Roughage

This is another sample that I received from Teavivre.

The cake smelt earthy when dry. My wife thought it was earthier than I did but that just goes to show how different our noses are. I placed 8g of leaf in a 200ml Yixing pot, washed it and then steeped it beginning with a 20 second steep and building up from there. The liquor was thick and slightly reddish. The taste was slightly sweet, earthy and smooth. Very nice. It is a tea that I could enjoy all day long. Actually, I did. I lost count of how often I resteeped it, but I began drinking this one in the morning and finished in the early evening when the tea was reduced to sweet, dark water. The whole experience was thoroughly enjoyable and I shall be adding this tea to my wish list for when I put in an order.

Free sample from Teavivre.

Yum yum yum. I love this tea. The liquor is dark, rich and full-bodied. The mellow earthy flavour is right there without any fishy taste. It leaves my tongue tingling after each sip. I think this is a tea that I could drink all day. It makes me happy to drink it and I am struggling not to gulp it down just so that I can reinfuse the leaves and start all over again. This one is definitely going on the shopping list.

The second of my free samples from Teavivre.

I tried this one before the puerhs they sent me because I was wary of it. I am generally more of a savoury person than a sweet person, although I do like honey every now and then, especially orange-blossom honey and similar types that are not supermarket generic. Anyway, the thought of honey-soaked TGY did not grab me immediately because of my predilection for savoury things. Hmm, I was wrong to be wary.

First up, stick my nose in the packet. I do this with tea, food and books. Especially books. I love the smell of a good book. So, I’m odd! What of it? :-) Anyway, the aroma was more honey than anything else and I thought that the tea would be much the same. The honey smell was gentle and pleasant as I added boiling water to the leaves in my gaiwan, although I felt it dominated the aromas.

Then it was time for the first cup. Yes, honey in boiling water. I only steeped it for a minute but the TGY flavour did not really come through. Should I have steeped it longer? I’m not sure that I should. I drank the first cup and really enjoyed it, then it was time to re-steep the tea. So I went on. Steep, drink, re-steep. I’m on the sixth infusion now and have really enjoyed the journey. The honey flavour steps more into the background and the TGY comes forward more with each steeping. This makes for an interesting journey. Let’s see how long it goes on for.

So, what’s the final verdict? Lovely. Yes, this tea has plenty to offer and the longevity of it is great so that you can get a whole range of flavours from just one session. Marvellous, and thank you, Teavivre.

Hmm, the tasting notes say there is a hint of caramel there. A hint? I opened the packet and stuck my nose in. The smell was muted at first. Then it hit me as I took a breath and tried again. That was not a hint, it was a whopping great big dose of caramel, like sticking my nose into the middle of a Cadbury’s Caramel bar. Then the floral aroma developed and the two smells worked together to entice me into going further.

I brewed the tea per the instructions and tasted carefully. Floral notes on the front of my tongue and then suddenly a caramel hit as the tea reached the back of my mouth. Crikey, that was sweet and quite a shock. The flavour toned down a bit in the aftertaste but it lingered nicely for a while. Now that I knew what to expect from this tea, I relaxed into the tea and enjoyed the rest of the pot.

This tea is very sweet, perhaps a little too much so for my tastes, but there is no denying that it is a quality tea. I might only wish to drink it when the need for sweet is on me, but it will be going on the shopping list, just for those occasions.

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Still tasting most excellent and my nephews have taken a liking to it too! I cannot speak highly enough of this tea. Brew it with relatively cold water and the full flavour of new-mown hay and grassy meadows comes through in an almost colourless liquor. The flavours are delicate, not overpowering, and the aftertaste goes on forever. It is beautiful.

I approached this tea with some trepidation. I have had Lapsang Souchong before and found the smokiness too pronounced for my tastes. Well, I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It is gorgeous, lightly smokey, fruity and it makes me think of camping in the mountains with the smell of pine logs burning on the fire. I am not getting the cocoa undertones that they say are there, but that is probably just my taste buds. I have really enjoyed this tea. I do think that it is a tea that I would only properly appreciate when in the right mood, but that is because it has a stronger flavour than the teas I generally drink a lot of. Spot on, Canton. Thank you.

