May 2020 White2tea club is the yearly exclusive The Thing Still Is mini cake. In addition, this club has a 12 gram square of 2020 Biscuits sheng puer, which you can buy more of.
May 2020 White2tea Club – 2020 The Thing Still Is Sheng Puer
The legend that is The Thing Still Is starts with an Instagram video up a mountain. I love these 50 gram cakes as the quality is crazy high, is it is a nice treat.
The leaves smell of floral green peppers.
I used a gongfu ratio of 1gram of leaf per 16ml of vessel size, steeped in boiling water. Steeped up, the wet leaves continue with a pepper vibe, almost spicy, but still floral. Maybe I just have peppers in my brain, I ate fried jalapenos for lunch.
First and Second Infusion: The first infusion of The Thing Still Is came out slick in texture and softly baby spinach in taste. The aftertaste slinks in as a sticky peppery floral and underripe apricot. This tea you gotta drink slowly or you miss the aftertaste, but drinking slowly is a struggle as it is so easy to drink.
Third and Fourth Infusion: The flavor deeps as well as the aroma layers on. At the third infusion, the taste is of apricots, jasmine, spinach, Italian parsley, and sandalwood. I also lost track of time and space, my brain dropped out for a bit staring into nothing.
Fifth and Sixth Infusion: 2020 The Thing Still Is got quite bitter at the fifth infusion, the spinach stewing in flavor. The next infusion also got astringent, drying the roof of my mouth. The flavor dominated by the stewed vegetables, but if drank slowly, the jasmine stone fruit flavor emerges a touch.
The Thing Still Is blended my brain at this point. My attention span became short and I am tired but wide awake. I finally understood my derp goldfish brained rabbit Lucien.
Seventh and Eighth Infusion: Thing Still Is finishes super bitter and dry. This young sheng has a bit more infusions in it, but I’m too derp high to continue.
Comments
2020 Thing Still Is sheng puer has potent with tea energy with an interesting balance of vegetal, floral, and fruity flavor, leaning heavier on aroma than taste and goes bitter and dry easily. This would be a tea to leave to age some more or adjust the water temperature to drink now. As is, this tea is a brain blender.
2020 Biscuits Sheng Puer from White2tea
2020 Biscuits is 12 gram squares of 2015 sheng puer material.
Since the square is thin, I had no problems snapping it in half to give me two 6-ish gram servings. My half ended up being 6.8 grams, so I used a 100ml gaiwan.
Despite the ease of breaking, these little sheng squares have strong compression. I gave a long rinse with boiling water and the tea didn’t unfurl at all.
The wet leaves smelled of golden raisins.
First and Second Infusion: White2Tea’s 2020 Biscuits tastes sweet, honey, and mostly of fruity ripe banana with golden raisins. The flavor is fleeting, disappearing quickly, but the aftertaste settles into a banana peel flavor. After a couple of steepings, the texture starts to shine as a creamy thick, and sticky feeling.
Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Infusion: Biscuits finally lost its compact shape at the third infusion.
The flavor shifted heavily here as I finally got the full infusion of all the leaves instead of just the surface. Biscuits is still fruity banana but now honey, amber, maple woody, and bitter potency. I then set the fourth steep as a flash steep, resetting the steep time due to the leaf separating. After that, the following infusions wasn’t bitter, but maintained a lovely honey banana raisin vibe, with a buttery mouthfeel. Once I got past that bitter bad third steeping, this tea was very consistent for awhile.
Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Infusion: At this point, 2020 Biscuits got a bit bitter, a new vegetal flavored emerged and is bitter, but quickly disappears to settle into that fruity honey aftertaste. In the final infusions, the intensity of bitterness faded, replaced with a toothy dryness – but slowly got lighter and lighter in fruity flavor, holding onto the buttery feeling.
Comments
Despite the 2020 year on Biscuits, it is 2015 material. I wouldn’t call that middle-aged, but it has lost the majority of the vegetal notes. I think I overleaf here, the leaves are pretty chopped, so I would go like 1g/18ml or 20ml ratio for future sessions.
White2tea’s 2020 Biscuits does have an excellent fruity sweet profile. If I were to get these again, I would certainly take them traveling as the size is nice and the flavor is smooth to pair with afternoon tea snacks.
