2020 Floral White Peony · 100g Pressed Brick

Most aged White Peony goes toward date and honey. This one kept its flowers. Six years in, the high floral top notes are still there, softened, rounded, sitting on top of the sweetness rather than fading into it.

Origin:

Fuding, Fujian. Spring 2020 harvest, one bud to two leaves, pressed into a 100g brick.

Where the aroma comes from:

Nothing is added. The floral character is a product of withering, leaves withered slowly in moving air under mild spring conditions, which holds the aromatic compounds in the leaf instead of driving them off. Get the weather wrong and you lose it; there's no way to add it back later. Pressing then seals that aroma in. A loose 2020 White Peony breathes for six years and drifts toward hay and jujube. This brick held its shape and held its perfume.

Taste:

Deep gold liquor. Orchid and dried osmanthus over wildflower honey, with soft longan sweetness underneath and a faint cooling note on the finish. Thick and round, zero astringency, long 回甘. It sits in the space between a young floral white and a fully aged one, the reason to own both.

Brewing:

Prying — knife in along the edge of the brick, lift flakes off in layers.

Gongfu — 5g per 110ml gaiwan, boiling water. Steep for 20s, then 5s / 10s / 15s, extending. 10+ infusions. This is the method that shows the florals.

Grandpa — 2g per 250ml, boiling, 2–3 minutes.

Simmered — spent leaf into 600ml, boil then simmer 2–3 minutes. Pulls out the date sweetness underneath the flowers.

Specs: 100g pressed brick · Spring 2020 · Fuding, Fujian · Dry-stored. Keep sealed, dark, dry, away from strong odours. Still improving.