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Had an odd craving for an Indian red tea. Actually, I wanted a good second flush Darjeeling, but it’s been over a year since I last made a point to go and buy one, so I’m grabbing this instead.
Yeah, I’ve got some decent Darjeelings and I’ve got what this company could tout as probably it’s best every-day red tea offering (Darjeeling Extra Fancy Kalimpong), but I think this is the best red Peet’s has to offer me at the moment.
I bought this as part of a very limited mail order special that almost sold out shortly after making it available. It’s got to be the most invigorating red tea I’ve had from either this company in six years of nabbing every special offer they produce, or from the Nilgiris in general. It’s lost some luster since it’s production in 2005, but is still tasty.

If you have any of this, I recommend using slightly hotter water or longer steep time than I’m using here. 3g (two heaped teaspoons) per 150ml water at 95C for 3-4 minutes works great.
I used 3g in 122ml at 90C for 2 minutes in a glazed ceramic gaiwan on the first infusion. Second was 115ml at 95C for 2.5 minutes, third was 108ml at 98C for 3 minutes.

Above all, this is aromatic. Dry fragrance throws a splatter of floral, herbaceous, and toasty smells at you to sift through and you can go on making analogies for some time just on that (even moreso when tossed in a preheated teapot or gaiwan, which releases some notes of cocoa as well). Rose used to be the hallmark of this, but I think the tulip and grape notes are weathering time better. I don’t open this tin very often – usually only to send samplers out to people who have not had many Nilgiris to give a taste of why I hold them in high regard – so the effects of sitting around so long are nothing compared to some teas that are two or three years younger on my shelf. That, and this had such forceful, explosive aromatics in its first year that bringing some loose tea from the other room into a kitchen cooking garlic bread smelled more of the tea then the food. Five years later it is down to the level of your typical one-year-old red tea.
The leaves don’t look much like the picture… Dark purplish brown with whitish streaks and dark brick red accents on twisted leaves exhibiting a slight curl. Sort of an even mix of intact very small leaves and broken leaves that appear slightly older.
Wet leaf aroma is odd after being away from Indian teas for over a month. Musty and squashy with notes of cooked corn and bell peppers. Leaves have turned the slightly sickly looking faintly brownish muddled yellow-green color of young sheng cha spent leaves. Slight hardwood bark note reminds me of oaks.
Liquor is bright, clean, clear orange. Really pretty. Liquor aroma has a faint floral hint up close with a sort of algae aroma – smells like the leaves of a rose bush or tulip that has had its flowers removed.

Is none of that former explosive aroma still intact after years of sitting on the shelf?
Take a taste, and there they are! Not so in-your-face as I remember, but in the nose and afteraroma they play around with nice intrigue. Actually makes it so you can get more of the flavor, I feel. Taste is largely coppery with a distinct wet granite note. This always reminds me of being up close and personal with a waterfall splashing down on granite rocks – the taste of the cool mist on a hot day in the mountains shaded by Black Oak (Quercus kelloggii). Aftertaste is toasty yet refreshing. There is astringency here, which is the main reason I’ve been avoiding Indian teas of late, but it arrives after you get to enjoy the flavor and then recedes for the aftertaste on each gulp. There are grape leaf tannin notes and a bit of bergamot milling around. The flavors all sort of bumble about until they die off in a vapor – there isn’t much change from beginning to end in terms of depth. All the complexity in flavor comes up front for me with this set of brewing parameters (the texture shift is interesting, though). There is a light sweetness that pops up in the aftertaste, though… Sort of almond-like, though I want to say a sweeter nut. Naw, it’s raw almonds chucked in the mouth and chewed to a paste.

I feel I underbrewed, but I usually try to minimize astringency and knew it was a risk. Still a tasty tea, if only a shadow of its former self.

