Gaba Tea from Teca Tea in Houston

(First steep, after a short rinse. Leaves just starting to awaken.)

This is my first Gaba. To paraphrase Fred Flintstone, "Gabba-dabba-GOOD!"
It's really delicious. I don't know anything else about it aside from this one is from Nantou, Taiwan and was supplied by Teca Tea who I am quickly learning are well-loved online vendors, good people and owners of Ten Yen Teahouse in Houston. If this teahouse is as good as it looks from the photos I've seen, I'm ready to move to Houston. Seriously. People love this brick and mortar establishment. Plus I miss living in Texas, I actually do.
The GABA, which stands for something, look it up if you care, is said to have certain properties for health. I personally do not care. If tea of any kind has health benefits, that's cool, but it isn't the goal. I care about NOW, and this particular tea, moment by moment, sip by sip is making my head say, 'Hell, YES' and that is my benchmark. Period.

If I even see a tea on a website that touts all kinds of health benefits, I go to another website. I am not looking for health but for a perfect moment. and with high grade tea, I find I get to have perfect moments a lot these days. Used to be every few years, and usually involved being in the same room with such personal luminaries as Tom Waits, Spalding Gray, Kurt Vonnegut, but as I grow older I find I can access perfect moments through tea. Not as often as my hedonist soul craves, but certainly on a weekly basis if I keep trying new things at the rate I am now!
Teca's Gaba tea is warm, honey-hued, floral, delicate yet full bodied..... its a lot of things. All good so far!
I started out with four grams last night in a 160ml gaiwan at 200f, a bit strong but I wanted to have an intense introduction. I left the leaves to sit in the gaiwan overnight, and this morning moved them into my Smacha auto brewer and filled it up, giving me a large 6 ounce cup to sit and enjoy instead of gongfu style. Both ways of brewing created excellent sessions. I have a feeling this is a tea that might like to be pushed, so I am going to go pour another 8 ounces of 200f water in the infuser again and see if it is still as flavorful, I am guessing it will be!
Big deep bow to Richard Lin of Teca for introducing this newbie to something I am sure I will learn a lot more about, I might even go read what the back of my large bag of GABA rice has to say. I don't avoid good health, you see, I just let it come to me, so if I have a choice between Uncle Ben's instant white rice and a rice that yells GABA at me, I'm no dummy, I always go for the good stuff!