485 Tasting Notes

90

This is the first raw puerh I ever bought, and I just busted it out for the first time in months. It’s really quite good actually. The leaves aren’t as chopped up as they are in many tuos, in fact I saw a few pretty whole leaves in there. The aroma from the leaves smells like a fine, sweet cigar, but not too many of the tobacco or smoky notes translated into the flavor of the brew. It started out with maybe a leathery flavor, but that went away after a steep or two. This tea got quite sweet. It was mostly a fruity sweetness, but I don’t think I could tell you what kind of fruity it was. It wasn’t citric or tropical…the closest thing I could think of was like an Asian Pear – so kind of like a cross between an apple and a pear? Maybe. Could also just be general fruitiness. I think there might have also been some honey sweetness to it. The liquor was a nice orangey color, not yet brown.

The body was pretty good – decently thick for sure, more creamy than oily or anything. Around the tenth steep or s-…what was that? There! Around the corner. See it? Look closely. Drink a bit more…yes!

It’s the qi ninja! Sneaking up on me with his energy. I didn’t feel much of any qi for most of this session, then suddenly I felt it kind of coursing through my body starting from my chest and into my arms, and belly. That’s neat.

Having had more experience with raw puerh, I think I definitely consider this one a winner. I was bummed to see What-cha was out of it, but I found another seller who had a few on ebay. Nobody buy them before I get more, please ;) This seems to be higher quality than most other tuos that I’ve gotten, as evidenced by the larger leaf pieces and just the flavor and power of the tea.

Flavors: Fruity, Leather, Sweet, Thick, Tobacco

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
mrmopar

Matu if you ever need help finding anything in the puerh line let me know as I have some good contacts.

Matu

Wow, thanks! I’ll keep that in mind :)

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82
drank 2015 Poundcake by white2tea
485 tasting notes

I made sure to pick up a sample of this tea with my first W2T order, because I had heard a lot of good things about it in the online tea community.

If ever there was a dessert tea, this is it. Crazy sweet flavor, but not overpowering. I thought at first that the flavor was a bit light, but then decided it wasn’t light, but was pretty subtle. The texture was anything but light – thick and oily to begin with, after which it came across as more of a milky/creamy taste/texture. I think I got a little bit of floral flavor from a few steeps, but mostly the sweetness was from your more sugary/sweet type of stuff – particularly honey (mostly in the early steeps), vanilla and burnt sugar. In the later steeps, i also got a kind of honey-nectar type of flavor that was pretty good. This was around the same time it started to acquire a slight mouth-drying effect as well.

I was able to get about 10 good infusions out of this one, which is actually a little less than I expected (maybe I’m just greedy). I did enjoy this for its milky sweetness, but I think I prefer the Little Walk cake (I think they make an alright comparison, as they’re both predominantly sweet shengs). So, this was good, but not one I need to order a cake of.

Flavors: Burnt Sugar, Creamy, Floral, Honey, Milk, Nectar, Sweet, Thick, Vanilla

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
Daylon R Thomas

I really wanted to try that one myself, but always hesitate because of shipping.

Matu

Yea…I got free shipping on my first order by ordering the Raw Basics set with it. It makes it seem that it’s only worth it to make an order if you make a pretty big order. If you wanted to get just a few samples, you could maybe make a discussion post and see if you could piggyback on somebody’s order or something then have them ship it to you.

Daylon R Thomas

A lot of my friends have tried it on here and have liked it. I thought that I’ve asked one of them for it before, but I could be wrong. I’ve bugged a lot of people with questions on it and I have gone back and forth on whether I want it because it’s a pu-erh. I would not want more than ten grams of it since I already have so much tea. Again, something that I can easily do in the discussions.

Daylon R Thomas

BTW, what time periods and geographic areas do you like the most in archaeology? I was an anthropology major myself with a focus more on classical civilizations like Egypt, Rome and Greece.

Matu

Oh, are you not a huge pu-fan? Yea, maybe you could just swap somebody for a bit of it or something.