I’ve been trying with this one…
I managed to get a really wonderful flavor from this the first time I tried it on Saturday night – particularly in the fourth infusion drunk from a gaiwan after the first three were poured for service with 30-60 second infusions. Really smooth, sweet, and a great balance of toasted wood and florals, light sour, and highish medium body. The roast is evident but not charry at all. Rather, it’s a nice sweet/sour balance that’s produced similar to the sort of balanced achieved when making caramel. Many of the qualities of this tea are similar to caramel, in fact… except for not having the taste. The pleasant lingering sour note (think the sour of milk or the aftertaste of fresh orange juice) and mouthwatering effect is really nice and a prolonged brew with cooler water following hotter short infusions seems to really build the sweetness (the pounded rice exterior of mochi and a tad similarity to honey barbecue sauce comes to mind).

Unfortunately, brewing since then in a more controlled manner has yielded less remarkable results. If early infusions are pushed too far by either time or especially heat, it produces an off-taste similar to the smell of water spinach or kale has been boiled in and all subsequent infusions are left lacking intrinsic value and somehow tainted with a bit of a dill taste. I’m getting good results with a double rinse (triple might be good) using 87C water and then waiting a bit and brewing around 80C or a little cooler to drink from.

I love the roasty, classic Tie Guan Yin fragrance and aroma of this. The age isn’t noticeable from the consumer standpoint, though it may be a large function of why it can taste so good at times. Best taste and widest range of flavors I’m getting is when this is made mild while using about 3g in 125-150ml water while not stirring.

Wine grapes and the smell of sunwarmed trees on a cool winter day really comes to mind off this. Buttery impression, too.
Definitely not your new-age light oxidation TGY. Has a sort of rugged or out-in-the-country air about it. Much of this comes from the dry fragrance and wet leaf aroma advertising an piled autumn leaves aroma and sort of a crisp, clean mountain air aroma off the liquor. It’s an aroma I really associate with broadleaf evergreen woody plants in autumn when hiking. a dried-grass toasty note prevails as well. So much of the aromas remind me of the smells of Sonoma County.

Taste tends to be light and sweetish. Much like a light sugar water… I imagine steeping a small chunk of sugar cane in water would taste similar. Doubly so if the cane was tossed in the oven for a little while before hand. Tastes of oak leaves, sedges, and a bit of hay. Telltale orchid, vanilla, and cream-like faint sour of roasted TGY. The acidity is actually a bit like citrus, though, which I don’t think I’ve picked up in a Tie Guan Yin before this one.

I’ll follow this up with another log focusing on specific flavors with a test on the triple-rinse notion.

Decided to go ahead and break out my third-favorite of the shou puerhs I have on hand since I’m in a Dim Sum mood and since I just had a bunch of nice aged sheng cha the other night I thought it would be nice to see how a good ol’ shou would stand up. Honestly, I’m a little let down tonight.
I’ve had this plenty of times at home and almost every time I go to Imperial Tea Court’s Berkeley teahouse (for some reason I tend to get an oolong or the Imperial Puerh instead when I go to the Ferry Building location in San Francisco) so I’m really familiar with it and love it, but tonight it just isn’t holding up for me. Still tastes great, just not blowing me out of the water.

Used 4g with 100ml water in a well-seasoned squat shi piao style zi ni yixing teapot. Single rinse with water shortly off a just-about-to-boil. I did not use my temperature probe tonight, but temps started around 97C and declined to 85C or so before refilling the kettle and bringing back up to just hitting a boil. Infusions progressed 15sec, 20sec, 25sec, 30sec, 35sec, 40sec, 40sec, 50sec, 60sec, 7min, 12min(boiling).

