China Cha Dao

5th steep. 40s, boiling water. Think I need to bump up the steeping time. This is light like the first cup. Still a ton of flavor. Back to earthy but not pungent. Or it could just be the smoked pork I had for lunch cleansed the palette of the salsa taste from last night. Man my wife got it oniony – but sure was good.

4th steep. 40s, boiling water. I noticed the third steep left some grit on the sides of the press. Next time I do a rinse I need to remember to stir the leaf a bit before pouring it off. This cup is close in taste to the third cup. I am digging this. I just realized it has lost the pungent earthiness of the first couple cups and replaced it with mellow. This is probably what I was noticing in the third cup.

3rd steep. 35s, boiling water. Leaf more vegative smelling. Brew gets a little darker each time but still amber. Best cup yet, but I really can’t explain how it is different from the last except to say it is smoother and fuller. Interesting. Oh, and the caffeine is beginning to make me jittery. How do you people do 10 cups a day?

2nd steep. 30s, boiling water. Now I detect the aroma of spinach in the leaf. The brown is gone – all green now. There is a slight film on top the cup. The flavor is more even, pronounced, and complex. Still very smooth with a heavy dose of earthiness. No grass. No bitterness.

The first of five samples provided by China Cha Dao. Ok, I am going to do my typical American thing while brewing, but I will compromise on the steeping times. I am using a healthy spoonful of leaf in my press and a 10oz mug. The dry cake smells slightly grassy. Did a 10s rinse with boiling water. The wiry looking dry leaf immediately started coming to life. Let it rest a moment then did my first 30s steep with boiling water. The steeped leaf varies from brown to bright green. The smell of the leaf is rich and earthy. The brew itself doesn’t have a detectable scent. The cup is a light amber color. The sip is thick almost syrupy. There is a heavy earthiness that rises quickly and just as quickly passes. I detect no grassiness and no bitterness in the first cup. I have a cheap cooked version (by another seller) of this tea that I have to mask its’ overwhelming flavor with chocolate mint. This is slightly pungent but I did not feel the need to mask or add anything to this tea. I am a newbie at puerh so I can’t tell you if this is good or bad. I can only tell you I liked it. Also note that the cheap version with mint is one of my favorite everyday teas – so after I road test this on its own merits I will add mint to it and see if I have a new favorite. I am going to list the rest of my steeps separately.

This is my second review in a series of six samples from China Cha Dao

Experience buying from China Cha Dao: I responded to an offer on Steepster for free samples. Received exactly what was stated in the offer: fresh tea and very generous sample sizes. On their website on eBay they have a good variety of tea for reasonable prices.

Age of leaf: Stated as harvested in 2011. Received in mid-summer, brewed in very early fall 2011.

Packaging: small, clear bags with small label printed with the full name of the tea.

Dry leaf: similar roasted aroma to the Da Hong Pao I sampled previously, but not quite as strong; long, slender, dark brown leaves.

Brewing guidelines: four 8-oz cups of water used, leaves loose in glass Bodum pot. Stevia added. (I tried to keep the following guidelines as consistent as I could throughout the series)
…………….1st : 195, 2’
…………….2nd: 195, 3’
…………….3rd: 190, 5’ (mild flavor, so no forth attempted)

Aroma: very mild, fresh and pleasant fragrance.

Color of liquor: light amber color.

Wet leaf: aroma is intense, almost harsh, but they also have a tiny hint of caramel? Leaves are dark green with a few small brown leaves here and there. Otherwise same appearance as the Da Hong Pao: lots of large leaves with a fair amount of smallish pieces that look chopped and a few stems. For this oolong, most of the leaves were on the bottom at the end of the first steeping, and all were on the bottom for the remaining steepings.

Flavor: tastes like most oolongs I have had, with a roasted flavor—-like coffee—-but much milder than the Da Hong Pao. A little more pleasant once it cooled a bit. On the second steeping, not as harsh, and not as coffee-like. I’m not certain, but it seems I am picking up a very faint hint of something fruity in the after-taste.

Value: Free 10-gram sample (Thank you Jerry Ma @ China Cha Dao tea on Ebay!). His regular tea is very reasonably priced, I judge ($7/125grams).

Overall (I consider myself a newbie when it comes to oolongs) This on was not as interesting as the Da Hong Pao, but it was still an enjoyable oolong. I tried it chilled, mixed with some chilled passion fruit flavored black tea: the combination was quite interesting! This tea is not something I would buy and brew up, but I don’t mind drinking it.

While these arrived at my house a few weeks ago, I have finally gotten them here at school. I love oolongs and so far my only other experience with Wuyi is the one I get from the bulk teas at Wegmans. The smell is a nice roasted nuttiness that just errs on being burnt. The taste is much like the smell but smoother and mellows during further steeps. It has a few sweetish notes coming out to play in later steeps as well.

