‘Perfection’ Might Not Be Ideal?

Over the past weeks, I developed a new way to taste tea. I’ve covered it already in 2 other posts so I wont get into it here past a brief synopsis. I’ve found that I can brew 3 teas side by side at different ratios and adjust the specifics until I brew a tea exactly as I think is best, arriving at ‘perfection’. Finding the points where sweetness, astringency, bitterness, and sour flavors are detectable and striving to showcase sweetness while subduing all the others. Finding the points where tea doesn’t come off as ‘watery’ and richness is at its highest point without starting to cover up the flavors and aromas, etc.

I spent an evening ‘perfecting’ Jin Jun Mei. I was quite happy with how far I came with it, it really put my standard pot to shame. The following day after lunch I made a pot of it for my wife and I to share. I was so disappointed. Where was the aroma? The flavor? I would use the words lifeless, sterile, boring to describe it. I thought maybe my taste buds were screwed up, so I asked her:
“How’s it?”
“Futsu” she replied. Futsu translates to plain or ordinary, and while it’s not the word I wanted to hear it coincided with what I thought. I was taken aback. Later that day I brewed it in my old standard way and found I enjoyed it as much as I always did, even thought it’s not made ‘so well’.

Why’s that? I wondered. I had friends over and did this experiment with them brewing Jin Jun Mei in the ‘standard way’ and then ‘perfect way’ and drinking them side by side. The standard way was great, it’s everything I wanted – delicate, aromatic, caramel-chocolate-esque. The perfect way was richer and more intense but otherwise it’s kind of mentally boring? The tea seemed lifeless. There was nothing I could pick out from the tea that I couldn’t have gotten from the standard version. There was a consensus for this, and we returned to the previous pot.

While initially the ‘perfect way’ seemed boring compared to the standard, returning to the standard after the perfect was pointless – it no longer had enjoyable aroma or flavor, there seemed to be nothing there at all. The standard was watery, out of balance, too weak… Perfect was ‘better’ in all aspects but now both were ruined. We all experienced this phenomenon together, and we all agreed on the observations I made here. I should note that this feeling is not unique to this tea. Any tea I have gone through this extensive tasting process with turns out ‘lifeless’ in isolation, it’s a very consistent thought.

After some contemplation:
It seems the concept of perfect can’t exist unless you can compare it to the imperfect. Without comparison why do I enjoy imperfection more than perfection? If I know perfection exists and what it is, why do I not recognize it when comparisons are not present? Is it because mentally I am not capable of processing what perfection is? or is it easier to relate to imperfection? Is pursuing perfection pointless? Should I strive to teach imperfection as the path to follow?

Thoughts for another day.