I feel really bad saying it, but the leaves look like the picture and the flavor matches the retailer’s description. The seven minute steep really didn’t taste a whole heck of a lot different from the 30 second steep. Bugged me to find the flavor and color declining at only the sixth infusion since I’ve pushed this to twenty brews before giving up… Usually I measure this one volumetrically into my pot, though, so I may be using only half or one third the concentration I normally do.
Dry Fragrance is woody and much like leaf litter. Wet leaf aroma same but moist, hahaha. I guess there’s a bit of cinnamon to the dry fragrance that’s washed out in the rinse and the wet aroma has a mossy, mineral, and barely noticeable clove note mixed with wet hardwood and plum (when warm, sorta intoxicating). Light currant and faint molasses sweetness to liquor aroma with more intense infusions providing a plum sauce heady aromatic base. Brews a very pretty darkish coppery orange color that is very clear.
Silky smooth. Full body. Bark off an oak tree and a bit of a cottonwood aroma. Steamed white rice sweetness that increases with each steep but not falling out of balance with base flavor. Has the set flavors you’d hope for in a nice, clean, mellow, well-balanced shou puerh and very reliable… but that’s what you get. The profile is pretty darned static. I have no reservations after tasting each brew in a tasting cup in tossing three infusions together and drinking in a single cup alongside food. Makes the food taste better. Goes reeeeally well with pork pot stickers dipped in soy sauce and more than made up for the failings of some sad steamed barbecue pork buns (still on my kick from last night – this experience a poor reproduction).
Final brew of 12 minutes tastes a lot like your standard sifted bud-heavy loose shou rinsed twice and brewed 3-5 minutes. Tasty and sweet but not exceptional.

Let down, but still a really good tea. This is one of those supreme comfort-teas I would keep on hand all the time if not for the price. Hard to beat in terms of tea that you can relax and have with dinner or watch a movie to. Best shared with someone though…

Had this tea last night at a puerh class held by the owner of Teance Fine Teas in Berkeley, California.
She outright refused to tell us its name, how it was processed, and why it was in such tiny bits in between the size of fannings and dust grade tea particles until we all tasted it. Looks like very finely sifted CTC tea (or coffee grounds) but what we were drinking was older than Cut Tear Curl manufacturing method’s spread into China. She did let on that animals were involved by asking “Are any of you vegan?” before pouring, and let on that some folks call it “Poo Air” based on its aroma, so it wasn’t a total mystery.
To clarify, many teas fall into the realm of non-vegan, and moreso than this one. Oftentimes there are bits of insects inside the leaves (I’ve found a live Walking Stick in a large retailer’s airtight tin of Bai Mu Dan that haad been sealed for over a year) and teas such as Oriental Beauty Oolong rely on herbivory and excretions by leafhoppers on the leaves to produce some of the inherent sweetness. If you’ve ever eaten an invertebrate in its entirety (insects, crustaceans, and mollusks are in the diet of most of the world’s cultures) you’ve consumed what’s in the animal’s gut as well and bear in mind that honey is basically bee puke, so try to put your squeemishness on hold for a moment.

Okay, flavor-wise this is a hard tea to put a rating on.
Elements of the flavor really demand a spectacularly high rating – tasting it really did have a “wow factor” both before and after learning what the heck it was we were putting in our mouths and swallowing. It blows away many puerh teas in terms of clean-yet-earthy taste, dense body, balance of body to liveliness, interesting tactile impression beyond simple astringency or thickness of body, range of expressed flavor, lasting quality in terms of possible number of rebrews, and length of aftertaste. However, I can certainly see this as a “love/hate” tea. If you dislike earthy tastes or can not stand the presence of any metallic, pepper, or wood notes you will not like this tea. Same goes if you only tolerate teas with a very short aftertaste.
If you like Indo-Pacific coffees – aged or monsooned coffees in particular – you may really enjoy this tea.

Winnie prepared this with a generous amount in a pair of gaiwans. I really have no point of reference to estimate the mass used… If it was equivalent to CTC, I’d say something like 8g per 150ml, but I got the impression it’s more like using fannings – more like 4g per 150ml. Brew time was intended at something like 10 seconds each infusion, but actual contact time ranged from 30 seconds to 3 minutes because of the time necessary to pour out through the tiny leaf bits (and then, if the pour was fast, it would take forever to go through the strainer). Water at about 95 degrees C was dispensed into a thermos that was used for each infusion, so temp probably started at about 85C and steadily declined to 70ishC until the water was refreshed.

