# Notes Gongfu -- Strongly yammy scent with also a sort of syrupy aspartame sweet smell. Very strong smell. Vibrant orange-red liquor. Initially very sweet, second steep becoming quite savory. Very smooth. As with the Tung Ting Mi Xiang, the _sweetness_ is not durable, but the baseline quality of this tea is higher. Subsequent steeps add in some mineral and a little astringency (this is a black tea) but not too much. Eventually does hit a wall with a sort of papery astringency. # Vendor Copy > _flavor notes_ stone fruit cobbler, honey, floral > > A reserve-grade harvest of one of our most popular teas, Native Cultivar Reserve is bright, fruity, and naturally sweet, with a honey-like finish that dances on the palate. It took us over four years of focused sourcing to find a crop that met our standards for quality and taste, eventually leading us to this very limited harvest. > > As its name suggests, Native Cultivar Reserve is harvested from a variety of tea plants that originally grew wild in Taiwan. In the early 1900s, the colonial Japanese administration identified the variety as a prime candidate for black tea production; thereafter, the cultivar was planted in the hills surrounding Nantou County’s Sun Moon Lake in Yuchi, Taiwan. > > Native Cultivar Reserve belongs to our Mi Xiang collection of teas, meaning that the leaves were bitten by leafhoppers prior to harvest. As a result, the crop has a remarkably sweet honey aroma. Controlled oxidation preserves these delicate aromas of honey and fruit, and gives this black tea a brilliant ruby-amber liquor.