This is for all the sweet sheng drinkers out there – Crimson Lotus Tea’s 2020 Honeybomb Sheng Puer! Honeycomb is an inexpensive Jingmai blend of young and old trees as well as huangpian (yellow/ ugly leaves) material with a focus on having a sweet profile.
Leaf and Steeping Method
The leaf has a sweet weedy scent.
As usual, I used 1 gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size ratio, gongfu steeped with boiling water. After a rinse, the tea smells of maple leaves and hay.
Tasting of Crimson Lotus Tea’s 2020 Honeybomb Sheng Puer
First and Second Infusion: 2020 Honeybomb sheng is mellow in taste. In these early infusions, the flavor is buzzingly balanced between blades of grass, straw, with a sweet honey finish. The texture is balmy and has a slight snappy sticky feel after drinking.
Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Infusion: After opening up, Honeycomb sheng a bit more punchy in flavor, but still overall soft and mellow. The notes are more honey, flax seeds, tree sap, and leaves. The flavor flutters away after drinking, leaving just an echo of citrus buttercup floral. Each steeping got a touch bitter and dry but doesn’t take away from the tea.
The tea energy gave me some pep in my step, a bit happy tea drunk, but I am not crazy and can still work. I also have no young sheng gut rot despite the youthful tea.
Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Infusion: The final infusions are bitter honey tree sap that leaves a long stewy vegetal taste, but I am surprised how many resteeps I got.
Comments
2020 Honeybomb Sheng Puer from Crimson Lotus Tea is a lovely daily drinker for those who love young sweet and mellow sheng, but also a workhorse steeper. This tea is gentle to start and has tasty notes many would enjoy, especially if you are a white tea drinker. Honeycomb isn’t punchy enough for my personal tastes, but I enjoyed the session.
At $29.99 for a 200g cake (at this time of writing), Honeybomb is an excellent budget drinker or entry level cake. If you rather splurge on a fancy Jingmai from Crimson Lotus Tea, I would go with Midas Touch.
(tea provided for review)
