What a treat!
"A Yi Wu gu shu is not often on the menu, but tonight I had some spare time so I decided to devote it to this Yi Shan Mo sample. Based on this one session, I would say that the main characteristics of the tea are its complex yet not too pungent aromas, mineral and vegetal taste profile with muted bitterness and virtually no astringency, a particularly strong and long-lasting warming throatfeel contrasted by a cooling sensation in the nose, and above all the (literally) face-melting cha qi. The only session I can compare this to in terms of the cha qi is 2016 YS Guo You Lin. They are quite different teas in other respects though and I prefer Guo You Lin overall, even though it is an autumn pick and a slightly cheaper tea. The wet leaf aroma has notes of peach, compost, ginger cookies, forest, and sage flowers. None of them I found super strong though. On the other hand, the beeswax smell in the empty cup is pungent. The taste in early infusions is very mineral and well-defined. Rinse and first steep have a strong umami reminiscent of gyokuro in fact. The finish is sweet and has a lime leaf tartness and a biting buttery aftertaste with an olive oil note. Steeps 2 to 4 get more grassy and floral with more bitterness and a vanilla flavour emerging. The aftertaste has notes of honey, citrus zest, and apple tart. The mouthfeel is oily, thick, and heavy and the body is full. I get a throat constricting and tongue numbing sensation. As I mentioned already, there is also this heat ascending from the throat not unlike after eating chilli. Straight from the first infusion, the cha qi hits strong. During the session I wrote: “elevating, relaxing, I feel like flying, dreamy, surrounded by music with face meliting/numbing”. Following the first 4 steeps I took the time to appreciate the sensations and the music. After the initial hits and zoning out my mind had extreme clarity and focus and I returned to the tea with infusion #5. After the break, the taste changed a bit, now I can detect notes like nutmeg, spinach, acorn, romanesco broccoli, wood, and cauliflower. The tea is sweeter and progressively more spicy and aromatic. The combination of nutty and vegetal notes reminds me of some Chinese green teas. Steep #8 turned out to be stronger than the previous one and had more minerality with some kind of savoury bitterness of burnt food, kind of like burnt onion, but not smoky at all. I don’t think I detected this kind of flavour in any other tea before. The aftertaste in the later stages of the session is more woody, tart and quite acidic. Inspecting the leaves after the session shows that there are quite a few stems, often even hard ones. My guess would be that they mainly affect the taste of late infusions, which is noticeably more woody."
— Tomáš G. (5/5)
