With my final final exam looming (AKA: Tomorrow), I find myself becoming ever the more distracted and distant from my reading material. The motivation simply is not there, so focus must be drawn elsewhere, lest I descend into a swirling vortex of madness and typographic blunders. Or something like that.

Now, in cases like these, I find that nothing shapes up my mental state better than a nice gongfu tea session (big surprise there…). So, I decided to break out the newest acquisition into my caffeinated collection of calming camellia sinensis: a chunk of a Menghai Factory 2008 Sheng Puerh! Usually I don’t take to drinking puerh in the morning, but this morning was especially groggy, so hopefully this sheng had just the kick in the pants I needed to get my butt in gear and study like my life depended on it.

Having broken off and measured a delightfully fuzzy collection of chunks from the main mass totalling 7 grams, I was ready to brew. Kettle on, typography readings strewn about my desk, and tea ready to be rinsed – nothing could be more mellowing.

The dry leaves remind me of – with no degree of uncertainty – a small farm/petting zoo in Ottawa which I used to frequent as a child. The mix of hay, rain, and just a hint of manure was enough to put this tea immediately into my good books even before I had tasted my first sip.

Wet, the smell changed dramatically. Now the petting zoo had taken a backseat to a gorgeous vacant cigar lounge, with the smell of hardwoods and tobacco intertwining beautifully into a wonderful bouquet. The colour of the rinse immediately demonstrated the age of the tea, pouring a beautiful amber which promised to grow in intensity as the steeps went along.

As I took my first sip, the familiar astringency of sheng puerh I was expecting was nowhere to be found. In its place I discovered a wonderfully smooth, minutely bitter, and well rounded flavour not unlike the smell of the wet leaves: wood and tobacco. After swallowing, a lingering sweetness coated the back of my throat like the syrup, encouraging me to take yet another sip.

As the steeps progressed, all using water between 95 and 100 degrees celsius, the tea lost any hint of bitterness to a growing sweetness and taste reminiscent of hay and wet wood. Three steeps in and the tobacco was completely eliminated in favour of an ever increasing smoothness.

By the end of its life, I was buzzing pretty nicely from the caffeine and the familiar sheng puerh kick I was so used to. My face felt warm, and my anxieties were calmed. I was ready to study.

Or so I thought, because then I was possessed to write this damn blog post.