Still working on stat (Linear regression can be really time consuming, especially when you keep getting distracted by stuff…), but my other tea gave up the ghost, so I threw some of this in a cup, and proceeded to to brew it grandpa style. See previous notes for details.

Usually I start off a review of Qi Lan by commenting on the wonderful aroma. Unfortunately, I am still congested, so this is an exercise in futility. Regardless of my inability to smell anything, this was a very nice session with this tea. The lightly-roasted flavors were interesting, and were nicely complemented by the light honey flavors. One thing that was a bit odd was that the aftertaste was very muted, and the distinct mineral taste of a Wuyi Oolong was very hard to detect. The other strange thing is that I remember the tea having more complex flavors, but they are absent. I suspect that this is due to my congestion, as it is a well documented fact that smell greatly affects taste.

I don’t know why, but this tea was a bit disappointing today. I brewed it grandpa style, as I had a lot of free time, and was planning on a marathon study session. but for some reason, t was just…off. Everything seemed more subdued than usual. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that the inconsistent water quality of my dorm was at a low point today.

EDIT:
Yeah, I talked to a few people in the same building, and they had similar problems today.
Let this be a lesson: WATER QUALITY IS IMPORTANT! Looking into getting a Brita pitcher or something, because I don’t want this to happen again.

So, I recently read an article about “Grandpa Style” tea preparation over at marshaln.com, so I decided to try it out with this tea. For those of you who don’t know, this means I put the leaves in a cup, and add more hot water when I start to get low.

The results were truly interesting. Because there were not discrete infusions, I experienced the full spectrum of what this tea had to offer. It was interesting to taste the subtle transition to the slightly vegetative-yet-sweet tea that it becomes in the latter infusions. Truly a great way for me to finish my day.

I’m pretty new to tea in general ,so it is rather difficult to express how this tea tastes. The flavor was only a medium in terms of strength, and it had a pleasing aftertaste. The scent of the tea was also unique, which simultaneously reminded me of flowers and roasted nuts. All in all, it was a very pleasing experience.

This was a rating of the first infusion, steeped for 3 minutes at 93 degrees centigrade.

On this rainy day perfect way to finish this Spring “Shi Ru” tea. I am happy, enriched to have tried this Oolong. It is rich and does brew best very hot/boiling temperature.

I do not yet understand the term “sweet” if not adding sugar to something. Perhaps it is described as ‘sweet’ if not vegetal or coarse and smoky; then I would say it is sweet.

Each cup I have had of this tea was fresh in flavor and full; the longer I brewed this tea the more enjoyment I found within the cup. And the tea leaves are soupy; yums or go a bit further to buttered yams kind of yummy in taste.

I am liking Oolongs and this is a good thing.

Another obtained China Cha Dao sampler that is most enjoyable. This is a good morning cup of tea which is very mild and fresh in aromatic flavoring. I don’t find this to be heavy at all.

The liquor is lightly greenish in color, almost yellow like and it is very smooth in texture; and sweet not vegetal. I drink it all day long and find it most enjoyable.

I am grateful for a simpler cup of loose leaf tea. It is gentle on the palette, not demanding much investigation.

This is my first review in a series of six samples from China Cha Dao

Experience buying from China Cha Dao: I responded to an offer on Steepster for free samples. Received exactly what was stated in the offer: fresh tea and very generous sample sizes. On their website on eBay they have a good variety of tea for reasonable prices.

Age of leaf: Stated as 2011. Received in mid-summer, brewed in late summer 2011.

Packaging: small, clear bags with small label printed with the full name of the tea.

Dry leaf: long, slender, dark brown leaves. Slight scent, something burnt, like paper, gunpowder, or something (reminds me of the smell from my cap gun when I was a kid; wild!). I am guessing this is due to the roasting it goes through?

Brewing guidelines: loose in glass Bodum pot. Stevia added. (I wanted to start with shorter steeping times than the other reviewers to get a wider perspective—-range of flavor—-for this tea.)
…………….1st: 195, 2’
…………….2nd: 200, 3’
…………….3rd: 212, 5’
…………….4th: 195, 6’

Aroma: rich, almost like coffee.

Color of liquor: medium brown, like a lightly roasted coffee.

Wet leaf: slightly different smell than the dry leaf, more pleasant, perhaps sweeter? Lots of large, very dark leaves, a fair amount of smallish pieces (chopped?), and a few stems. Some of the leaves are so dark they look almost burnt (due to the roasting?). Leaves on the top of the water with some hanging vertically during the 1st steeping, some hanging vertically, and some on bottom, during the 2nd, and all sitting on the bottom during the 3rd and 4th steepings.

