Grand Tea

Finishing off the last of this pu’erh.

A good finish for this sample.

While I drank the last of this last night, I decided to save the leaves overnight and re-steep this morning. Yum!

Accompanies a nice dinner of chicken and peppers quite well!

Virtual tea time with video chat.

I believe this was another lovely selection The Purrfect Cup sent me! Thanks!!!

This is an exquisite tikuanyin! Just a touch of grassy taste under the fresh floral tastes. It’s not minty but it gives you that freshness you seek in the aftertaste. It’s quite gratifying, really! YUMX2!

Another tea from TeaEqualsBliss
This is only the second kind of Genmaicha + Matcha blend I have tried.
This is good.
Dry leaves give off a bit of dried Seaweed smell, add water and a tinge of bitterness and popcorn shine through.
Taste does not pop but it is a good tea to have with lunch.

I didn’t know I had this until I was going through my cupboard. Nor did I know what to make of it – was it a sheng pu-erh or a shou? I couldn’t tell. On smell, it seemed cooked. On taste…things get dicey. If it’s a shou, then it’s a very good shou. If it’s a sheng, it needs work. But it lasts quite a few infusions…and it woke me up plenty. So, I guess that’s something.

I have not tried this yet so I am cheating as this is not really a tasting note HOWEVER …
I have added this to my cupboard because I do believe this is what I purchased at an Asian shop in St. Louis.
The Tea Company I know is correct.
The packaging looks identical.
HOWEVER I find no DATE on mine.
If anyone has advice on how to find the date to be sure this is in fact what I have please let me know.
Otherwise I have to assume this is it since it looks right and is the only one like this I find here under this company.
Then again I suppose the company could have others LIKE it that are not yet added.
Ugggg
I am a bit “iffy” about trying it.
The gunpowder green I got from this shop is very nice but with Puerh I tend to be skeptical!
Especially since I got a 350g in a nice box (reminds me of fireworks) for only 6.49!!

Here we have another tie guan yin by Grand Tea. These always interest me a great deal, as they have the potential to be so wonderful, and yet many companies’ offerings of this style of oolong fall flat. As I open the package, I notice that this tie guan yin has a much more roasted aroma than the one that I previously tried from Grand Tea (the Monkey Picked Anxi Oolong). In fact, they are almost entirely opposite. That one was far more floral in aroma, and this one, initially, is more dark and roasted. At least so far as the dry leaves are concerned.

I preheat my gaiwan and my teacup, add some of the tea to the gaiwan, and give it a quick rinse. As I pour the water to begin the first steeping of thirty seconds, already I can smell the dark roasted aromas. If I take a deep breath, I can just barely detect an edge of grassy scents and a touch of floral notes. Steeping number one smells much the same, albeit watery and half-hearted. The liquor is bright and a transparent pale yellow. Tasting it, I find that it tastes much as it smells, which is to be expected for the first steeping. It feels incredibly light on the tongue. Steeping number two follows quickly after the first, using the same amount of time. This round, the aroma and the flavor have become darker, picking up more of the roasted flavor. This makes the tea seem richer, in a sense. Mmm, this third steeping (same time used), is full of rich, oolong goodness. It makes me want to sit back and savor this single cup for a long while. However, I know that this tea has more to give! The next two steepings continue this same trend, only changing in making the flavor more rich and intense. This is one of the best roasted oolongs I have had in some time. I certainly enjoyed trying it! On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate it an 85/100.

I love a good oolong, and I love ti kwan yin more than most oolongs. Just to clarify for those not well versed in Chinese geography, Anxi is an area in the Fujian region of China. Ti kwan yin, or one of the other many spellings, is one of the famous teas of this area.

This tea seemed perfect for brewing with a gaiwan, so I grabbed my trusty ceramic “covered cup” and opened the shrink-sealed package of tea. The smell that wafts from the foil packaging is amazing. Bright and floral, it urges me to continue onward to the tasting. Adding a tablespoon of leaf to the bottom of my gaiwan, I pour the water across the leaves, then quickly discard this water, rinsing the tea and helping the leaves to begin to open.

Deciding to go with typical steep times for the gaiwan, my initial steep lasts for thirty seconds. The resulting cup is light, floral, and laced with vegetal notes that are so characteristic of ti kwan yin oolongs. The golden-green liquor is bright and attractive. In the flavor of this first steeping, the smell is reversed. The vegetal notes take the upper hand, accompanied by the floral smell on the edges. This tea has a smooth finish, and the flavor, especially the vegetal aspects, linger on the tongue, long after the sip is done. The flavors are not intensely strong, as expected from the first steeping.