And that’s cool! I did take quite a few classes focused on the Classics, but I was most interested in Early Middle Ages, particularly England and Scandinavia. I wrote my 60-something page senior thesis (definitely more of a history paper than an anthro paper) on Alfred the Great.

Daylon R Thomas

More like a biography…unless you include the details about his burial.

I’m really picky with Pu-Erh’s. I used to like how similar they were to black coffee, but over time I started to lean towards lighter teas like Silver Needles and Taiwan Jade Oolongs. LP was able to change that with his blends and the 2011 Bang Wei he had me sample. That is one of the few ones I like, and it is a Raw with some good Cha Qi. I Gong Fu it in small gramage though-at 1-2g per 3 ounces. The astringency is cut down for me allowing some enjoyment of the green tea like apricot sweetness and grassiness.

My seminar paper was a history paper for early Roman history, and much shorter. It was 20 pages analyzing imperialism in Rome’s relationship to Ptolemaic Egypt.
Daylon R Thomas

Also, I live in Michigan too.

Matu

Gotcha. I like that 2011 Bang Wei a lot too. I usually brew quite a bit heavier, like 7g to 100-120mL.

I guess my paper was pretty biographical. It was to get departmental honors in History, not Anthro, hence the focus. The main covering points were the policies and changes during his rule that had an impact on the British monarchy after him. You can skim it if you’re interested: http://commons.emich.edu/honors/459/

Your paper sounds pretty interesting. I have always sort of wanted to learn more about Egypt, but I never took any classes that covered its history other than the relatively brief details we went into in my Roman history course, and I haven’t done much of any reading on it.

Whereabouts in the mitten do you live?

Daylon R Thomas

The history is so extensive. I can only name a few major pharoahs, with me knowing more about Akenaten, Nefertiti, and Tutankhamun. Of course that comes from my obsession with Howard Carter and Zahi Hawass. And the many Hollywood movies inspired by the excavation of Tut’s tomb. As for the Ptolemaic Egypt, the social structure is very different from older periods under native kings. The Greeks essentially colonized Egypt after Alexander’s conquest adapting Egyptian government and economics to their own, while superseding over native Egyptians into upper classes while the Egyptians are lowered in status-save a few priests. I started to think that Roman imperialism was influenced in part by Alexander’s legacy and the imperialism inherent in the Ptolemaic dynasty.

And I live in the knuckle of the thumb, Port Huron. Also an MSU student.

Matu

MSU? Ewwww ;)

Yea, definitely something I want to read more about. Would you recommend works from Carter and Hawass (if there are any)? Others?

Daylon R Thomas

I haven’t read any truly academic publications by either. Not sure what Carter wrote other than what’s in his diaries and Hawass has published several books.

Carter died in 1939, so the work that I know of is his diary, his excavations, and some of his part time collecting. His methodologies would be different than ours, and he was an artist before he was an archaeologist. I think that a lot of his formal training was through experience, and well, connections.

As for Dr. Zahi Hawass, he’s done a lot of work on Tutankhamun himself and Khufu’s family. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is good, but it’s an exhibit companion with more analysis of the artifacts into a coherent narrative. The photography is awesome.

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79

This is probably the best Silver Needle tea I’ve tried yet. I’ve found with these teas it works best to start with longer steeps than I would for gongfu with other teas, because they seem almost hydrophobic in nature. So something like 1m, 45s, 30s, 20s, 45s, 1m, 1m. They don’t seem to have the longevity of many other teas, perhaps because I brew them this way, but I find if I follow a more “normal” gongfu progression, the first steeps are light to the point of being flavorless and I don’t really end up with any good steeps at all!

I think this is one of the last teas I have from my first What-Cha order, which included the Discover Vietnam set – a wonderful collection of widely variant teas. I actually hadn’t opened this one yet, as the fact that it had melon in the description made me want to save it for last.

This tea was quite interesting – the description on the bag seemed an uncommon combination: sweet melon and smoke notes. I love melon, and generally dislike smoke, so I had mixed feelings going in. This tea is absolutely sweet. It seemed kind of like melon rind or sweet cucumber – not quite the sugary sweetness that would come from the flesh of a melon, because it had almost a tartness with that sweet flavor, which in part of my notes I described as almost citric.

