Life In Teacup
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Wow, this is intensely floral at first scent. Leaves are dark greenish/black and tightly rolled before steeping, almost like gunpowder tho slightly larger. Steeped for 2 1/2 min and let sit for about 5 min covered, aroma was also very floral due to the jasmine. Sipping is so nice and relaxing with the up front jasmine scent then slight vegetal notes of the green coming through after. Perfect for a much needed midday break.
Preparation
HMMM! Pleasantly surprised with this one… smoky/tarry scent upon opening the sample envelope. Steeped for 4 min and discovered a dark reddish liquor. First sip was a lot of the smokiness coming through with sweet undertone. The sweetness peaks in the aftertaste tho, something like a molasses/raisin taste. Dark and a slight thickness that comes along with that final peak of sweetness. Thumbs up!
Preparation
These leaves are seriously CRAZY wicked long! WOWZA! This has a very unique aroma to it too! I can’t quite put my finger on it…it’s like a combo of veggies, mushrooms, buttery-goodness, sticky rice, and a mystery faint spice. The taste is really great! It’s smooth and juicy and sweet and almost fruity in the middle of the sip. The aftertaste is subtle and lingers and is pleasant! It leaves a oh-so-slight citrus taste paired with a sweet-veggie hint. Oh! And the liquor is a little pale-browner than I thought it would be for a green. Interesting!
This one is really neat!
Wow, this is a really unique chocolate. I love the color of it. I was expecting a pale green colored chocolate, but this is more of a medium olive green color, just like your standard green tea leaves. It tastes mostly of green tea with the smoothness and creaminess of white chocolate. There are tiny bits of leaves in it that give an interesting crunchy texture. This is more of a novelty item than something I would eat every day. It would make a really neat gift for any tea lover.
Dry and before infusing this smells like cucumber skins – fresh, clean, airy, Ahhhh!
After infusion it smells like sweet grass and sweet wood with floral notes!
Taste is…
not as sweet as I assumed it would be! It has a masculine flavor to it…along with a roasty/toasty charcoal hint to it. But you can still tell it’s a white tea. This is very different but good! I like this!
I’ve been drinking a lot of oolong lately. I brewed this one in a glass teapot I just got, to see if it changed the flavor from brewing it in my cast iron teapot (sadly I don’t own any yixing pots). It’s really hard to say, I’ll have to brew them side by side to get a real idea for the difference. It’s a bit more…..earthy and heavy than other oolongs I have, but quite tasty all the same.
Ah… my sweet Oolong! This is delightful.
Rich, nutty, sweet and almost creamy. A silky mouthfeel that lasts only a few moments because the light astringency leaves the palate feeling clean.
I love Oriental Beauty (Bai Hao) Oolong teas because they have such an autumnal feel to them – warm and inviting and beautiful.
This is a fantastic Oriental Beauty. Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending it my way!
High Mountain awesome. Delicate, creamy and floral with a looooong hui gan of peaches and cream. All of the typical “greener style” oolong flavors are there but with an element of refinement as the wet leaf aroma comes through sweet and precise. The liquor is refreshingly bright and smooth that is balanced by a perfectly weighty mouthfeel and the tartness at the end unfurls slowly into the aforementioned sweet hui gan. High marks for this one.
I don’t know what a sweet hui gan is but I agree with everything else you said. I like way the flavor rolls around and the bursts of flavor end in that tartness as well.
hui gan (or huay gan) is the flavor of the air that returns from your throat after you have swallowed the tea. kind of like an aftertaste but it does not necessarily originate in the mouth. good teas have impressive hui gan. ive found that sometimes the flavor of the hui gan is reminiscent of the wet aroma of the tea. comes full circle, in a way.
hui gan (or huay gan) is the flavor of the air that returns from your throat after you have swallowed the tea. kind of like an aftertaste but it does not necessarily originate in the mouth. good teas have impressive hui gan. ive found that sometimes the flavor of the hui gan is reminiscent of the wet aroma of the tea. comes full circle, in a way.
Been awhile since I’ve cupped a Mao Feng. Last one was a Keemun type. Before that, a couple of years since my last Mao Feng green. This was a crisp, wonderfully vegetal (but not spinachy) and creamy green with a pine note somewhere in the mix. I could easily draw comparison to pre-rain Long Jings as a flavor-sibling. Quite decent.
Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/02/18/review-life-in-teacup-pre-guyu-huang-shan-mao-feng-2/
Preparation
Finally got around to drinking this again, at work a few days ago. I keep trying to wait until I have time to pay attention to the brewing, but at that rate I’ll never drink it. So: I used enough leaves to thinly cover the bottom of my mug, and water slightly below boiling. I left the leaves in the mug, drank it when it was cool enough, and added more hot water when it was mostly empty. I probably steeped the leaves 3 or 4 times.
