Yibang Mansong ’21

This will be the backbone of this session. But the tea is complex and later other elements are added. Softer and sweeter fruity notes. Buttery notes. Other sensations like those of lychens in a humid forest. Powerful aftertaste during which the acid spiciness melts into something sweeter. The energy is still there, but it's something more relaxing now. The body is more relaxed, the mind more at rest. The patio door is open, I can hear the wind and a very fine rain in the foliage of the trees, the thunders of a still distant storm and the trills of the birds, especially one of them, sharp, powerful and persistent. And suddenly I like to believe that this invisible bird is interpreting the feelings that this tea gives me.

The dry leaves in the boiled teapot smell sour/sharp/tart, and also something like a sliced ​​potato; I can smell this when making vegetable soup. (And also this weirder thing: I think back to that high-end Yibang I drank a long time ago now, which had hints of sweet potatoes.) The first cups provide two evidences. The first: "Wow, I didn't expect something so strong". The energy is felt immediately in the head, shoulders and upper chest. The second: the taste of this tea makes me instantly rejuvenate. Here I am again in college, I cross the stadium after a sports lesson and, accompanied by a few comrades, I make a quick detour by this red tree planted on the edge of a football field. Its dark red leaves are beautiful and vaguely menacing, but what really interests us are its fruits, small red balls with extremely tart green flesh. (Was it a prunus cerasifera? Is this tree still alive?). From the first sips of this tea I find this bite and this powerful acidity.