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Today I’m drinking Longan Nectar Red Oolong from Taiwan Sourcing. This was a free sample included with my order. It is not yet up on their site. This is an excellent tea. It is a roasted oolong. It tasted like a fairly light roast oolong but the color of the leaves made it look like a dark oolong. Immediately upon drinking this you get the flavor of the Longan. I’m told this is the same thing as lychee. This is a very nice flavor. I steeped this tea ten times. I would say I lost the longan flavor around steep nine. I stopped at ten steeps because I had had enough caffeine but this tea would have gone a few more steeps. I hope he starts selling this on Taiwan Sourcing because I definitely want to buy some if the price is not too high. In my experience flavored oolongs are usually not as much money as something like a Dong Ding oolong so we shall see. This was one good tea. I also thinkn it has some qi to it. I am feeling energized. I suppose that could be the caffeine but I usually don’t get that effect from caffeine even when I drink coffee which has more caffeine than oolong. I won’t rate this tea because that would then rerate all the teas I have reviewed using this link. But if I was to rate it it would get at least a 90. It was that good.

I steeped this tea ten times in a 120ml gaiwan with 7.7g leaf and 190 degree water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min. Judging by the color of the tea, it I hadn’t hit my caffeine limit, I think this tea would go another five or six steeps at least.

This is an interesting tea. It does not seem to have notes of malt or chocolate. The main note is fruity in nature, not sure what fruit, maybe plums or peaches. I did add sugar to this so that note is intensified. There is no bitterness.

I steeped this one time in a Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 200 degree water for 3 min.

This is an excellent and I think high quality black tea from Taiwan Sourcing. I was expecting to western brew this today before work, but I couldn’t sleep this morning so I got out of bed and had a gongfu session with this tea. There were two main notes to this tea, both on the lighter side, malt and chocolate. There may have been a third note but I really didn’t pick up on it. I bought 150g of this tea so I’m glad it’s good. I suspect that in the future this will get western brewed before work when I normally don’t have time for gongfu but I am glad to have gongfu brewed this at least once. I didn’t really notice much qi off of this tea. It may have some but I’m not feeling it. This is an excellent tea. It’s nice that both flavors work well together, neither is too strong. I should also note that I really didn’t find any bitterness to this tea.

I brewed this twelve times in a 120ml gaiwan with 7.4g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 10 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min. The leaves were not quite done. I could have gotten a couple more steeps out of them.

Stopped by Teavana mostly to buy tins to store my Taiwan Sourcing order in but I did have them brew me this tea. She referred to it as decaf and I hope she was right about that. This is a fairly tasty flavored oolong with notes from the blood oranges. I do like it. I don’t know the exact brewing parameters. It is pretty tasty.

This tea was quite good. There was a nice sweet note throughout all ten steeps. Some have described this as grapes, but I’m thinking more along the lines of chestnuts. Regardless of what you call this note this was excellent tea. If White2Tea had this up for sale I would probably buy it. As it is I have enough left for one more session. The tea had a nice amber color to it throughout all ten steeps I gave it. I did enjoy this tea although I prefer when White2Tea sends puerh.

I steeped this tea ten times in a 100ml gaiwan with 5.2g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 10 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min.

This is an excellent ripe tea with little bitterness and very little fermentation flavor. It did have some fermentation taste but it was not pronounced. There was a nice semi sweet taste from the beginning. While this was a highly enjoyable tea I didn’t notice notes of chocolate. I think you could say it developed a fruity taste in later steeps. This was a tea you could probably steep twenty times. I steeped it fourteen times and stopped there. But the tea liquid was still quite dark. I definitely would have gone a few more steeps. Lao Cha Tou Nuggets are known for their lasting ability in general.

I steeped this fourteen times in a 120ml gaiwan with 12g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min, 2.5 min and 3 min. I really think it would have gone twenty steeps at least. This was a really good tea, one of the best I have had recently. Berylleb usually calls their highest quality tea by the name nonpareil and this lives up to that claim. It was not quite as good as the tea from 2003 by Berylleb but close.

This started out as a bittersweet shou. There was a fair amount of fermentation flavor, noticeable into the fourth or fifth steep. The bitterness lasted about two steeps. What was left afterward was a mildly sweet ripe puerh. This is a good quality Dayi brick and tastes like it.

I steeped this eight times in a 50ml gaiwan with 4.2g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. It would have gone quite a few more steeps but it is late and this is too much caffeine already.

This tea, which I believe is all buds, is pretty good. It’s got a malty note, a chocolaty note and a fruity note. Because I added a small amount of sugar the fruity note seems strongest. Tastes like ripe plums.

I brewed this tea twice in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 200 degree water for 3 and 4 minutes. I put the second steeping into a thermos for work.

This is a tasty and interesting tea. It has a very hard to describe but sweet taste from the sticky rice herb. They don’t use actual sticky rice in this one but a herb that mimics it somehow. There was also a a fair amount of fermentation flavor to this tea. I’d say I noticed the fermentation for the first four or five steeps. It had muted a little since the was fermented last year. There was little bitterness to this tea. There were also no chocolate notes to this tea if anyone is looking for them. The sticky rice flavor pretty much takes over this tea. All the natural flavors of the puerh take a backseat to the sticky rice flavor. That flavor is quite nice actually. I think it is well done in this tea.

I steeped this tea twelve times in a 120ml gaiwan with 11.4g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min. The tea was not done at twelve steeps. I could have gotten a few more steeps out of it but I had had enough caffeine for one day.