Tao Tea Leaf

Sipdown tea #5! Thanks goes to yappychappy!
This pu erh is a little bit different from what I was expecting. It has more of a sweeter, fruity note to it. There is a bit of a smokey note to it, too. It almost reminds me of the fruity pu erh from The Tea Grotto. I liked it but it’s not my favorite.

No notes yet.

Oh buttered sweet vegetables how good you are. Okay this is by no means my favorite oolong but it was very nice. As I now know Baozhong/Pouchong is between oolong and green tea and the taste of the tea definitely reflects that. Resteeped well. Taste on the light side.
Met the owner at the Toronto Tea Festival and he and his employees were amazing. Their stand was definitely the best there and they had ~10 teas set up.

No notes yet.

A new favorite. Lovely fragrance and taste.

No notes yet.

I thought this tea showed all the flavors one wants from a well-made white tea. I was sorry when the sample Tao sent me was steeped out. I will order this from them if it shows up online.

Wow. Queen Catherine? I am sorry but you have been struck off my shopping list.
This tea will do just fine as an alternative! It’s just the right amount of bold and malty, with a teeny pinch of smokiness.
I’m not sure of which specific teas are in here, but I can pick out some yunnan, pu-erh, and probably lapsang. A masterful combo!!
There was also a hint of that abrasiveness I find in some Asian black teas but I don’t care! I drank this bare, sans sugar or dairy, though it would do exceptionally well as my morning breakfast tea as well.
When (yes… I said WHEN!) my cupboard is manageable again, this is going on my must have at all times list.
Thank you Tao for the cup!! I really appreciate it!

Heaven. Heaven in a cup, seriously. I need to get more of this, if there is any left.
It’s different today, fresher tasting, but then I think the shorter steep time made a difference. (two min)
This is one of those teas, like that thread mentioned, that is going to haunt me til I get more. I could mainline this stuff.
Edit: forgot about the second steep! first one is A+, and the second one… D+!
It’s… milky and has a soft mushroom taste. I once loved mushrooms but seem to have lost my taste for them. So… I am lowering the rating. Will see what a third steep brings :)
Edit again: third steep is a bit better. I added 1/4tsp sugar and it’s now a sweet cloudy tasting (clear liquid!) tea. The essence of mushrooms is hanging in the background though it is overshadowed by the sweet breadiness I’ve come to love in pu-erhs. Also, I am loving this much more when cooled. Bumping rating back up, slightly.
Fourth Steep: Sweet and clay like. Some bread notes, but mostly clay. Or was this the fifth steep? I lost track!

No notes yet.

An incredibly fragrant tea, I feel like I’m sitting in front of camp fire or smelling the scent of wafting marijuana. Great mouth feel as well. I love this tea and my husband loves it even more.

Hrm. Not exactly the pu-er I was looking for(been trying to get tea high for the longest time now, though I did enjoy it very much.
I think my fave steep was the first one, out of the four.
Rich and smooth, reminded me very much of coffee. It had a deep hay scent to it, and tasted the way I’d imagine earth to be… only I’m sure it doesn’t taste “good” at all. It just that when I think of soil, a certain flavour profile pops into my head, even though I know it must be horribly inaccurate. Of course, the flavour was only a top level type, and never really reached down to that happy place. Besides that, it was slightly bready, and mildly sweet.
Anyhow, not very descriptive but there you have my first steep.
In the second through fourth steeps, it became progressively less earthy/sweet and more savoury like. Brothy, and salty I’d say. A touch too salty to be honest.
Next time I’ll add some sugar and see if that brightens it up a bit!

Pu-er congee!! yes, that is what this reminds me of. Congee is an Asian (Chinese? Vietnamese?) porridge often consumed when one is sick or needs comforting. I usually get it with chicken and preserved egg. Yummy. So it seems natural that pu-erh, a digestive aid, should be combined with Congee!
For those who haven’t had congee before, picture cream of wheat with a ricey sortof taste.
The background is rather mild for a pu-er, I suppose the tea blender (Tao) chose that in case it overwhelmed the rice flavour.
By the time I got to my sixth steep though, I was still getting rice flavour, along with a mild sweet breadiness without the usual heft. Odd, tasting rice and bread at the same time.
Oh and the scent! a coworker of mine remarked that is smells like chicken soup. Funny, given that I likened it in my head to the Asian alternative version! ha!
Also, it must be a pu-er thing… I didn’t get hungry til more than an hour after I normally do. This happens to me every time make a cooked pu-er. Appetite control perhaps? I usually eat at 10:30am, so this could be useful for those days I need to save myself for lunch out with the girls! :P
and now I am sad that this was only a sample. One tuocha in the packet! and since I don’t own a pu-er pick I just plunked the whole thing down and went for shorter infusions. What a waste… I think it could have gone atleast three or four more times. Oh well!
Rating: 87

Yes please!! wow. It’s been a loooong time since I liked a Sheng. Uncooked is usually too light for me. I prefer the heavy stuff!
But this… was so good! The first infusion was amazing, with so many notes to it I know I’ll miss some.
First off, it was very sweet, and bready. but not like any bread I can name. Something about it was familiar, I just cannot pinpoint how!! agh, drives me nuts. I’ve been trying to figure it out all day. It had a certain depth to it as well, that I really enjoyed.
My fave part though, was the menthol. Oh yes, it was very refreshing and yet mild. Highly enjoyable.
Tao tells me that this is a limited edition, aged since 2007 so I feel very lucky to have tried it. Esp since I almost put it back when I saw that it was uncooked!
Thank you Tao for sharing your favourite tea!!
Anyhow, I must try the last of this in a Gawain. It deserves a Gawain. Seriously folks.
Rating: 96