Leaves are tiny little pellets. Hard and fibrous when dry – like sifted CTC. When wet, it’s possible with a bit of effort to squeeze/grind between fingernails into a semisolid.
Liquor is completely opaque, shiny dark dark dark red-brown in a wide, shallow 45ml cup. “Puerh is supposed to look like soy sauce when aged well enough,” Winnie said while pouring. I’ve had soy sauce and Turkish coffee less dark than this. Aroma is mellow woody base with a prune-like accent and tart&sweet aromatics of Balinese long pepper or Grains of Paradise. Blood-colored liquid sticks to the sides of a cup in a way that makes me think of oil… or the Venom Symbiote from Spiderman.

Surprisingly similar to two of the first four puerhs I ever had (young mini shou tuochas from Jingmai Shan) but a whole heck of a lot more complex. The whole tacky-thick body, light muddy yeast-like quality and feeling of “it tastes like a well-worn boot” very similar. This has a very slight astringency that balances the syrupy body a bit and goes well with the black peppercorn notes in the aftertaste. Coppery and malty like flavors provide a second tier on top of the woody flavor base. Very light aroma, but the nose while drinking presents notes of humus and damp leaf litter – very foresty. The afteraroma is mild again but has more going on with spiced bean notes (yes, this tea has notes of humus and hummus!), dried fruits like fig and raisins/prunes, clay, arbol chilies, toasted wheat bread crust, honey, barley, and oak bark.
What really sets this apart is the quantity of two effects I’ve only had in a handful of puerhs before and the presence of two effects I’ve never experienced in puerh before (only in aged, traditional oolongs).
First and foremost is the prevalence of the “Chen” note – an “antique” quality that arises out of the light camphor-like notes 20+ year sheng cha develop. As I’ve only had 12 teas that meet this criteria other than this one, it is a quality that really jumps to mind and this just rolls in it. The tea tastes like it has actually matured in character to a point where it has combined and produced tastes and sensations not possible in younger teas. This is not some hokey thing about “oooh, this tea is aged so it is gooood” either – it takes a certain amount of time for the oils, acid-sugar combinations, and fungi&bacteria byproducts to chemically interact based on ambient humidity and temperature fluctuations over years for a resulting change that affects the tea’s biochemistry at a level where the fundamentally acidic character of the leaves actually changes to a more alkaline state. Many, many people have tried replicating “chen” and was one of the drives to develop the wo dui style of manufacture, resulting in shou cha. Best anyone can do, though, is age in certain dramatic climate conditions with great effort.
Next is the perception created by drinking this of feeling sort of a swirling of energetics through the upper body and particularly the head. I tend to not buy into the concept of Qi, though I acknowledge the sensory effect of the supposed key physical points of qi in the body and of the loci where the chakras are purported to reside as well as the beneficial therapeutic effects of training in “energy movement” for physical and mental health… I just happen to have more faith in actual physiological connections within the body and chock bodily connections up to neural connections, hormone signalling, physical strain on connected groups, and psychosomatic reactions. However, it’s hard to figure into that the repeatable sensation of movement provided here. This is one of those rare teas that does invoke a significant, palpable feeling of motion along the deep tissue, skeletal, and nervous system corridors towards the head and swirling within. How can you feel something create a reeling effect in your head without affecting oxygen? Dunno what on earth to call this other than the tea’s “strong qi” despite my reservations about the existence of such a thing.
Then there’s the first quality I have yet to experience in a puerh – a “ripeness” I associate with aged and/or well-roasted oolongs. Like the phenolic sensation of biting into an almost-overripe apricot, plum or nectarine minus the actual fruit notes. The flavors associated with it are more spice notes of peppercorns, coriander, cinnamon, sage… just with that extra deep-chest “oomph” of ripe fruit. This really accentuates a beet note and he potent savory character of the tea.
Finally, this tea has heat to it in terms of spice. Not nearly as hot as actually eating a pepper, but it has a residual heat and even a bit of flavor that has me drawing similarities to Adobo and Chipotle Peppers. I’ve had puerh that exhibited some of these taste/aroma notes and some that draw perspiration after many cups, but this leaves the tingling heat of eating a steak that had been rubbed in powdered adobo, chipotle, paprika, and black pepper. That lingering spiciness stuck with me for well over half an hour after drinking… could’ve gone for an hour or more had I not had a different tea and dinner cutting it off. Funny thing is I was left with a strong desire for barbecue pork (I rarely touch pig) and got some pulled pork with mustard bbq sauce that mimicked the flavor and sensation.
Another interesting bit is the presence of flavor. It sort of pushes open the doors in your mouth in an effect somewhat similar to MSG, beets, or red meat. It’s a good example for most of the vocabulary I’ve adapted to my own use in my notes; It throws a bunch of tastes at you at once (“range” or what I call “horizontal complexity”) and then runs with a progression of flavors into the aftertaste (“depth” or “vertical complexity”) coupled with maintaining a steadfast predominant flavor (“static profile” or “baseline fidelity”) yet showing a shift of flavor and sensations in progressive infusions (“dynamic profile” or my infrequently used “realized complexity” when featured alongside steadfast character) and producing many, many infusions (a “durable” tea). It really covers all bases.