So while it is sweet, it’s a tart sweetness, and this sweetness is also accompanied by prominent savory notes. Most steeps, this savory flavor was actually what I tasted first, while the sweetness came in more the middle of the sip and they kind of combined on the finish. I think the savory flavor is what was described as smoke, though it wasn’t the BBQ type of smoke I really find distasteful in tea. I don’t even think I would have described it as a smoky taste had it not said that on the bag. To me it was almost woody or maybe like a barnyard taste.

This was a good tea for sure, and an interesting one to boot. I’m glad I got to taste a bunch of awesome teas from Vietnam, and I encourage everybody who orders from What-Cha to give some of them a try. They surprised me with their quality and uniqueness (is that a word? I don’t know).

Flavors: Barnyard, Melon, Sweet, Tart

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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79

I found this tea clearly superior to the other version of it from the Tea Club. On this one I get fruity aromas and flavors, along with maltiness. I think there’s a bit of smoke in here, especially on the early steeps. Usually smoky flavor is a turn-off for me, but in this tea I felt it added to the depth and layers of the flavor. My first session with this, I ended up with very small leaf fragments (bottom of the sample bag I guess), and the first brew was almost overpowering. Even with larger leaf pieces, the first steep of this tea is quite strong. I think that’s another positive difference from the #1. Possibly an indicator of higher leaf quality. Of course it’s possible I’m completely wrong and just don’t have a very developed palate for black tea. While I am a wee bit bitter about the fact that the W2T Club has been primarily black tea the past three months, I will at least say that the ones I’ve had so far are nice to drink. That being said, bring on the pu, Paul!

Flavors: Fruity, Malt, Smoke, Sweet

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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77

Haven’t tried the other basics teas in a while, so I can’t make that good of a comparison right now, but this one was pretty good – I noticed it to be shorter-lived than most other W2T productions I’ve tried. Got some good floral and mineral notes throughout. Early steeps had a sort of bitter vegetal flavor to the which, when combined with the thick texture that seems to be the hallmark of W2T teas, reminded me of olive oil. As the session went on, the floral notes, which were never of the particularly sweet variety, faded and I was left with just olive oil and a mineral flavor. This session went maybe 10 steeps, with the last few becoming increasingly drying in their bitter character. A good tea, but not a great tea by any means. Good for a simple, no nonsense sheng session. I didn’t get fruitiness in the flavor anywhere, but I can kind of pick up an apricot note from the aroma on the gaiwan lid.

Flavors: Bitter, Floral, Mineral, Olive Oil

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 0 min, 15 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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Trying this for the first time in a few months. Sourness is still present, but I think it’s less acidic – doesn’t strike me as quite a vinegar sourness. Certainly has a sweet finish, more prominent on early steeps. Mid-late steeps have a vegetal note, to me it seemed like zucchini. The sourness lasted for the first 3-4 steeps before it mostly receded. I think it’s a property of the huangpian leaves. Good texture, though not as thick as most of the other W2T productions I’ve tasted. I like it, but I’d like it more if it wasn’t as sour. I don’t know if that’s something that ages out of huangpian, or if it does, how long it might take. I’ll be sure to keep trying this one, because while it is a good value now, if that sourness goes down and is replaced by much of anything else, this could become a really good value.

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83
drank 2015 Little Walk by white2tea
485 tasting notes

Using this tea to test my pumidor-to-be mini fridge, making sure it’s not imparting any plasticy smells or aromas to my tea. It’s been in there around three days now, and I took it out and broke off my usual ~7g for 100mL gaiwan. Pleased to say I got no off flavors or anything with this session :)

This tea is so sweet – really no bitterness, with some nice thick liquid. Not a complex one, but simply delicious. Impressed by the leaf quality on even one of W2T’s cheapest offerings. Good stuff.

