Peony Tea S.

No notes yet.

Thanks * Liberteas*
Very clean. Slightly Vegetal. Cooling. Thirst Quenching. A lingering smoothness to coat your throat. An overall lovely green! Very pleasant and satisfying!

Back log and SIP DOWN…I will miss this one a great deal…see other tasting notes for this one, too!

Ohhh this is nice, it seems a lot bolder than the other huang shan mao fengs I’ve tried so far. It almost smells like a Dragonwell.

Definitely sweet, almost reminiscent of a green oolong with the way it is so floral. There’s also a bit of vegetal notes to it too, not really sure quite what.

Yum, Yum, Yum! Backlogging, again! LOVE a good Yunnan Black! This does the trick!

I also tried this iced with this for dinner
http://blissfulyogajourney.blogspot.com/2013/02/vegan-pakistani-kima-music-and-siblings.html

Started my day with 3 cups of this! Awwwww-yeah! See previous notes!

Thank you LiberTeas for sharing this one with me!
A very nice naturally sweet green!
Full review will post Feb 4th on SororiTea Sisters but here are my snippits:

As I lifted the cup I picked up a lovely buttery aroma, almost like butterscotch candy due to the sweet aroma being also quite strong. Such an inviting sensation!

There is a wonderful silkiness to the mouthfeel which is brothy and thick.

The color of the steeped leaf is the palest hue of gold.

Backlogging a couple of cups of this as well! A real winner in my book! See other notes!

Dry leaf: Dark, toasty. Slight greenness like a tgy. Slight burnt smell. Very tightly rolled.

Wet Leaf: A lot of the toasty smells disappear and the aroma turns into a darker tgy smell

Taste: This tea is much like a tgy. It may be slightly darker and the flavor is stronger. There are also less floral notes. Overall a nice oolong, with stronger flavor than some other low fired greens.

This is wonderful. I am sort of in love with it which is a surprise because so far I had not really loved white teas.

The leaf itself is beautiful and slightly strange – so silvery, so long, the strangeness that is the blossom. It smells wonderfully, an essence of tea smell with notes which remind me of raisins and yes, vague flowers (I have no idea what peonies smell like!).

I could not control temperature too well, so keep in mind the desired 80C are probably just an approximation. But regarding the liquor, brewing this at the advised amount with bottled water, at close to the advised temperature, and at 2 minutes per steep:

1st steep – very pale, very light golden with no hints of red (yet). Surprisingly full of body and tastes fruity and slightly floral at the same time, a taste which reminds me a bit of grapes – tiny grapes with a lot of skin but sweet table grapes just the same (comparing anything to wine grapes would not be a compliment!).

weirdly I do not like at all the smell during the steep, it smells very grassy and almost minty, I worry if I am using too hot water. But it does not translate to the taste of the steep

2nd steep – no worries after all. A deeper color, and flavour much richer, with perhaps even more body. No bitterness or astringency. Absolutely wonderful.

3rd steep – ah, now it has decided to remind that yes indeed this is related to black tea. The color now really has reddish tones. Just as sweet if not even more, with even more body, and the taste has now moved fully to raisins. I try to decide if this or the 2nd steep is my favorite, I decide the 2nd probably but it is close.

Brewing the 4th steep I am wary, I think the leaves are probably gone.

4th steep – but no, still alive and kicking. Slightly less rich than the 3rd steep, but still great and full of body. Lovely. I am going to go for a 5th steep but decided to stop the review right here since Peony Tea S only advises 4 steeps, not fair to take it further and risk finding fault on it when it´s me taking it past its limits.

I received this tea from Peony Tea S a few months ago, when they were asking for volunteers to test their shipping services, thank you so very much for your generosity! They selected the teas and I took my time getting to them. This was a weird psychological thing: a mix of weather, me being slightly intimidated by the tea´s obvious quality and wanting to try them for the first time when I could give them their due attention. I left this for last because well, silly me, thinking I was not fond of white tea. I was wrong, of this I am very very fond indeed.

Ah, a note, as advised by Derek, I kept this (and the green tea) in the fridge, sealed and double sealed from the rest of the fridge. I think it is more than worth that small effort!

Beautiful emerald green, twisted leaves with a strong vegetal aroma. This tea is naturally very sweet, highly vegetal with hints of creaminess. There’s nothing spectacular about this tea, nothing fancy about this one. I find it is a good everyday green tea, especially if you like the strong vegetal notes.

