I found this to be a little bitter, compared to 2008 Menghai “SPRINGTIME WATERRAW. I shouldn’t even be comparing, they are different years, different companies. But I’m drinking Sheng now so I’ll be invevitably comparing them to one another.

There is only one tasting note on this and it says this tea has none of the “smokiness” that Xiaguans have. I have no idea what Xiaguan has in terms of smokiness but this one fainly smelled of … errr… (should I say this?) hot dog. I’ve started to recognize it as meaning something savoury and slighly smokey.

I overleafed so I ended up taking half the leaves out after the rinse and saving them for later tonight. Second steep still slightly bitter. I know my tongue is fine so I’m questioning whether there is still too much leaf. Guess I’ll never know. There’s almost the impression of something metallic present at the sides of my tongue.

Can’t say that I like this one all that much but thankful for the sample! I still have enough for several cups so I will give it a go once I rotate through the rest of my puerhs.

mrmopar

Yeah younger sheng has a much different profile to it. Xiaguans can be very smoky which I don’t like much either. The metallic may be some camphor from the leaf. Try this gongfu or in a yixing. The yixing can even out some stronger shengs.

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mrmopar

Yeah younger sheng has a much different profile to it. Xiaguans can be very smoky which I don’t like much either. The metallic may be some camphor from the leaf. Try this gongfu or in a yixing. The yixing can even out some stronger shengs.

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I started drinking loose leaf tea in the spring of 2013 (why do we feel compelled to mark the date of tea drinking somewhat like addicts counting their sobriety days?)

Never been much into tea before. Growing up in Romania, tea was something mom made for you when you were sick. As an adult, my hot beverage of choice has been coffee, both flavoured and regular. I’ve recently stumbled upon Teavana and DAVIDs TEA and quickly got addicted to the latter. Then came steepster and all else followed.

Formerly a mathematician and insurance adjuster, I gave up the corporate world and am now a professional chef. I drink wine and sometimes cheat on it with tea.

I lean heavily towards flavoured black teas. I’ve started to crave the occasional straight oolong and green but so far unflavoured black teas leave me unimpressed.

I’m learning so I drink them all. Am even introducing myself to pu’erh. So far I can do fine with the sheng cause frankly, they don’t taste like pu’erh to me. The shou is another story.

Note*: The virtual cupboard does NOT contain any of the samples I hold since most of them are one-cup quantity.

Note**: My partner, our home improvements, gadgets, mortgage, travel, wine and food have budget priority over tea.

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Toronto-ish, Canada

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