2021 "The Sprawl" Sheng / Raw Puerh Tea :: Seattle Inventory

You're a cyberspace console cowboy and The Sprawl is a long strange way home over the Pacific now. As you slot the bingcha your Hosaka tells you it's Kuang Grade Mark Eleven; an optimized, deep penetration, military icebreaker from China. It's user-friendly and even speaks English.

You ready your brew vessel and settle into a hover over your target. The icebreaker strobes and shifts in front of you. Translucent planes of color shuffle like a trick deck. The grid fills with hypnotically intricate traceries of rainbow, lattices as fine as snow crystal on a winter window. "Well, you got time to kill, kid," the Flatline said. "Ol' Kuang's slow but steady."

The density of information overwhelms the fabric of your matrix, triggering lucid imagery. Kaleidoscopic angles of sun dried leaf, clean and floral and fresh. The neon aroma of night pulls you along; a growing segment of that mass organism. A drifting chip of consciousness under the vibrant, young, sheng. Consensual hallucination.

The leaves sprawl across the gaiwan like wind-blown grass, a field of jasmine shot through with sudden eddies of need and gratification. A sea of heavy perfume washes over you, recedes, and returns. Juiciness suddenly sprouting a humming forest of glass with a frequency whose name is rain and has the sound of trains.

"Bang on. Killer virus."

This is a 200g cake.

Brewing Instructions

Use 5-10 grams of leaves and brew with 75-150ml ( 2.5-5oz ) of water at or near boiling. Rinse once for a few seconds. Start with quick steeps under 10s. With each re-steep adjust the steep time to your taste.