I received a healthy chunk of this as a sample from Yunnan Sourcing. It is very drinkable but does not blow me away. There is a slightly metallic taste to the tea that I cannot quite place. It is not unpleasant, just different. It also does not seem to have much longevity at the moment. I am brewing it in a 170ml Yixing pot with 8g of tea but the real flavour seems to go quite quickly. I am very tempted to get some of this for storage and see how it ages.

I have been drinking more of this since it went on sale at Canton. What can I say? I am enjoying it even more now. The combination of a variable temperature kettle and filtered water has significantly improved my enjoyment of all my teas, but seems to have made managing this one better than before. The complex flavours are now there in every cup but it still remains light and refreshing. A real pleasure to drink.

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Mmm, tasty. I have been enjoying a pot of this all day. 8g of tea in my 170ml duan ni pot and short steeps. It is slightly smoky and smooth with just a touch of prickly astringency that stays on the tongue for ages afterwards. It has a lovely aftertaste and left me feeling all relaxed and mellow. I doubt I shall have the patience to age this one. Might be time to buy several more bricks of it, just in case! :)

Still loving this one. Possibly even more than before! I’ve increased its rating now that I have sampled more teas, with which to compare it and have fiddled with my rating system a bit. I may have to go back and consider how I rate all the teas and reassess them on the basis of a more consistent rating system.

Nutty on the first taste with a hint of cinnamon and cocoa. It tastes quite thick and the cocoa flavour comes through more as I drink it. The toasted oats flavour also comes through and makes me crave crannachan. To be honest, I had been wondering what the flavour was and only really made the connection upon reading the tasting notes. Anyway, I have enjoyed this and the aftertaste is still there, lingering nicely on my tongue even five minutes after. This is not my favourite tea, but I could happily drink it when the mood takes me. It is complex and really requires time to savour and enjoy the full depth of it.

Just got this today and could not wait to try it. It was smokey and slightly sweet. I am looking forward to trying it properly and shall write a more detailed not later but it was certainly drinkable.

This is my go-to, everyday puerh. It has much to recommend it, not least the price! The tea is not overpowering while having woody notes and being quite full-bodied. I started brewing it for ten seconds for the first infusion but have started brewing it for longer initially now and each pot provides many infusions, providing for a full day’s tea-drinking in my case. My Yu Ru Yixing pot from Canton Tea loves this particular puerh, so the whole experience is enhanced beautifully.

This tea is light, sweet and refreshing. I have found that I tend to overbrew oolongs and get a rather rubbery taste, but this one seems to be more forgiving. It has that honeysuckle sweetness that can replace cakes and puddings for me, while not being as strong and cloying as some of the sweeter teas can get. There is a decent level of depth to the flavour, although I am struggling to work out just what I am tasting. It’s floral and sweet and leaves a leaves a lovely honey sweetness in the mouth afterwards. Although it does not blow me away completely, this is a tea to return to whenever the mood takes.

Buttery? Yes. Light? Yes. Tasty? Yes. I also thought it smelt and tasted of peaches. I found it light and refreshing and very pleasant to drink. Definitely a good tea and one that I shall happily drink again. It has lasted well through half a dozen infusions and its taste is only improved by it being a free sample I received from Berylleb. Bonus!

Just got this one as a free sample along with my latest order and I am very pleased that I did. Upon opening the packet I was hit by a smell reminiscent of wet, mossy woodland. The leaf is a lovely bluish green colour and is so inviting. I put a tablespoon of leaf into my small glass teapot and added water. The liquor started greenish almost immediately, finally brewing to a yellowish green colour. Upon beginning to pour the tea, I was instantly hit by a grapefruity, honey smell with strong woodland flower elements that knocked me flat. It was gorgeous and intense. Then I tasted the tea. Wow! Grapefruit, honeysuckle, other floral notes that I cannot identify. It’s delicious and I am already regretting that I only have a 10g sample. This one is going straight onto the buying list.