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83

Interesting, a tea made from stems! I bought the four tea sample pack from Morita Tea on Yunomi. Reading up on it before drinking, I realized that their farm was affected by the Nuclear meltdown or whatever in Japan a few years ago. Would be worrisome, except that the tea tested fully safe. Sadly, it seems most vendors have been avoiding tea from this region, so I’m glad that I could support them!

This still tasted green, if that makes sense, but didn’t have quite the grassiness of a sencha. Instead I found it more like young green woodiness. My favorite part was the aftertaste though. It left a prominent fruity flavor in my mouth, which I struggled to place for a minute before it hit me – Honeydew melon! One of my favorite fruits! Found it best with 175F and steep times of 1m, 30s, 1m…then increased to 190F and did another 1m. Pretty consistent, got a little weaker as I went.

Flavors: Green Wood, Honeydew, Sweet

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 4 OZ / 118 ML

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92

I’m really liking the senchas from Kyoto Obubu that I picked up on Yunomi. One of their Hojichas was really good too. This might be my favorite sencha yet (I think I might have said that about the last one I tried from them too). I found this one best with a 1m first steep rather than 2m. This had decently large leaves as well, like the Sencha of the Wind. Also, some small print on the bag states “this tea is an aracha (unrefined) version of sencha, the state which tea is sold from the farm to refinement factories.” I’m pretty sure this is a misprint. I’m fairly certain sencha can’t also be aracha…maybe? If it is aracha then I’m super confused lol.

The brewed leaves smelled like nice steamed vegetables, maybe asparagus as another reviewer noted. The first steep was a bit bitter with nutty and piney notes and a sweet grassy honey finish. Reaaaally good. This one was pretty powerful as well. I’m sure it wasn’t just this tea, as I had been drinking quite a bit before this one as well, but I noticed myself just trance out listening to whatever house-type beats my brother happened to be playing for a couple minutes at a time. Good times. Next steep was less bitter, but also not quite as sweet on the finish if that makes any sense. Still grassy, nutty and piney though. Went for another couple steeps, so didn’t quite have the longevity of the Sencha of the Wind, but I’m a sucker for that strength which comes through as a bitter flavor in tea, so if I was forced to choose, I’d pick this one.

I have more from this farm coming in another Yunomi order, including a Sencha of the Summer Sun or something. I wonder what it would be like to drink a blend of Sencha of the Wind, Earth, and Sun…Sencha of Earth, Wind and Fire? Anyways…good tea from Kyoto Obubu! Recommended for sure.

Flavors: Bitter, Grass, Honey, Nutty, Pine, Sweet

Preparation
160 °F / 71 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 4 OZ / 118 ML

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60

This one was just too roasty for me. I enjoyed the Amber Roast, but knew this one might be a little rough after I smelled how roasty the comparatively lighter Amber one was. Yea, if the last one smelled a little charcoaly with nice roasted nuttiness to it, this one was just a charcoal blast, a little sour smelling as well. It tasted alright, and I did get some decent sweetness coming through, but I just couldn’t get past that roast. Good to know I guess! And some people might like this if they’re really into roast. Maybe it’ll be better in a few months when its had some more time to rest as well.

Flavors: Roasted, Sweet

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 4 OZ / 118 ML

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Profile

Bio

A bit about myself: 22 years old, college grad (Double major in Anthropology and History). I plan to make a career of archaeology and hopefully travel (much of) the world in my days.

I enjoy many things aside from tea, including gaming, mixing cocktails, reading, watching anime, and painting miniatures.

My favorite type of tea is sheng puerh. Particularly younger stuff, if only because I haven’t gotten the chance to taste much of anything aged. I also really like oolong (Taiwanese, Wuyi, Dancong, etc.) and Japanese Green Teas. I do also enjoy most other kinds of tea, but they aren’t what I normally buy. I’m not a huge fan of shou puerh, black tea, or flavored blends, with few exceptions.

I really like interacting with the tea community, so if you ever want to talk or swap teas or anything, feel free to shoot me a message or something. Follow me and I’ll follow you back. Probably ;)

You might also see me on reddit as /u/Matuhg

Location

Michigan

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