The leaves themselves have barely begun to open. With that, a second steeping of thirty seconds is begun. I notice that, even after this steeping, the leaves remain a bit stubborn in opening fully. The tea is darker by a few shades, and the aroma is now more balanced. The flavors of this steeping are not much stronger, but they are sharper in body, revealing the source of the lingering flavors. The third steeping tastes much the same, with the flavors being a bit more developed.

The fourth steeping is rich with these same flavors, and I finally notice the almost-creamy edges. I am sure that this tea will last through several more steepings. I really enjoyed trying this Monkey Picked Oolong, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a nice, green oolong. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate this tea an 89/100.

This one is a veggie-sweet with sweet-floral combo yet it’s smooth and gentle and juicy all at the same time. This is very good! It stands out more than I thought it would. The quality is top-notch!

Ok this one was interesting I liked it most people would probably not like it at first or at all even, to me it is complex in flavor because it changes as you steep it more and more and it goes on and on it outlasted me. Dry aroma is no aroma it just a odd smell like that of ancient books in fact that exactly how its starts out tasting also almost stale tasting like and old musty book kinda of dull and just odd as steep went by it got much better end for me quite lively and smooth and refreshing, almost as if were dead at first and came back to life. An acquired taste I like it alot worth a try for anyone who enjoys odd flavors. Also pretty much no steep time at all for this one really just pour the water right over it through the strainer into a cup over and over and over.
Also one more thing of note on this one I got screwed on this one when purchasing but that happens sometimes the money wasted isn’t important to me but the issue is worth a share here so others can look out for things like this, I found this one finally twice and bought it twice from 2 completely different places(because the info they gave on it was completely different) one was this place listed here Grand Tea (good place) and another place that I just wont name because of what they did, 13$ for 50grams from grandtea and whole lot more from the other place for also 50grams. I got in the mail first the one from grandtea and then I got really confused when a week later I got more from grand tea??? nope it was from the other company that charged me more for it, they got it from grand tea for 13$ and sold it to me described differently as if it was made by different type bugs and was a different type “Chong Cha” but stupid them they didn’y even bother to remove grand teas sticker from it lol. Life Lesson.

This Liu Bao is very good, nice aroma and taste, not quite as dark or rich as other Liu Bao I have but still very good.

No notes yet.

Thanks LiberTEAS!

This is very sweet, a bit creamy to swizzle in the mouth, and crisp but there is a hint of hay or wheat texture to it at the beginning of the sip and it rounds out at the end. It’s very nice. It’s a great inbetween “cleanser” tea (especially after all of that chamomile I have been drinking! oye!)

I like this! It’s a goodie! :)

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea.

This is alright. Not the best Uji Genmaicha that I’ve tried, but, it’s not bad either. Unlike other Uji Genmaicha, I can hardly taste the Matcha in this. It is very toasty and delicious, but considerably lighter in composition than what I expected. Good, but not great.

This is a really good silver needle: sweet and with a strong flavor, that is to say, stronger than I would have expected from a typical silver needle. The leaves were soft and fluffy. There are flavors of hay and of grass, these are soft flavors that mingle with the sweetness. A very lovely white tea.

Light, Crisp, Clean, Refreshing, very pleasant! VERY satisfying! I really like this! A Nice mellow and soothing green tea. No bitterness…no grassiness. If you think you didn’t like greens before…give this one a try! It’s a different sort of a green! NICE!

This is surprisingly refreshing. It has a very light taste to it… far more subtle than I usually experience from a green tea. This is very reminiscent of a white tea … both in flavor as well as the appearance of the dry leaf, which were light green, wiry, covered in silvery fuzz.

A sweet, crisp, refresher!

This was very light (and I mean v-e-r-y; prep recommends a tablespoon and I had to turn the bag inside out to make a full teaspoon) and cereally. First verbal imprint when I tasted was “rice water.” Had I made it properly, though, probably would’ve been a nice variety for those who prefer green tea that tastes less green.

A nice, non-vegetabley green. It looks like frosty sage leaves, and is lip-lickingly sweet and nutty.

This was hands down the most unique green tea I’ve come across in years. I’ve had aged pu-erhs, heard about aged oolongs (but never tried), and then comes this odd little beast. It has one of the most unique stories to tell. Heck, I found three Wikipedia articles on the stuff. Taste-wise, it definitely feels like an aged tea. Steeped four times, I had impressions of buttered veggies, vanilla, fruit, smoke, earth and mint. It’s not as winy as good sheng pu-erhs, but it’s still worth the unique experience.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/04/28/review-grand-tea-lui-an-basket-tea-2005/

The write up of my first clumsy, but not entirely successful experience with pu-erh is up:

http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2070/tea-review-grand-tea-year-2000-7542-green-pu-erh/