Very nice. It’s sweet and I can taste the lychee flavour. The first sip was wonderful and it had an enduring aftertaste that made me want more. My first pot did not re-steep well, so I tried again with more leaf and this time it has worked much better. It does not go on and on like some of my other teas, but I can still get three or four good mugs of tea out of one portion of leaf. I may have to try it in the gaiwan with lots of leaf and short steeps next to see how that works out, but I am very satisfied with this purchase as it is.

Sweet, grassy, creamy, rounded; that just hit the spot nicely. It’s a relaxing drink to sit and contemplate while winding down from a very long day. Just what the doctor ordered! :-)

I really cannot decide about this one. The first cup always seems to have a little too much astringency, while the rest are easy-drinking enough, but I am not getting a huge wodge of character from it. I have tried it in my small glass teapot and in my yixing pot. Interestingly, my yixing pot seems to really like it and the flavour is improved, but I am still undecided. On the plus side, I absolutely loved the way the leaves unrolled in the glass pot. The visual aesthetic was perfect, but the rest of it … well, I need to work on that.

EDIT:
Further experimentation tells me that a lower brewing temperature and a slightly shorter steeping time may help. Somewhere down around 80-85 degrees and only brew it for two minutes. When I tried that, hints of apple and cinnamon came through, the astringency was not as pronounced and the whole experience was much more pleasant. As a result, I have increased my rating for this tea.

My next experiment will take the temperature in the opposite direction and the steeping time right down. I have noticed that one of the other tasting notes mentions a high temperature and a 30 second steeping time. It will be interesting to see what that does to the tea.

Final Edit:
I tried high temperature, short steeping time and it turned this one into a totally different tea. Not awful, but different. I liked it. Then I finally tried it by heating the water to just before the boil and steeping for a 1m30s. This works really well to make it a very drinkable tea. It’s not stunning, but it makes for a good everyday drink. There, I’m done experimenting. I wonder if the taste is significantly affected by my new celadon tea bowls? Maybe I am not done experimenting after all …

I got this tea a few days ago. The first thing I did was stick my nose right into it and the smell knocked my socks off; it was a gorgeous stableyard smell comprising warm, sweet comforting hay and mellow horse manure smells. The aroma was just perfect and had me so excited that I wanted to just dive straight into it then and there. Yes, ok, I’m weird. The horsey smell reminds me of good times and is one I love, and that is what this reminded me of. So, excited as I was, I still took time to carve up the beeng and store it for a few days so that it could sort itself out. When I picked it apart, I found that the leaves came away fairly easily and were quite large. They ranged from dark chocolatey brown to a very pale beige colour, giving the whole beeng a most pleasing visual aesthetic.

I have a cold at the moment so I needed some comfort today. Time to try my new tea. Unfortunately, the state of my nose will probably have affected how I view this tea, and you will need to allow for this in reading the following. I sat down with my trusty 140ml gaiwan, a cup and measured out 4g of tea. The Canton Tea Co website suggests 3-4g in a small teapot, brewed at 95 degrees for 20 seconds. I did what they suggested to get a feel for the tea. The liquor was yellow with a hint of green to it on the first infusion. It became darker with the third and fourth infusions and then became a little paler from infusions eight onwards. I kept the brewing time to 20 seconds for the first half dozen brews and then increased it to 30 seconds for the next few, and so on, increasing it a little every so often.

The brew was sweet with every infusion, ending with a note of astringency and a bittersweet aftertaste. It exuded an aroma of flower meadows in every cup and has turned out to be a fantastic comfort brew. This is one of the few teas where the tasting notes have largely conformed to my own experience of the tea. I shall certainly buy more of this with a view to aging some and drinking the rest.