I was awaiting the yearly The Thing Is / RIP Chicken mini cake, but this year White2tea pressed it into 200gram cakes for everyone to purchase, so instead our $$$$ fancy mini cake is a 2021 Spring Old Arbor.
Leaf and Steeping Method
The scent is vegetal with a bit acidic but mainly smells very fresh.
I used a gongfu ratio of 1 gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size, steeped with boiling water. 200f/ 93c also would have been a good choice in water temperature. After a rinse, the tea has a sweet bell pepper and pan charred scent.
2021 May White2tea Club 2021 Spring Old Arbor
First and Second Infusion: This Spring Old Arbor tea is THICCC, like drinking melted butter. The fresh sheng starts off light tasting at first, with a soft floral jasmine aftertaste.
Third, Fourth, and Fifth Infusion: As 2021 Spring Old Arbor steeps on, it has a watery flavor, like the notes are swimming in a big sea and I get glimpses of it with the odd wave – this quality I find a lot in fresh pressings. Once into the meat of the session, Spring Old Arbor has a sticky astringency, but still maintaining a buttery balmy feel, making the jasmine stick to the mouth for a long aftertaste. The intense floral aftertaste almost made me forget that this tea is going stewy after a couple of steeps, adding a bitter green pepper skin bite.
Fairly quickly, I got the tea drunk feeling as my eyebrows feel like they are being pinched together to cyclops owl! I also got a surge of liquid courage, with some chest thumping pump.
Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Infusion: The final infusions are stewy, tasting like boiled spinach gone to mush, but still has a sweet floral aftertaste that lingers. Despite the small amount of tea I brewed (60ml vessel) and not that many infusions, this stretched into 1.5 hour session enjoying the never-ending floral taste.
Like other fresh shengs, the gut rot is bad. I had some food in me before drinking this tea and I got stomach cramps like I need some greasy taco bell to reinforce my stomach. However, at the end of the session, I felt so pumped up and could still taste the tea.
Comments
White2tea club’s 2021 Spring Old Arbor is freshly pressed so the flavor needs time to tighten up, but there is a lot of energy and aroma from this tea – this checks a lot of boxes of what I like in young sheng of quality. These 50g cakes are the best months of the White2tea club!