Flavor: (I struggled with how to describe the flavor, and I finally settled on this description) The taste is similar to the smell of the leaves, with a rich, roasted, robust flavor (the three R’s?!) reminding me of coffee. The third steeping tasted somewhat burnt (which I did not taste in the first or second steeping), but that was possibly because I used water that was too hot for it; I chalk that up as a learning experience: don’t steep this oolong in boiling water! Tasting it at room temperature, it tastes almost chocolaty. It held flavor all the way though to the fourth steeping (even at boiling!).

Value: Free 10-gram sample (Thank you Jerry Ma @ China Cha Dao tea on Ebay!). His regular tea is very reasonably priced, I judge ($7/125grams).

Overall: I am a newbie when it comes to oolongs (I’ve only had about three to four), so I invite you to read my review from that point of view. This may be the most challenging review I have written to date, trying to pin down the flavors and aromas.
I like this tea! It gives me somewhat of a sense that I am drinking coffee, as seule771 has mentioned in her review (I like coffee, but my wife does not, and she does not like this tea either). There is something else about it that I like which is hard for me to put my finger on; I think it’s that it tastes fresh. There is nothing stale or off-putting about the flavor in this tea at all. Although it is rich and robust, it is nonetheless somewhat mild tasting, and still enjoyable (I don’t know if you can have rich, robust and mild in the same cup, but that’s the best way I can describe it for now!). There certainly seem to be subtle flavors stealthily swimming around in my cup that I am missing (as a few of the other reviews has eluded to), and that’s all the more reason for me to drink a tea like this: to discover the wonders hidden in this cuppa!

This is one of those high end tea drink as opposed to store brand tea. It is lighter in roasted flavoring; and honey like in taste leaving for a very smooth, almost velvety note on the palette.

The leaves are roasted, dark, crunchy and curled and when dispensed amidst the water in the cup the leaves unfolds to fullness; and what was dark in coloring of the leaves is a mild green; and yes the leaves are edible as well. Maintaining that honey flavoring throughout.

Texture is described as smooth and mellow and this conjures the honey sweetness in the cup making for a slight flora aroma and not vegetal.

A very good Wuyi Mountain Oolong. This is the “Mama Bear” of the Wuyi Mountain Oolongs I tried from China Cha Dao. Not too smokey, not too sweet, but just right. Enough complexity to keep me interested through several steepings. It is distinctive in it’s aroma, and does not overwhelm you as some can. One note, this tea really depends on having good water that is not hard, best with bottled spring water (soft).

Soft, nutty and sweet with hints of honey :)

The scent of this one is big.. it reaches right out and smacks you! It’s honey and tobacco with a hint of burnt.

On sipping it very hot there is a green note.. think dark green lettuce, cabbage or kale. Somewhere in there.

When cooled to warm, it has that burnt edge to it -but in a pleasant way, the vegetal flavor is much lighter, the honey sweetness comes out. The tea is generally light in the mouth and not actually sweet but puts you in the mind of honey, instead.

Not my favorite of these samples, but good.

I have been slowly working my way through my Wuyi oolong samples and had been saving this for last since it seems to be the overall favorite of my fellow Steepsterites. Although I have not finished (or even tried) all of the other samples, I felt compelled to brew this one up today. I was wanting something really good and that is exactly what I received.

When I first opened the sample bag, I thought that somehow another aroma had leaked into the tea because I smell juicy, sweet raisins. After a few more long sniffs into the sample bag (long enough that my kitten was starting to worry about me) I have come to the conclusion that it is perhaps the actual tea leaves that are giving off this delicious aroma. Already, I was super excited about this tea just from the aroma alone.

After brewing up a pot, I am greeting primarily with a roasty, toasty oolong with a very nice sweetness that wells up through the middle of your mouth and stays with you long after swallowing that sip. Even my husband, who is very picky about tea said this one was “interesting and pretty good!” And this is all from only the first infusion. I can’t wait to try subsequent steeps – I love how oolongs seem to progress and evolve as time goes on.

My rating is temporary based on this first infusion but if subject to change depending on what else this tea has in store for me.

I swear I dreamt about this oolong. Today, fear of heavy metal poisoning gone, I barely rinsed it and let each steeping cool to enhance the floral tones. It really tastes vegetal in a yellow, autumn way. It’s going to be tough to save a cup of this to compare to the Golden Key, spposedly the best of the batch!

Brief 10 rinse.
The first steep is almost light feeling, some mineral and staying with the barley and birch flavors. The floral layer comes out when it cools somewhat.
Second steep is even lighter, more wheat and woodsy.
The third is lightly grain and floral, very nice.

I wouldn’t call this one sweet but gives the impression of sweetness, which I love, usually in white teas. The cloud of heavy metal I asscociate with Wuyi is absent and the roasted flavor is welcome in this tea, a blanced brew indeed. The large leaves and subtler flavors make this the best contemplation tea of all the samples. I think I like this one best and I burned the first cup!