Enjoying this tea thanks to LiberTEAS what an awesome oolong!
This is up there with my favorite Dong Ding from House of Cha’
I enjoyed this cup with a frozen Asian meal – made the frozen dinner A LOT more palatable lol.
Go DONG DING!

I had a cup of this and it was a nice straight-up Iron Goddess. Slightly floral – slightly vegetal. Very forgiving. Clean. A dandy one!

A couple months ago, the Peony Tea S. very kindly sent me three teas of theirs, in exchange for answering a few of their questions regarding shipping times and conditions. All teas arrived promptly and in excellent condition and were all of such obvious quality I have been reserving first sip of them for occasions I could give brewing this their due attention! And reviewing them is slightly intimidating as well, my vocabulary feels stretched.

A warning first: I think I used not enough tea on this first brew. I went by teaspoon count and should have gotten out the digital scales, I think going by what I have left I did not use the 2 grams per 100 ml recommended, I was too careful of not breaking the tea and spoons counted were not filled enough. So my judgement of this today is not optimal. But I am sure I will forget this advice if I don´t write it down so here goes, the first preliminary tasting. Don´t skimp on the recommended weight. I used my favorite mineral water, it´s light on minerals.

The dry tea is absolutely beautiful, long vivid green little pods of leaves curled upon other little leave buds. The scent is absolutely fantastic, a wonderful green tea (duh. duh. I said I was challenged by trying to review this) scent which reminded me of spring in some cliffs right by the Atlantic in Portugal (Arrábida mountains, if you really want to know) – a scent very clean and free, maybe with hints of thyme or this type of rosemary or cypress.

1st steep – brewed up, while the scent notes change a lot and the thyme-rosemary notes go away, I get a sea note. It was slightly astringent and slightly sweet and very lovely. It brewed up very pale gold. Ethereal, the adjective used by the seller´s description, is a totally perfect description of this. This was my favorite steep (is this a sign I screwed up the next steeps?

2st steep – this brewed up quite a bit richer. Color deeper, with a slightly green tinge, and at the same time more astringent and sweeter and the sea note even more pronounced. Theoretically it should have been superior in everything to the 1st steep, but I still loved the best the first steep without being quite able to explain why (I warned you writing these taste notes was challenging!). That is something I will try to analyze next time I make this tea.

3rd steep – By this time I had figured out I had used too little tea, so only half a cup. Very very pale, very very delicate, astringency seems to have gone and amazingly even sweeter.

Drinking tea this pure and fresh is a fascinating lesson, so much easier to understand the reaction of tea to time and temperature, to see clearly in the size and shape of leaves the tea bush annual cycle. It might also be addictive. A lovely tea.

Thanks to Derek at Peony Tea S. for a free sample of this tea during their shipping times test!

Although the instructions indicated 4g of tea for 100mL of water, I went with 5g of tea for ~200mL water (though I kind of regret it now, so will probably try the recommended infusion method later). I also left the tea in for twice the recommended infusion time, as after 45 seconds, I didn’t think the tea would have much flavour. And sipped it, and burnt my tongue :( Anyways…

The aroma from the tea is of a light sweet oolong, but I have to note that I also took a sniff of the wet leaves, and got this crazy sweet seaweed aroma! Absolutely delicious! Kind of like those sweet, seaweed-wrapped crunchy snacks. Delish. I wish the tea smelled/tasted like that, but I suspect it won’t.

Sure enough, the tea doesn’t taste quite like that, but there is an absolutely delicious, mouth-enveloping sweetness. I want to call it rock sugar, but it’s much more complex than that. It’s a familiar flavour; I assume I’ve tasted it before with other oolongs. It’s one I could sip for days, though (until it got to be too sweet). The sip finishes with a nice oolong aftertaste, which is absolutely divine. There’s a bit of a vegetal flavour interspersed in here, but it’s not prominent, as the sweetness really takes over. I suspect subsequent infusions to become more vegetal and less sweet, however.

This tea is definitely a winner! I think I was quite pleased with all the selections I was sent as part of this testing process, so hopefully I will have the funds to make a purchase from Peony Tea S. sometime in the near future!

ETA: Second infusion (2 min/90C) still smells rather sweet and delicious. The cup’s a bit stronger this time, perhaps a touch oversteeped (it’s a little metallic), but other than that, is still quite sweet and pleasant, and not as vegetal as I was expecting.

Oh! This tea is lovely! So very lovely!

