I ordered a bunch of W2T samples and have been going through them trying to figure out which cakes we wanna buy. Today we tried the Charing Cross. This is a roasted white tea.
Started with a 20s rinse and waited a few minutes for the ball to open up since it’s quite dense.
10s steep - fig jam aromas, just as promised
15s steep - more fig jam, slightly stronger
25s steep - rich roasted fruits, gonna dial it back a bit
15s steep - figgy, fruity, floral
15s steep - more of the same. Smelling the wet leaves now and I can sniff these all day; getting strong tropical fruit punch and floral notes.
30s steep - getting more floral perfumey notes now
60s steep - violets, cedar
120s steep - violets, blueberry, cedar
Overall a very tasty tea. It feels like it has similarities to white teas, oolongs, and black teas all at once. We’ll probably order a brick of this one. We’re finding we like white teas and the hybrid white teas (W2T Blood Moon was also one of our favorites so far).
Yeah W2T does a bunch of interesting experimental/hybrid styles that I haven’t really seen any other tea producers do. Another roasted white tea from them that I really liked was the Jonia, which gave me big chocolate Ovaltine vibes.