TeaLam

This is an excellent example of an aged pu-erh tea. The taste is very true to the description: complex, very smooth, and without a hint of astringency. The notes I find in the flavor are decaying leaves, wood, earth, dates and leather. Quite earthy in fact. The tea has a wonderfully rich amber-brown color even on the first steeping. The whole experience of drinking this tea is like walking through a deciduous forest after a heavy rainfall.

There is a lot of energy in this tea as my head seems to be in the clouds now after a couple of infusions.

Overall this is an excellent tea and a good place to start exploring aged pu-erhs.

This is my morning cuppa. When I want to start the day right I turn to this tea. For this tea I don’t use any fancy porcelain or count my infusions. I just put some in a teaball (gasp!) plop it into a nice mug and pour boiling hot water over it and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then I add a splash of milk and some sugar (double gasp!) and the resulting brew is sweet, warm, with strong flavors of malty-carameliness. Then I can say that I am ready to start my day.

This tea is not overly exceptional on its own by any means and lacks a certain depth, which is why I am only giving it 85. But when it comes to my daily brew I don’t need an exceptionally perfect tea. I just need a good solid tea to mix with milk and sugar and this is it. I’ve tried others but I keep coming back to this one. A must have staple of any tea-head’s cupboard.

This is the first Japanese green tea that I have had. I had no expectations going into the sitting besides to have a different experience.

I rather enjoyed this tea. The taste of this green tea is much different than greener oolongs. The tea was savory with flavors of bean and grass, very mouth-watering. The texture was also very smooth and creamy. Very mellow and approachable. I infused it in a porcelain gaiwan, using enough tea to cover the bottom and then some. It lasted maybe 3-4 infusions before drifting into a light and sweet grassy water.

I’m not sure where Rishi Tea site within the pantheon of Japanese green tea providers, but their kukicha provides quite an enjoyable afternoon drink, if a little short.

No notes yet.

You come to expect a fair amount of the same thing with these greener style of oolongs: orchid floral notes, a light sweetness and not a whole lot of infusions. This tea however offers up a little more.

The name almost perfectly describes this tea. Like a late afternoon in early May before the heat really sets in but leaves you with a sticky feeling nonetheless. The aroma is floral with strong vegetal notes and a little malty as well. The tea ‘soup’ is quite smooth and fills the mouth nicely. It has a very well-rounded flavor that doesn’t just sit in the top of the mouth and disappear after swallowed. The aftertaste leaves behind a very comfortable malty-sweetness, but only just. A friend who I shared this with also described notes of mulberry leaves, although I’ve never had it so I’m taking his word for it.

But, like other green oolongs this one is somewhat shortlived. Only about 4-5 infusions. Maybe I should use more leaf. Smooth, sweet, and very, very comfortable. All-in-all not a complex tea, but one that offers something different in the way of green oolong.

No notes yet.

The first real oolong tea that I had outside of a Chinese restaurant was Tie Guan Yin. I’ve had many different types from many different producers with varying results. This one, unfortunately, was one of the worse ones.

The aroma of the tea was incredibly tantalizing: sweet, buttery, honey-floral scent that filled the nostrils and lifted the spirits. However, the promises made in the aroma were not fulfilled in the taste. In fact, there was very little taste at all. The very thin body, although smooth and pleasant, had very little depth. I enjoyed smelling the tea more than I did drinking it, which sort of defeats the purpose of preparing tea.

This tea seems better off freshening up a room than pleasing the tongue. I guess this is the problem with the more modern ‘green’ style of TGY.

This tea wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. It has the typical flavors of a sheng pu: peachy sweet over a tobacco bitterness and a little smoke. The first infusion is tasty with a robustly bitter aftertaste. The second infusion becomes surprisingly more harsh, not really sure why. Turns much dryer and very shengpu-like. I was hoping to taste a little bit more age in the tea but that was not the case.

This tea gave a very unexpected experience, as far as puerhs go.

The leaves are a nice teal-green with white flakes throughout. I detected a sweet malty peach aroma from the leaves and expected a typical sheng pu: peachy and a little harsh but pleasant; however there was none of that. Instead, after the first rinse, the aroma was malty and creamy like that of milk tea. I was totally blown away by how different this puerh tasted. The flavor was very complex from the first infusion: tastes of grains, honey, anise, beans, and licorice. A very savory tea with a lot for the tongue to ponder. The mouth-feel was very smooth and creamy, full-bodied and not a hint of dryness.

Even though the tea had some very good qualities, I have to say in the end I did not enjoy it very much. The red-tea, ceylon taste was just a bit too weird for me. Just not my ‘cup of tea,’ if you will. However, definitely worth a try.

This was the first tea I brewed in my new yixing teapot, and I’m very glad I chose this tea for that honor.

The tea itself steeped a nice clear red-brown color with the scent of chinese medicine, golden raisins, and earth. There was also the scent of camphor in the lid of my yixing pot. The mouth-feel was very smooth and full-bodied without a hint of dryness or astringency. After two infusions flavors of anise, jujubes (chinese date not the candy), and a honey raisin-like sweetness appear on top of a nice woody, earthy bitterness.

