2036 Tasting Notes
The cake smells like chocolate trees. It flakes apart easily.
I rinsed with boiling water and let it sit for 15 minutes before tasting.
Gaiwan, boiling, 5/5/7/7/10/10/20/30/40/60
I leafed this quite a bit more than usual because I’ve discovered I generally like more leaf in pu erh. That made for interesting colors. The first couple of steeps were a sort of dirty gold, then became more orange-gold.
The flavor is richer than some other pu erhs I have had recently, and the tea is also a bit astringent. It has an interesting array of flavors ranging from the white chocolatey note to a smoky one, to a caramel-espresso one. There’s even something fruity about it, though I can’t categorize it — it’s not berry, melon, or stone fruit — more of a generic suggestion of fruit.
I’m quite taken with this one. Even though its flavor profile isn’t terribly different from other shengs, there’s something qualitatively “more” about it that makes it special to my taste buds.
Flavors: Astringent, Butter, Caramel, Chocolate, Espresso, Fruity, Smoke, White Chocolate
Preparation
I managed to determine this was a sheng through some online sleuthing. I can’t remember where or when I bought it. The cake has an interesting arboreal smell and pried apart easily.
I rinsed with boiling water and let the leaves sit for 15 minutes, then steeped in the gaiwan at 5/5/7/7/10/10/20/30/40/60
The tea has a sort of peachy-gold color and smelled and tasted like that sort of fudgy, white chocolate, butter flavor that I often get from shengs.
The color darkened slightly after the first steep, but the flavor was consistent through all 10 steeps.
I loved the way the leaves looked after steeping — big, green, expansive. They expanded like oolong leaves.
I’m not sure why I seem to get the same flavors from sheng over and over again. I was kind of looking forward to something new and different? But it’s tasty, even though it isn’t delivering something new and different.
Flavors: Butter, Chocolate, White Chocolate
Preparation
Sipdown no. 13 of February 2019 (no. 31 of 2019 total, no. 519 grand total).
OK. I must severely bump down the rating on this. Like into the yuck zone.
I think I was overly generous when I rated it as I did because I was sort of taken with the idea of a rice flavored pu erh. But when I was confronted with the lower rated teas in my cupboard (of which this was one) and put this in the cold brew queue, I realized my mistake.
Cold brew almost always makes tea taste better. I almost always find myself bumping up the rating.
But this was pretty gross. I mean, I couldn’t drink it in the morning to take my vitamins with for fear of gagging. The rice note became something that didn’t taste like rice so much as something that tasted nastily pungent.
No. 2 agreed. He tried this and had to throw away the cup after one sip. He, who loved the last pu erh cold brew so much he spirited away the last bit in the pitcher into his water bottle to take with him on his week long outdoor ed trip.
Today I put the last 4 of these into a pitcher with some shu tuochas and a spoon of loose shu. I’m hoping that will cut the nastily pungent note enough to make it bearable. In any case, I can’t imagine anything making it worse.
Not going to miss this one at all.
At first, I thought that this was going to be a transformational pu erh experience. But it fell somewhat short.
The cake smelled a tad fishy and a lot leathery, and broke apart quite easily. I put a fair amount of leaf in the gaiwan given that I think I’ve been underleafing pu erhs to an extent.
Boiling. Rinse. Steeped at 10/10/20/30/40/60/120/240/300/360
The aroma of this is fantastic. It smells like molasses and brown sugar, without any fishiness at all, and it has that malty quality that I get from a lot of Samovar black teas that contain Yunnan. It steeped very dark and opaque until the last couple of steeps when it became a bit lighter and more the color of bourbon.
But. The promise of that aroma didn’t come through in the flavor. I kept waiting for the sweetness, the sugary note, but I never got it. It was more woodsy, and a little like coffee as the steeps progressed. And it was smooth, and had nothing ordinary or objectionable about it — I just wished it followed through on how it had smelled.
I have high expectations for Samovar teas in general, which may be why I felt a little disappointed. It’s very good, but I was hoping it would be out of this world.
Flavors: Brown Sugar, Coffee, Fishy, Leather, Malt, Molasses, Wood
Preparation
Sipdown no. 12 of February 2019 (no. 30 of 2019 total, no. 518 grand total).