This tea is a truly unique experience, though you may have to muscle through a mental block against it to taste more than one cup. Really, if it were not for the generally mild aroma and the serious distinction I get of it being one of those teas you either love or you hate, I have no other reason to not score this a 100… I’m sure some would throw it to the very end of the other side of the spectrum, though. If you have the opportunity to taste this – the well aged version, not just this type of tea – you really should not pass it up. Kinda gives me a headache thinking of the fact I’m recommending people try a tea that has gone through both ends of a caterpillar, but there you have it. This excreted tea isn’t “shit” – it’s well harvested tea that was carefully processed then painstakingly turned and stirred whilst aging for decades then carefully introducing a single type of invertebrate in a controlled manner to eat the leaves, followed by hand-sorting the little pellets out of the tea mass and rested for more time still.
Remarkable in so many ways but still… Caterpillar droppings…

I’m… “working on”… my tasting notes for this.
I’ll leave this logging saying that I had more than six infusions of this and the aftertaste lingered for an hour (and may have gone longer if I didn’t drink another tea and had dinner).
Strange tea, but not necessarily in a bad way. I’ve had a fair few Shou Puerhs that taste very similar to this in many regards and many that tasted far worse. Never had a Sheng that tasted like this, though…

No, this is not a hoax tea entry. Read Mike Petro’s experience with this type of tea here:
http://www.pu-erh.net/poopoopuerh.html

Brewed 4g with 125ml for 1 minute in a glass gaiwan.
Smooth and similar to a Hao Ya Keemun without any of the ash or light bitter notes Qi Men frequently expresses.
I originally made this just to see what would happen mixing various blacks and greens together. Some worked out okay, but mixing high quality pure-bud Yunnan or Fujian red tea with white tea actually produced a flavor I’d hoped for in a red tea. Pain in the butt to blend and it’s sad blending teas that are around $0.50 per gram, but I really like the results. Nice vertical expression of flavors – you take a gulp and are presented with several tastes, smells, and sensations in sequence headed through to the aftertaste. Hard to pin down anything other than a few definitive notes, though.
Pine, apple pie crust, cinnamon, pepper, juniper, cotton, honeysuckle, and cocoa powder come strongly to mind without having directly analogous flavors. Slightly burned balsa wood is certainly there in the aroma, though.
Smooth and rich with a fleeting astringency if brewed with water beyond 80 degrees C or more than a minute. Brewing it longer or hotter is fine, but you won’t get as dynamic a play on the flavor. The flavor really opens up in the third infusion, where some ginger-like savory comes to play.
I’d expound on about this, but would rather encourage others to experiment. Personally, I actually like special prep Fujian red tea mixed with two-year rested Bai Hao Yin Zhen, but again, that’s blending expensive, special order teas that ought to be enjoyed separate first (and the pure bud Fujian reds are actually even harder to blend homogeneously).