The tea lasted went on for 10 infusions and then started to loose its strength. Overall a very good tea: good, complex flavor; full-bodied and smooth; lasting strength; and pleasant chaqi. Too bad the cake isn’t available anymore.

I wanted to like this tea, because it was a free sample that I received with an order, however, I just couldn’t.

The dry leaves were very chopped and very tightly compressed. They had a typical pondy, off smell that one associates with shu-puerh. The tea soup was a deep ruddy-brown with the aroma of wood, chocolate, raisins, and sewage. Honestly the flavor was not bad: sweet chocolate flavor with notes of wood, wet leaf, and raisins; but right after I swallow heavy notes of pond water show up, making the tea taste incredibly…odd.

The ‘pondy’ taste remained through the 4th infusion. I couldn’t bring myself to drink anymore so I called it quits. I should also note that I don’t like the flavor of chocolate, which was heavy in this tea. On the other hand, the mouthfeel was incredibly smooth and thick. Full-bodied and very rich. There was also a minty-cool quality to the aftertaste. I just couldn’t get over the chocolatey-pondiness of it, but if you’re a fan of that then I guess this would be a good tea for you.

This is a real pu-erh tea that holds nothing back.

If you are one who likes to walk into a deciduous forest in fall after a light rain and lick every surface clean, then this tea is for you. Robust, bitter, and unrelenting. It may have been because I steeped it in a gaiwan or maybe my greenhorn taste buds are not mature enough for such an aged pu-erh, but my god was this tea bitter. Bitter in the woody, leaf-pile, pine needle, stick, compost heap kind of way. I truly felt like I was walking through a forest after rainfall. It was also very dry in the back of the mouth.

I’ve drank it twice now, both times from a gaiwan. I’ve only steeped it for a total of 5 infusions each time, only because I couldn’t bring myself to drink anymore. However, there was enough strength in the tea for at least twice as many infusions, if not more.

Even though I did not enjoy the tea very much, I could tell that it was something special. Very complex in flavor with great strength, mouth-feel was OK, and it was still very calming and warm; however, definitely not for the faint at heart.

UPDATE: I’ve taken the advice from Nadacha and decreased the amount of leaf I used and steeped it this time in my yixing pot, the results? Simply fantastic.

The harsh bitterness is gone and what is left behind is a soothing, earthy, woody piece of delightful drinking. Impeccably smooth and creamy without a hint of dryness. It has a deep and complex flavor with notes of earth, wood, wet leaf, vanilla and leather. The aftertaste is full and coats the back of the mouth with a vanilla and wood-like bitter-sweetness.

Amazing what 14 years can do for a good tea!

This is a very robust tea. The aroma of the leaves after the wash could be smelled from a few feet away.

The tea brewed a nice rust-orange color with a heavy roasted aroma. The flavors were rich and deep. Roasted bittersweet rock taste, with a clean finish, and a florally bitter aftertaste. A faint spice flavor showed up around the 5th infusion while staying smooth, full-bodied, and without any dryness. The flavors began to mellow out and harmonize with each other towards the end, with a nice cinnamon taste showing up as the tea cooled down.

A very rich, full-bodied, and robust tea from start to finish.

Steeped in a 180ml gaiwan. 25s,30s,40s,60s,60s,25s,180s

This is the first real sheng pu-erh tea I’ve had so I can’t say that I have anything to compare it to. However I did find this tea very enjoyable.

The leaves let off a very strong peachy sweet aroma after the first rinse. The tea soup was a nice golden-yellow color. The tea itself was full-bodied, velvety smooth and sweet with notes of peaches and flowers. The finish was clean and there was no astringency at all, even at the 12th infusion. There was a bit of chalkiness, but not in a displeasing way.

The strength was nice throughout the whole sitting with the peachy sweetness coming in still at the end. There isn’t a whole lot of complexity to the tea, but it was still very pleasing and enjoyable. A nice daily tea, and for the price I might actually buy the whole cake.

Steeped in a 180 ml gaiwan for 12 infusions.

This was the first ‘real’ pu-erh tea that I have tried.

After reading all the criticism of shu pu-erh and brick pu-erh, I was surprised at how this tea was pretty good. The bricks have a little bit of a fishy, pondy aroma but given a week or two to air out and the smell virtually goes away.

After the first rinse the leaves, very chopped, give off a very deep, woody and earthy smell, without any of the pondiness. The same goes for the flavor. Like drinking a piece of forest in Fall: woody, bitter, earthy, smoky and a little sweet, with a slightly astringent finish in the throat. The aftertaste is a long lasting woody bitterness.

The tea soup is a very deep, dark, murky orange brown, which clears up to a clear orange-brown after the first two or three infusions.

The tea begins to give off a sweet flavor in the back of the mouth at about the 4th infusion. The tea does not infuse for too many times, at least not when I have tried it. Towards the end, the woody earthiness is very faint, with a sugar-water-like sweetness on top of it.

It is enjoyable and the price is pretty good ($1-$2 for 10-12 little tile-like bricks); however not a tea for those long tea-steeping sessions.