My next lowest rated green tea is an 82, so I’m taking some white teas and maybe some oolongs to work until I get to it.
This one was an ok take it to work tea. It’s one of the better Silver Needles I’ve had, because it has an identifiable flavor. I steeped it for 4 minutes at 185.
I’m still not a huge white tea fan, though (unless it is a good flavored white (jasmine or fruit flavors are the best, I think) . I’m still waiting for that amazing tea that changes my mind.
Last oolong in the cupboard to taste and write an initial note about! Except that it’s not. Apparently, I’d already written a note about this one, and I thought I hadn’t? Perhaps it was because I was leaving off rating it.
So let me revise that to last oolong in the cupboard to rate — that’s better.
Awesome. Now all that is left in that category is pu erh.
On that front, I must make a correction. I thought I would only have 3 left after today but I discovered another cake that I apparently entered into the Steepster data base but didn’t place in my cupboard. And there are those pesky pu erh samples I haven’t tried all of yet.
So, current count:
Pu erh cakes: 4
Pu erh samples: 15
If you count the bagged, flavored pu erh from Lupicia, I guess it is really 16.
But back to this tea. It’s a special one. The color, and the slighly roasty/smoky aroma in the tin made me think this would taste like a dark oolong.
But no! It’s not. It’s more like a very full bodied green oolong with a hint of smoke.
Gaiwan. Rinse. 195F for 15 seconds, adding 5 for each additional steep. I did five steeps. I might have done more but I have a craving for a black tea and I don’t want to drink it too late in the day.
In any case, this is a special tea. It’s got the sweet, floral notes, and even the dairy notes of a green tie guan yin, with a smoky/toasty note as well.
Honestly, I could drink this one all day.
Flavors: Cream, Floral, Milk, Roasted, Smoke, Toasty
The brick smells a little like leather.
I think I didn’t use enough tea. I put in around 2.7g. I think it needs more because honestly, I found this one uninteresting.
Gaiwan. Rinse. Boiling 10/10/20/30/40/60/120/240/300/360
The first steep was a sort of a dark amber color and smelled slightly alcoholic, like brandy. It didn’t taste like that, but honestly, I didn’t get a lot of flavor. The second through fourth steeps had a coffee note to the aroma and an earthiness to the flavor, but I didn’t get the sweet note I was hoping for. The rest was pretty unremarkable.
I have to rate this fairly low given my impressions. But I hope next time with more leaf I can revise that.
On the upside, the leaves flaked right off when I took to them with the pu erh knife.
Flavors: Alcohol, Brandy, Coffee, Earth, Leather
Sipdown no. 10 of February 2019 (no. 28 of 2019 total, no. 516 grand total). A sample teabag.
I just had one of these not long ago, but EVERY CONTAINER COUNTS!
I don’t have more to say about it. It’s really lovely this morning. I was in Houston over the weekend for the memorial service of a friend’s father. It was a whirlwind trip — in Friday, out Sunday. But I’m glad I went.
And today I get to announce I’ve met my February sipdown goal!
Sipdown no. 9 of February 2019 (no. 27 of 2019 total, no. 515 grand total).
I bought a packet of this in the Lupicia panic order. Because this was the lowest rated green tea in my cupboard, it was a quick sipdown. I’ve been taking it to work for the past week.
I think I rated it too low. It’s a really nice tea. What makes it nice also makes it rather non-distinctive — a blend of fruit flavors that doesn’t announce a particular note — which is why I think I rated it lower before.
Upping the rating.
The way the tea sits in my mouth and body play a large role in my puerh experiences, giving certain ones more oomph.
I totally get what you mean. There’s also a lot of scope to experiment with the amount of leaf, I think. I am looking forward to more heavily leafing some of the ones I thought were good but not outstanding to see if that makes a difference.
Cool, I look forward to your results. Do you just break off a chunk and call it good or do you measure? I’ve found my sweet spot to be around 6-7g/100mL for most pu.
I was measuring before, but the last few times I did it visually. Filled the 50ml gaiwan to about a third, maybe a bit more.
That’s probably only a gram, no more than two, pretty low leaf amount for that volume. Yeah, you might like a higher leaf for some of those other puerh!
When i was measuring, I was doing about 2.7g, so what I am getting by eyeballing is more than that…
It’s a good thing I’m not eyeballing then!