Today’s review of an exclusive tea to the White2tea club. The December 2018’s club is a 200 gram 2018 XXXmas sheng puer, a huangpian material cake.
Around Christmas, I revisited last year’s White2Tea club 2017 XXXmas cake. Last year, it was very young and I felt it was too green. With a year under its belt, it is still very green and bitter, so I’m giving it another year. However, 2018’s XXXmas sheng is a different blend. My cake sat for about a month and a half before tasting.
Love the wrapper art, as usual.
Leaf and Steeping Method
And those leaves are green AF.
Breaking off pieces weren’t too bad. The cake feels tight but the big leaves of huangpian left big sheets of leaves, so it was easy to get in and pry off a big chunk.
As usual, I used 1gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size, gongfu steeped in boiling water. The hot leaf smells of nutty rice.
Tasting of White2Tea Club 2018 XXXmas Sheng Puer
First and Second Infusion: 2018 XXXmas steeps up cloudy and gold.
The first infusion is soft with a mineral rocky taste and thick body. 2018 XXXmas has a fuzzy peach creamy taste trying to happen. The second infusion finally came out with a dry hit drying cheeks and root of the tongue. The flavour is purely from the wafting aroma in the mouth, tasting of stone fruits. It is overall pretty soft tasting of a tea. I left for the bathroom and realized that stone fruit floral lingered in my mouth.
Third, Fourth, and Fifth Infusion: I’ve unlocked the meat of the XXXmas tea. It is dry to hit just the back of the mouth. The flavour is on the watery jello side, still mostly sipping soft and light. The aftertaste lingers a strong peachy floral, with a bitter bite at the end of the sip. Each steeping gets a stronger bitter bite of bittermelon and green peppers, but switches to that stone fruit aftertaste deeper and deeper. Some sips are a bit tart too.
Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Infusion: I did extended infusions for these last teas, around 5-10 minutes. The sixth infusion lost that bitter stewed nasty it had on steep five. It sips in really dry, messed my tongue up, but the flavour is a tart stone fruit, floating in watery jello. The seventh infusion I got some bitterness, and eighth steep was dead as well as so astringent I can feel the spacing in my teeth and sandblasted mouth texture.
As predicted, big honker leaves.
Comments
2018 XXXmas was a treat. I do like it more than last years and it has some good potential once the watery youth comes out for young drinking. I love how it has a thickness and good aroma with long aftertaste power right now. It’ll tighten up and get really good in a year.
