Another year of HYPE! June’s White2tea club included a full cake of 2021 Hype Sheng Puer. The months White2tea includes a full cake is always a deal ($38 a cake vs $29.99 tea club price). Also included is a sample of 2021 Yesheng Gushu Baicha Maocha, which is available in cake form.
2021 Hype Sheng Puer from 2021 June White2tea Club
The cake has a vegetal peppery scent.
As usual, I used 1 gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size, gongfu style with boiling water. The hot leaves have a steamed banana leaves scent.
First, Second, and Third Infusion: Hype has a fun smokey charred profile with a background of bitter, roasted to a char green peppers. After sipping, the tea slinks in a strong floral buttercup aftertaste that lingers.
Each steeping gets more punchy with added underripe honeydew flavor. Though this tea is a bit watery and thinner texture, likely from being a new pressing.
Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Infusion: 2021 Hype is now dry and astringent. My breath tastes like bitter charred peppers and the flavor sticks with the dry gritty texture left in the tea’s wake. Each steeping stays quite strong and bitter, also giving me some wicked gut rot and the gaps of my teeth feeling dry.
As Hype fades in the final infusions, it leaves a bitter floral flavor that I find quite pleasing – making the early and final steepings very nice.
Comments
2021 Hype is a bitter punchy tea compared to previous years, though has an excellent floral aroma too. If you want an inexpensive, but tasty punchy tea Hype is a fun one to own. I found the 2021 Hype closer to what I wrote about the 2018 version.
2021 Yesheng Gushu Baicha Maocha
This leaf is vibrant green! Smelling of tangy gummy bears with a bitter edge.
I used 1 gram of leaf per 20ml of vessel size, steeped in boiling water. Just pouring out the tea into my cup it has a strong fragrance of cucumbers and flowers
First, Second, and Third Infusion: Yesheng Gushu Baicha starts off tasting licorice sweet, cucumbers, melon, but has a mysterious bitter green pepper taste similar to Hype. Eventually, this white tea has a wild pine Yabao flavor. The texture is thick, lubricating oil and after that, the aftertaste is fresh, licorice sweet that shifts to a sweet juicy cucumber melon. Interestingly, this tea has lots of salivation too.
Halfway into the Yesheng Gushu Baicha session, I got tea drunk, with my hands jittering and sinus crushing. I did drink Hype and Yesheng back to back, but I almost poured my gaiwan into the waste bowl as I was out of my mind.
Fourth and Fifth Infusion: Yesheng Gushu Baicha is less sweet here, tasting like bitter melon, olive oil on cucumbers with a bit of basil and okra. After a few moments, the white tea switches to the fresh, sweet, licorice flavor.
Comments
White2tea’s Yesheng Gushu Baicha is a wild, unusual, white tea with tea drunk energy and interesting gongfu session. Pressing into a cake may change the character of this tea a bit, but June White2tea club month is awesome to include a sample to tease or compare.
