2023 Wild Cat - 200g

Cannot Fully Express How Much I Love This Tea

Now that I've secured an entire tong for myself (my first tong), I feel it is safe enough to write a review for this tea.

This tea is truly something special. I'm saying this as somebody who has purchased & sampled far more teas than I (or my wallet) care to admit.

This tea had the distinctive lemon-citrus flavor of teas grown on Da Xue Shan ("Big Snow Mountain"). It also has the delicious, tart, sour flavor of ye sheng ("wild tea"). It has a full flavor, with plenty of body & umami, filling your mouth with the satisfying sensation you get from a good soup broth (but tea instead of meat/vegetables). One of my tea buddies said it has the full bodied flavor profile of seaweed (again, but tea, not ocean).

The returning sweetness ("huigan")... stars and stones, it's like you drink the tea twice. You drink the liquid, then wait a moment, and you will taste it all over again! The fruity, citrus flavor returns after you swallow and lingers in the tongue. Even 10 minutes after drinking, I could occasionally taste it still on my lips.

It is tangy, fruity, sour & sweet all at once. As a gongfu session progresses, the flavors will change depending on the temperature & time of each brew.

The flavor lasts for a good, long while, too! Depending on your brewing preferences & tolerances, I was still getting flavor 14 cups in! Note that I brew at lower temperatures and I am more sensitive to flavor than others, so take that with a grain of salt. At any rate, everyone that has had this tea with me agrees the flavors last a very long time.

In fact, I'm just going to share my notes from the first time my tea tasting buddy, Q, and I tried this tea. I kept track of the temperature (in Celcius) and time for each cup. (I've found keeping notes helps me stay in the moment & focus on the tea.) I haven't changed this any, so I apologize for bad English:

88C 10s- rinse lemony, citrusy, this is SATISFYING, and just the rinse!!
87C 20s- WOAH! Flavorful, citrusy, sour, good! Need another cake!
87C 20s- Oh man, this is good! Great sour front, lemony-ish aftertaste. Such body! But still kinda sweet
90C 30s- less color. Still great flavor. "Like the top of a gladiolus. There's air between the flowers. Well spaced, the gaps are not missed." -Q
93C 40s- more citrusy, less sour, methinks. Q says maybe white tea taste at very end, but I think maybe that's more [unfinished sentence]
93C 50s- "The flowers are blooming in my mental picture." -Q. Good lemony aftertaste with breathing in & out
95C 1m- returning citrus! Good, smooth body, rounded & umami. Very nice
100C 1m20- it's a different tea now (no citrus or sour). It's still a very good tea!

At this point, I stopped taking notes because we were just enjoying the tea. Wild Cat 2023 is an incredible tea. I highly recommend it to anybody that enjoys ye sheng teas or anything from Da Xue Shan

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