2017 Turtle Dove by White2Tea

Hello hello!

In today’s review, I tackle 2017 Turtle Dove by White2Tea (which makes for my first white tea review — ever). 2017 Turtle Dove is a white tea brick released by White2Tea, and in my opinion, has the prettiest tea wrapper out of any tea that I’ve seen. Anyways, Turtle Dove has been raved by many people on social media, such as Instagram and reddit. So I must ask, what’s so special about Turtle Dove? Is this tea as good as everyone else says it is? Lets find out!

Steeps 1 - 4

For Turtle Dove, I used 4g of tea in a 60ml gaiwan, and used water heated to a temperature of 185ºf. At first, Turtle Dove gave off a crisp floral tasting note, which was quickly followed by a malt-like flavor. After a few more steeps, Turtle Dove got progressively sweeter with each infusion\

Steeps 5 - 8

Turtle Dove unleashed a beast of a body, as its body resembled a thick syrup which brought on the tasting notes of honey. Turtle Dove’s sweetness began to disappear behind the floral notes, as it progressively became more and more bitter with each steep. At the end of the eighth infusion, Turtle Dove resembled a black tea nearly identically.

Steeps 9 - 12

Turtle Dove’s body was aggressive, and left a lasting bitter tasting note in the back of the throat. At this point, it was best compared to a black tea or a Wuyi oxidized oolong. Towards the end of the session, my body broke out in a hot sweat as my head became as light as air. Turtle Dove’s aggressive body was almost too aggressive, as my head drifted off into space. It’s safe to say that by this point, I was full-blown tea drunk.

Conclusion

Turtle Dove is a tea brick by white2Tea, which was later handed out as samples in an 8g mini beeng form. Turtle Dove started out very fragrant and sweet, and ended up being powerful and burly. This tea became surprisingly aggressive, and seemed to turn into a highly oxidized black/oolong tea half way through. One thing I liked about Turtle Dove is that it has a wide array of tasting notes that seemed to keep transforming throughout the session. However, Turtle Dove was substantially more aggressive when brewed gong-fu style when compared to White2Tes's other white tea's (for me at least).

Despite this tea’s aggressiveness, I believe that Turtle Dove was intended to be bought for aging purposes. I say this because this tea has a lot of positive characteristics that shows that this tea will age beautifully, and will probably become tamer over time. Overall, I think Turtle Dove is one hell of a deal, because for the price, I can’t hardly get as tea drunk from a tea that is as deep and rich as this. So next time I look to get tea drunk off my ass from a white tea, I'll look no further than this tea right here…

disclaimer - This tea was sent to me by White2Tea. Although this tea was sent to me, this review was not paid for, and wasn't shown any mercy when reviewing ;)