On a side note, I’m still grinning from my tea date with fellow Steepsters yesterday… but I’m also a little freaked out by the motorcycle accident that happened right in front of us. Spun out swerving to avoid a turning car maybe fifteen feet from us and bounced on the pavement like a rag doll. The rider was ok, he got up and walked around, nothing broken and only a scraped knee. Still, my heart was on overdrive for almost an hr after. See, 20+ years ago, my cousin, passed away because of just such an accident and ever since, those machines have given me the creeps. Even now, I can’t shake the feeling that it could have been SO much worse. The motorcyclist had excellent reflexes and did just what he was supposed to do based on what friends who drive have told me… and yet here I am imagining all sorts of terrible scenarios. and today… I am missing my cousin.
Sorry for the essay. I just had to get that off my chest. Anyone who drives, please be careful!!

Ok so I like matcha. I love flavoured matcha… and this was great!! just not my preferred flavour. I could tell that it was a quality brew, as it was oh so smooth and fresh tasting. Not at all fishy or rough like the DT version I bought a few weeks ago (not picking on DT, it’s just the last one I had so the comparison is easy to make) Just, a little to sencha-like for me. I had a hard time finishing the last of it. *shrugs
Rating: 82

Milk, some honey… golden assam tea… this was very good! it wasn’t however, what I expected. The fruity aspect was something I’ve never experienced in a black tea. A floral sort of fruity. Cherry perhaps? that’s all I can really pinpoint at the moment. Would have to try it again to really “get it”.
Not sure I’d actually buy any for myself though.
Rating: 88

When I pulled this out, I thought it was going to be an oolong. I mean, “Bai Chai” just sounds like an oolong-y sorta name. Surprised me that I was looking at a needle-thin green tea. I should read more.

Anyway…the liquor was clear and the taste alternated between grass and grape. Very close to Long Jing, methought.

My cat woke me up (for a second time) this morning, earlier than I was planning to get up. I wear an insulin pump with tubing that runs to an infusion set on my abdomen, a continuous glucose monitor sensor on my upper arm, and a medical alert bracelet for type 1 diabetes. These medical accoutrements have become targeted by him. This otherwise pretty sedentary 20-pound lug gnaws enthusiastically and mercilessly at one or all of them when he doesn’t feel he’s been fed quite recently enough. I preferred his chewing on hair phase, to be honest. Anyway, at a certain point it ruins the indulgence that was meant to be “sleeping in”.

So, I thought I would make the most of it and get up and enjoy the morning. I had my gaiwan and setup already out ready to go, so I went for the heap of Tao Tea Leaf samples I still have from a couple months ago, thinking any of them would be a sure thing.

Unfortunately, I’m having an odd experience with this one. I botched the first two infusions by not realizing I only had the Zojirushi set to 175. The leaves had a slight roasted, woody scent, and the liquor came out rich and orange-brown, but I wasn’t getting much from it. Only a slight mineral taste. I heated some water to 195 separately, for the next three infusions, but had only a slight improvement. It was a little more smokey-tasting, but still very underwhelming. Is it me? Is it the tea? Is it my water? I don’t know!

This was the sample I took home from Saturday’s tasting. Now I regret not saving it for a gaiwan experience. Or maybe a true gongfu, as I think it really is meant to be brewed that way.
This time, I think I used too much leaf and not enough water. The first few steeps were intense!! strong and bold! So much that I had a hard time distinguishing notes. But… I did find a heavy sortof malty cocoa, it reminded me of wheat in some ways as well. In later steeps (I made it to 5!) the cocoa started to emerge more, and balance itself out with the malty wheat part.
Overall, I quite enjoyed it. I was a little surprised at how different I found it from their version of Golden Monkey!

This was my favourite out of all the teas I sampled today, and sadly also the first. WOW!! I wanted to take some home with me… but it was absurdly expensive and so I settled for something else instead. Until I drink down the rest of my teas there really is no justification in spending that much money on one tea.
Anyhow, the tea…
Tao brought out two varieties. One of them fresh, and the other from a 100 yr old bush, and then the leaves were aged. It was similar in flavour, if not a little more robust and less smooth.
The taste was sweet and deep, not laying on top or in the middle. I mean, the sweetness seemed to permeate the entire sip but not in an overwhelming way, but more balanced… it was a light tea after all. The sweetness lingered afterwards as well.
Such soft downy leaves! and that aspect seemed to translate into the tea somehow. It tasted soft, and round as well.
Second infusion was the best, a little sweeter and rounder and just oh so soooo very tasty.
Now I’m wondering if I should have just put it on my credit card… sighs

The last bit of this goodness

Going strong with the second pot of the morning.

Drinking the good stuff this morning

This is the other black tea I purchased recently from TTL.

Onto the tasting notes;

First steep: Goes down very smooth, slightly nutty, smoky, malty, bit of cinnamon, velvety liquor texture.

Second steep: More bite, still otherwise smooth and flavourful.

Third steep: Much the same, not too strong or weak. Pleasant and relaxing tea.

This tastes like it has a lot in common with Qimen black tea, and is even made in the same province. However it’s much gentler on my taste buds than typical Qimen tea. Which is generally why I don’t like Qimen, it has a distinct taste that I find somewhat off-putting. But I don’t have that problem with Mei Zang at all. I can’t recommend this tea to anyone that wants an out of this world experience, but it’s worth checking out if you like “Qimen types”.

100ml of water in a purion teapot, 2 tsp, 3 steeps (rinse, 45s, 1m, 1m15s)