In the bag, just what I was looking for – lushly and ripely fruity, with a nice complexity – it smells like passion fruit and apricot/peach compote, if there was ever such a thing. (The brewed tea, on the other hand, smells like wet fruit leaf.)
Taste wise, well – I tried this at 90 degrees C for 4 minutes, before reading Dinosara’s notes on bitterness. And no, this is not a particularly tolerant tea – the whites I’ve been drinking lately steep at 80 or so degrees C for 7 minutes without acquiring the slightest hint of astringency, but no such luck in this case.
Before the bitterness strikes, though, the taste mimics the scent of the dry tea very nicely – it’s seems more flavourful than the greens from DF I’ve tried lately, which is a happy surprise. However, it’s not overly complex, and this combined with the lack of steeping suggestions (always bad when it comes to a finicky tea) and my now fairly established lack of awe when it comes to DF teas, which probably makes me somewhat prejudiced, this is no favourite.
As it cools, the bitterness mellows out quite well, as previously reported. Unfortunately, so does the flavour itself.
[From my epic Instant-Thé order to Rome, October 2013.]
90 C, 4 min