I got this as part of a sampler from someone who was in an online tea discussion group on Myspace. I’m very grateful to him for sending me these samples, regardless of the quality – they happen to be one of my favorite groups of teas, so I’m happy to give ’em a try.

That said, I’m glad it was him who ordered this, as the seller looks awfully dubious and provides no information about the flavor of the tea. Absurdly cheap, too. I guess this one was $10 for 100g including shipping from China.

I’m copy-pasting my notes I wrote while tasting, so I apologize for the odd format.

Used 4g with 60ml water in a small glazed ceramic gaiwan
single rinse at 89C in the kettle
Infusions progressed:
10sec-85C, 10sec-85C, 10sec-85C, 15sec-87C, 20sec-89C, 25sec-88C, 30sec-88C, 35sec-89C, 40sec-89C, 45sec-90C, 50sec-90C, 60sec-89C, 60sec-88C, 120sec-80C, 180sec-76C, 240sec-83C

Dry fragrance
Citrus (pomello, tangerine, lime/sweet lemon rind), yellow nectarine skin and pit, juncus pollen, dry ferns, drying clay soil, wetted thatch, madrone, poison oak, raw sheep’s cheese, toasted himalayan salt, dry oak wood, gardenia, wood rose foliage, toasty grain sweetness.

Wet Aroma
Mulched grass, wet driftwood, orchid bark, moss, grilled halibut/unagi, toasted black sesame, nori. Similar to sushi.. Citrus oil faint note underlying toasty wood/grass base.

Liquor
Clear yellow with pinkish tint and grayish cast. Pomello-grapefruit and longan perfume.

Flavor
Initial impressions: sweet, medium-full body, longan, sedge, lemon rind. A bit of nondescript wood note or dried cattails.
1st: smooth, sweet fruit mucilage, cashew, light broth body
2nd: lingering astringency rice paddy/wetland grasses
3rd: phenolic fruit skin (yellow plum), deeper impression, lighter flavor and astringency
4th: bit more sour – light grapefruit and edible flowers. More minerally. Sweetness mostly gone.
5th: a lot milder… kumquat, dried out forest/woodland floor on warm day. Aroma of buttered wheat toast
6th: richer mouthfeel – still off balance with higher astringency, but closer to buttery. Brome afteraroma
7th: resinous wood plus hardwood sap. tanoak acorns. Unhulled red qinoa
8th: not a lot going on up front, light gardenia in afteraroma. A touch of freshly baled alfalfa
9th: a bit of peach for aftertaste. Gravelly. Lot more fruit in aroma (underripe untouched cherries
10th: a little green peppercorn, woody… getting boring in terms of flavor
11th: flavor diminishing and leveling, a touch of green bell pepper in aftertaste
12th: “ripe” quality similar to stir-fried limpid red bell peppers and a touch of canned bamboo shoots
13th: hard to place woody tastes very light. Mineral water. Nose is increasingly similar to smell of a library.
14th: meh, same overall flavor and tactile impression. Astringency still out of balance with declining body
15th: Better balance tactile. Not much going on in flavor. Undercooked white rice eaten with wooden spoon
16th: basic spent dancong cupric and woody/old uncooked rice taste. No point in going beyond this.

I had hoped to be able to progress in five-second intervals up to 20 or higher at this concentration as I’m used to with “AA Dancong” but this was really going downhill after the 7th brew. Still an okay tea, but I’d brew it with water around 80C for 3 minutes with maybe 2g per ounce. Not something I’d suggest expending effort on for gongfu preparation and not something I’d want to serve to guests. Probably pleasant to sit and drink straight from a gaiwan if given a double rinse with 85C+ water, brewed at about 75C and left with a full ounce or two with each refill. I’d feel comfortable spending up to $6 for 100g on this.