The astringency is quite unlike any other I’ve experienced. It affects the mouthfeel in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever really experienced before. At the very start of the sip, I notice a silky softness, and almost immediately afterward, I start to notice the slight twinge of astringency touch the tongue, reaching out toward the inner cheeks and toward the back of the throat. As the astringency dissipates, I notice sweetness. A beautiful, delicious sweetness that is oh so delicate, reminiscent of the delicate taste of spun sugar.

While the aroma of the dry leaf is really quite vegetative, the flavor is not quite as vegetative as this aroma would lead one to believe. There are notes … subtle notes … there, sort of like sweet, buttered lima beans. Very mild.

A really incredible tea, One of the most memorable that I’ve tried from Peony Tea S. yet.

PS: Quite tasty when enjoyed with a Honeycrisp apple.

So I’m fairly certain that this was from kittena judging by the tasting notes. While this tea isn’t bad, it goes into my “oolong” bucket. That is to say, the type of tea I just don’t often care for. There’s nothing wrong with this tea but it carries that distinctive taste that says OOOoOoOoOoOooooOoolong! To me ;) which means that’s all that I can focus on. That being said this tea has a beautiful golden colour when steeped and there’s a taste behind the oolong that is quite nice. I’ll withhold rating it though as my dislike of oolongs would bring it down.
Appreciate the chance to taste it though :)

Short review : this is wonderful. Really really wonderful.

Long version and all about me:
I can´t quite believe I had this waiting for months till i tried it. But did. I am really a bad-weather tea lover. When it gets really really hot, it seems like I only really cold water will do for me. People have tried to educate me better about how refreshing tea can be when it´s hot. But it just does not work for me.

So all this to say that when PeonyTS very kindly offered some teas to test mail services, I did jump at the opportunity (testing receiving tea! I can do that!) but the poor teas languished waiting for a couple months (no fear, sealed, and the white and green are in the fridge). But finally the weather has turned autumnal enough, I really missed brewing carefully a cup and having it.

The tea itself is just wonderful. Seller describes it has having a hint of dates, which is not exactly what came to my mind. But it´s a wonderfully rich, complex taste. And so smooth, such a generous tea. I really loved it. I think I might have skimped on tea for the water I used and might have gone past the 90 seconds because i got distrated, but it still produced something sublime. I am now very curious about what the next steeps will produce.

Ah, about the details, the packaging is foil hermetically sealed ziploc, packaged just right in order to not crush. The tea itself looks wonderful, long long leaves. A really great tea.

I was unable to log this one yesterday…not sure why…but Ricky fixed it for me!!!! Thanks Ricky

I drank this yesterday but jotted down some tasting notes to backlog it today!

It reminds me of MEAD and Flowers! The Mead being thick and like raw honey (with no sugar added and not commericalized or produced or processed!)It’s Brothy and “Filling”.

I found this one really fantastic!

No notes yet.

Today is apparently the day of the Golden Teas. Well, at least this one and the last one that I had … but it wasn’t really intentional. I just grabbed tea from my seemingly endless supply of samples that I have yet to taste and this is what I came up with.

And I’m glad that I did, because this is awesome. It’s a bit different from a typical ‘green’ Oolong in that it has more focus to it … the floral tones are sharper. This is not a soft, delicate Oolong, the flavors here are well defined and really pleasant. Honey-esque tones bring sweetness to the cup. It is remarkably smooth from start to finish, and the astringency works together with the floral notes to provide a sort of tangy, tingly sensation at the finish. The aftertaste is sweet and flowery.

A very nice Oolong, I like it when I get a nice surprise like this from an Oolong!

Can’t believe I have not logged this before. It is light, refreshing and very delicate. There is a hint of almonds in the flavour and a sweetness in the aftertaste that I did not notice while drinking the tea.

This was a free sample sent as part of the test posting by Peony Teas. Thank you, Peony Tea.

I opened this by mistake, would you believe! It was early and I was still half asleep. I had intended picking up Peony’s Fengqing but this jumped into my hands and I am pleased it did.

Little nuggets of gold and green in my teapot. The liquor is golden and the aroma is orchids and honeysuckle. Tasting it, it is creamy with a light honeysuckle flavour. I used to love sucking the nectar out of honeysuckle as a kid. This tea is perfect for a Sunday morning as it revives me gently with its delicate sweetness. Now to get on with my work.

Thanks to Kittenna for the sample! a dark roasty oolong, just the way I like it. I get a very slight bitter edge to it as well, but so barely noticeable that I almost missed it. There is natural sweetness there to, as is expected with a darker oolong. Coffee. Yes this def reminds me of coffee. I think it is partially the aroma. Mmmm. I love the depth in this!
Rating: 85