It was really good! Sweet, and nutty, and roasted. A little fruity. Very smooth. It went surprisingly well with the cashews I was snacking on at the time!
Preparation
Mmm, the dry leaves smell like coffee, and chocolate, and fall (that is, dry leaves :P). They’re big and pretty too, just like the picture. The flavor is more like an oolong than I expected – might try it with a shorter steep time, maybe even cooler water, because I’m getting a little tannic kick on the back end. It’s still quite smooth overall, though, roasty and warm; it almost tastes like a Darjeeling, actually, with that sharp roasted fruit flavor.
I used about a quarter of my 6g free sample (thanks Ginko!), so I’ll enjoy playing with this some more.
Preparation
Had about a teaspoon and a half of this left, so I just threw it all into a mug and steeped it for five minutes.
There’s a nice, good Yunnan Tea smell to it. The taste is very mild, but drying on the tongue. It’s sort of a smooth bitter. I could use buttery to describe it, almost. Perhaps.
But anyways, that’s the last of that sample. Not a fan enough of Yunnan to order it. Besides, I’ve got lots of OTHER teas I would already like to buy from Life in Teacup. And many more I’d just like to grab a sample of.
Soon.
Preparation
Trying my first sample today. I had a bit of a crisis when I tried to tear open a corner of the package and ended up tearing it RIGHT IN HALF. Luckily I didn’t lose more than one or two leaves, and I happened to have an empty tin to dump the sample into.
The leaves were quite soft, which I wasn’t too sure about.
SMELLS like a Yunnan. I didn’t do any pre-rinse, just sort of threw myself into 1-minute-steeps. First is very mild, but still flavourful, and actually somewhat sweet. I don’t know what to say about it right now, except that it does remind me of the Yunnan I got from Tea Desire (only in that there is some similarity, but I can’t really tell what). It’s sweet, and there’s a sort of pepperyness in with the taste as well.
Second steep, only meant to do a minute and a half but wasn’t paying attention and let it hit two minutes. Ahwell. First sip I get tea sweetness; this steep’s definitely stronger. Still getting the sort of pepper in the aftertaste as well, although I don’t really know if pepper’s the right word for it, it was just the only one I could come up with.
Third steep (three minutes) has lost the sweetness a bit. Still lovely and mild.
Preparation
It probably didn’t help that I didn’t observe a typical gongfu prep for this. It also probably didn’t help that I was eating sharp cheddar-laden chimichangas at the time. That said, I brewed this as I would an oolong (but with boiling water), and it was a perfect sheng. Muscat grape notes, shades of maple leaf, pear, and some earthiness trailing on finish. When I think of aged sheng pu-erh, I think this. Flawless.
Thanks to seykayay for this little treasure.
Preparation
@Seykayay – Do it! Right this second!
@Cloud Mountain – Y’know…I would actually drink that. Heck, I had their bacon tea and liked it.
How about arroz con habichuelas? What’s a savory dish more earthy and pu’erh friendly than the staple protein combo of the western hemisphere?
This fragrant, flavorful tea has captured the summer in its tightly furled deep green and olive tea leaves. It has sweet grassy and floral smells, and once infused is like drinking in the warm flavor of roasted nuts while breathing in the honeyed aroma of summer’s wild flowers.
This tea is awesome and very good. It’s quite resilient and would make a great everyday tea. For pictures and my full review: http://www.leafjoy.com/2010/12/taiwan-sweet-summer-oolong-life-in-teacup/
This oolong surprised me in many ways. I did my best to mimic a Gongfu prep for it – somewhat to no avail – but still ended up with three twenty-second steeps of differing excellence. Common traits were a contrasted vegetal and fruity lean with little or no astringency. Worth a look…but definitely not an on-the-go tea. This requires ritual.
Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/01/05/review-life-in-teacup-dong-ding-oolong-traditional-greener-style-3/
Preparation
Okay, since I’m an idiot/bumpkin that has no clue…can you tell me what gongfu prep is? I’ve yet to find a source that simply states the facts.
@Jamie – Truth is, I’m still a little lost on the details also. Just Wiki it to get a better idea. I have no clue how to do the actual ceremony.
@Ginkgo – I do my best. Wonderful product, sir.
Okay, finally found a video for it that actually had the ceremony demonstrated/explained. I still kinda don’t get it. And I think I’m okay with that.
I guess a lot of people wouldn’t agree with me on this. But I personally do NOT think there is “tea ceremony” in Chinese tea tradition. I think that’s a big difference between China and Japan in tea culture. Most of the Chinese ceremonies we see nowadays are for performance purposes, which is good, but isn’t essential in people’s tea life. Besides, everyone can have/create his own ceremony :D