Just had this prepared two different ways. First, I had a gaiwan with about 2g in 100ml side by side with the Da Hong Pao Handcrafted and two versions of the Formosa Yancha (one unprocessed and one charcoal-fired) all brewed with about 85 degree water for 3 minutes. At $24 cheaper for 100g than the Handcrafted DHP it’s funny how much more I enjoy this one and how it tastes more like a traditional dark DHP. This is the same cultivar and region, but produced from terraces in larger quantities rather than from between the cliffs from the clonal direct descendants of the original bush – doesn’t mean it’s a lesser tea, though, just different and a bit more for my tastes. “More for my tastes” meaning I freakin’ love this tea! Biggest difference is this is a more traditional, higher firing that may be less balanced and harder to pick up as wide an array of complexity but holds a steadfast and lingering mineral and ripe fruit character. It’s not like the leaves are shredded and look machined, either – they are almost all intact single large leaves.
Second preparation I’m drinking while writing this review as a continuous infusion using 76 degree C water drunk straight from my snazzy new gaiwan from Lin’s Ceramics Studio. Yes, you can be jealous =P. Used a 5 second rinse and 2g and 125ml to start, but strength gets progressively higher as the liquor is drunk down. Also, I’m adding new water before draining the last from the gaiwan, so I’m mixing infusions. And I’m using the “keep hot” feature on my electric kettle for the first time! Gasp! Oh, the horror that is reheated water and lack of repeatable results!
But this tea can take it.
Seriously – I started drinking it within 10 seconds of filling the cup with water and it’s still tasty after brewing covered for seven minutes and more. There was something like 40ml left in the cup when I added 80 degree water back up to 130ml and now it tastes sweet on top of the base chocolaty flavor I got to start with.

Dry fragrance from the sealed bag sent from china (gold foil stamped all over with Chinese characters and Da Hong Pao all over it) is just like ripe apricots. Good ripe apriots – not those watery things a lot of big supermarkets have – like apricots pilfered off the branch of your neighbor’s tree that reaches over your fence plucked as they start to shrivel a bit in the sun and releasing that wondrous nectar aroma only some dried apricots can express. That and the warm undercurrent of burnt hardwood.
Wet aroma brings out more of the charcoal notes but with a little more vegetal expression and a sandstone/limestone mineral effect. Reminds me of the smell of a morning on the beach of far northern California with cold, kelp-filled water covered in fog mixing with the fresh silty water running from the redwoods over coarse, smooth dark sand and seashells and embers smoldering on the wet, charred remains of last night’s campfire in the wet sand. This analogy is exacerbated by second infusion’s similarity to smores made with burned marshmallows.
Liquor aroma is woody with bittersweet chocolate. Apricot comes in only as though it’s a naturally occurring note to a dark chocolate bar alongside a hint of orange, cassia, and black cardamom.

Flavor is true to the aroma but with a bit of graham cracker and a bakers chocolate astringency in the far back of the throat. Mineral flavor is more like wet gravel or unpolished granite than the limestone advertised earlier. Nice, interesting play of sensations in the mouth as overall it’s smooth and mouthwatering but there’s moving patches of astringency and dryness that enhance rather than detract. Some cumin, garlic, and chilies come out in the third infusion (leaves not yet open all the way). I’m getting kind of a mix of arbol, adobo, and chipotle pepper flavors as they’d be expressed in a dill pickle brine mix. Hmm… Stir fried bamboo, water chestnuts, pineapple, and onions. Cured, smoked honey ham in the aftertaste? Okay, why not? This just keeps getting more and more mouthwatering, savory, and sweet. I want to call this rich bodied due to the heady expression of flavor and lingering aftertaste but it really is not even close to being as syrupy thick as some other oolongs or puerh (heck, I’ve had greens with a little more body), but there’s enough there that I want to call it richer than the light-broth consistency it’s got. Mineral quality shifts back and forth between accents of charred wet softwood, dry hardwood, limestone, sand, gravelly granite, bisque fired clay, and the pits of various stone fruits. Florals like iris, orchids, and oddly wine grape and papaya fruit notes peep in with the minerals. Lots more going on… I think I’ll toss out “winy” and “herb spices” and let y’all grasp for adjectives since if you guess, I’m sure it’s probably there. Have I said cinnamon, bay, paprika, and rosemary yet? Howabout barbecue? Savory sweet chocolaty goodness. Sixth rebrew with some infusions going well over 10 minutes and it’s still full of gusto and starting to go more candy-sweet (or is it just making my tongue and breath go sweet?) and mouthwatering crisp.

