 2019 compared to the 2017 and 2018 XXXmas teas in their youth.
Either way, these 200g exclusive cakes are one of my favorite parts of being in the White2tea club.
