I am guilty of being so backlogged that I wasn’t able to tackle the October 2018 White2Tea Club ASAP. This month is a 50 gram 2018 Autumn material Old Arbor sheng puer. What makes this tea special, other than being Old Arbor 50 gram cakes that are usually amazing, is it got to club members ultra fast which means is it super fresh. It was picked, processed, but immediately pressed skipping a drying step of the Maocha loose leaf.
The joke of the tea community is this tea cake is moist. As in, should have been named 2018 MOIST, which I am sure would go over badly as people hate the M word.
Of course, “moist” doesn’t trigger me that bad as it queues my impressionable years of being a late 90s Canadian teen watching Much Music and Moist was a popular Canadian rock band.
Back to the tea. Its official name is 2018 F_D_T, which is confusing as there already is the 2017 FDT (Farmer Direct Tea). I wished made it a higher priority to drink the October club tea, as it would have been the freshest of freshest puer. Sadly, I was very busy in October and I looked at the cake then shoved it in the basket with my queue. However, this cake has a month of rest and then it took a month to actually post this review.
Leaf and Steeping Instructions
It is warned in the instructions that this tea is acrid, but I don’t care, let’s boil. I used 1 gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size, gongfu steeped in boiling water. Smelling the rinsed leaves, they smell like bittermelon and pineapples.
Tasting of 2018 October White2Tea Club 2018 F_D_T MOIST Sheng Puer
First and Second Infusion: I tasted the rinse, on the by chance it didn’t need one, but it was too light. The first official steep is thick and dense, but pretty light on flavour. The notes are kind of strange like I am tasting plantains and marshmallows. The texture is even kinda starchy thick. The aftertaste is softly floral.
Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Infusion: Now I taste the utter youth of this tea. It is starting to build a stronger flavour and it is watery. I can taste the notes being watered down or just loosely suspended in half set jello. It is still a little sweet starchy banana and cute floral, but also it is bringing a tropical bitter storm in the background.
Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Infusion: 2018 F_D_T is getting stronger in flavour, but still watery like sips hitting unmixed juice crystals of bitter floral. The aftertaste is a long slick stone fruit floral. Some sips are pineapple like and others really hit that bitter finish. Each steeping got a touch more bitter than the last, with a dry tongue feeling.
Tenth and Eleventh Infusion: I pushed past the bitterness. It is still really watery, lightly dry with the tip of my tongue and cheeks dry, but it has a long pleasant floral jasmine-like aftertaste. The actual tea broth doesn’t have really any flavour. I did an extended infusion of the last infusion and it was back to bitter and dry, with stronger notes, but still watery/not intense, or sour underripe pineapple and floral.
Comments
White2Tea’s 2018 October club tea is going to take a while to get all that watery content out, so into the pumidor it goes to be forgotten for a year. It was fun to drink now to log how it is now, which is watery AF but with strong notes trying to dance in that hopefully should make this tea a powerhouse once finished. As of right now, it’s a watery moist floral bitter banana. I’ll try and remember to drink this later and ReHoot it.
I do enjoy educational tea months. I’ve had young puer this watery before and it’s something I don’t like, especially when I’m trying to judge whether it’s a good purchase, to later here in a few years it got good. However, now I have a sort of baseline of a really good tea that isn’t ready. It’s hard to explain young sheng “wateriness”. But yes, I think my best analogy is it sips like unmixed juice crystals. It not that flavoured, but there are glimpses of stronger flavour in it. In my Significance of Resting Young Puer article, I go more detail on young puer changing over a month.