Mmm, tasty. Great accompaniment with food or to settle a stomach after a plate of fresh oysters. Waaaaaay underpriced and the owner of the shop heartily agrees yet keeps the price the same. Hooray hoorah and zipitty do-da-day. I need my fingers for more tea drinkin’ so here’s where my review is gonna end.

Picked this up about a year ago and it has changed a bit, but not any more than difference in brewing parameters could account for. Still very “green” – basically Yunnan white tea with a bit more color and “ripe” quality to it. Funny how a partial kill-green and some hand rolling affects color more than the flavors (at least while still young). The leaves do look different, though – more breakdown has occurred and it’s getting close to needing a sifting.

Made the mistake like I always do and stuck my nose in the foil bag to take a whiff. Like taking a deep breath through my nose of the dusty underside of a bed. Not only has this broken down a little, but it was a pretty downy tea to start with, so all those little hairs and minuscule tea bits had me coughing and almost sneeze. Like any loose aged tea, it’s better to add the leaves to a warmed pot first and then take in the dry fragrance.

Used 4g with 215ml water in a duan ni clay squat shi piao style yixing teapot seasoned for sheng puerh (rarely brews anything over a decade old). Pour time is around 15 seconds – seems the leaves are blocking water flow a bit more than usual – so tack that onto brew times for full contact time. Single rinse. Infusions progressed: 30sec-86C, 40sec-86C, 50sec-84C, 60sec-86C, 70sec-84C, 80sec-83C.

While there are a few full leaf sets, most of the leaves are single and have some breakage to them. Similar to FOP grade, but not homogeneous in composition. Buds are really long. Dry fragrance in the warmed pot is cottony, somewhat toasty-sweet, with a tinge of honeysuckle and a vegetal fruit quality that’s very familiar to me but I can’t quite place. I want to say cooked zucchini or brussel’s sprouts, but that’s not really it. Wet aroma tweaks that note into an easier to place fresh, wet kelp aroma. “Ripe” quality sort of similar to an uncut pluot or longan non-fruit notes but with some pruned orchid aroma as well. Overall, wet aroma screams Yunnan white tea and this carries through to the liquor aroma but there’s a bit more of a dried marsh grass sweetness to it. Liquor is pale yellow at the shallow end and heavier yellow where the cup is deeper.

Aroma similar to a drying freshwater marsh. Sedges and rushes with some somewhat sweet cottonwood leaves or wild rosebush foliage notes as well. Wet leaf aroma characteristics carry through to the liquor better than I’m used to (much less woody, though). Flavor light and sorta floral, but bamboo and fallen leaves come to mind above anything else. Cottony mouthfeel, again like a white tea. A bit of astringency in second infusion highlights this. By third infusion, the body is up to full force – not as syrupy as aged or shu puerh, but still thick. Mouthwatering. Sort of a sticky rice and nori similarity. Kinda eggy, but not nearly as much as as Yin Zhen. By sixth infusion it’s tasting a whole heck of a lot like Genmai Cha but replace the grass notes with dried wetland grasses (think the smell of a woven basket but a little sweeter). Aftertaste subsides but the effect of leaving your mouth and breath slightly sweet lasts a bit more than half an hour.

Yummy. I wish I could buy more… Suppose I could break up a green cake to simulate the characteristics and aging speed, but this tea obviously had a lot of special care put into it to preserve its qualities in loose form.