Tao Tea Leaf

Waaaooow. So so tasty!! I’ve been craving a Chinese black tea for awhile and I guess this hit the mark.
Cocoa was really at the forefront here. It wasn’t grating at all, the way I found it last time.
I have maybe two more steeps of this left. Looks like I have a sipdown on the way!!
If only I hadn’t been given a few tea samples for my cupboard today to replace it ;P

This was just what I wanted. I love hitting that craving with a tea! It’s such an awkward feeling for me to be wanting a tea that I haven’t got at the moment… and trying to settle for something else.
Anyhow, I think I’ll hold this at 85. It was good, quite… but I do believe that there is a better smoother version of it out there, for all that people rave about it.
Funny, when I looked in the bag this morning there was less there than I remember leaving. It makes me wonder if my colleague at work sampled it, and forgot to mention to me… I’d be thrilled if that were the case! I could use a de-cupboarding and now I’m just a little closer to it! :)
Oh and the second steep was good as well. I think the trick is to use less leaf.

almost forgot this one! lowering the rating because that other “chocolate note” tea was so much better and I found this one wore on me after some time. The second steep was more of the same.
If anyone would like to try this please let me know! I prefer darker, maltier teas and this one just isn’t any of those, though I do recognize it’s quality!

Ah I finally found a true “chocolate” note in tea!!! well, in a pure tea without any adds that is. I was getting a bit sad that it hadn’t happened yet… but there is a definite chocolate essence here. It’s a little sweet and malty all at once—no sugar added. Of course, I tried some with milk and it only enhanced the creamy chocolate note. There is also a very fresh tasting note, that I think comes from the early flush.
The colour is a gorgeous red amber. Shame I was at work, I could have stared at that cup for an hour (take from that what you will…)
And it held up under two steeps! I wasn’t up for a third but I am sure it would have done well there to.
Overall, it is not my perfect tea. It’s missing something but I’m not quite sure what! Maybe the depth isn’t enough??
Oh well, I still love it! definitely a mood tea though

The dry tuo cha smells of a smooth, cooked pu-er, but after rinsing this mini tuo in my gaiwan, the aromas of rice start to come out. Using just-boiled water, I prepare the first steeping. Light, golden-brown, the liquor is a bit cloudy and mingles a faint hint of rice with tea. The taste of this first steeping is not a flavourful as the aroma would suggest.

The second steeping gives off a darker brown infusion. This time it is hard to distinguish whether the tea is just very smooth or whether it lacks a lot of flavour. I suspect this is on account of the intense rice flavour, which seems to camouflage a lot of the pu-er nuances. Hopefully the rice flavours will give way soon and let the tea itself shine through.

Finally, with this third steeping, I am getting more of the flavour of the shou pu on which this tea is built. It is good, though perhaps not as amazing as I had hoped. I go ahead and put this tea through a couple more infusions. It is good, but I am left with the impression that it is lacking something. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would give it a 75/100.

I just love the little mini-cakes that pu-er occasionally comes in. They’re just cute. An adorable little pellet of yumminess.

This is a lovely, lovely tea. The creamy rice flavor blends with the warm masculinity of the pu-er to make a dark blend that is rich with complexity and vigor yet smooth and tasty. Along with the rice flavor, it has the typical leathery, woody and earthy notes of a pu-er, but blended together smoothly. Others found citrus flavors, but I’m not tasting those. And, like many pu-ers, it’s great for multiple re-steeps. I’m on steep three currently… or is it four… of my current set of leaves. And the sweet and creamy rice flavor lasts and lasts. Other literature notes people getting up to 9 steeps. I would not be surprised to get rice notes to the end.

This is really great pu-er. I recommend it to anyone.

From http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2370/tea-review-tao-tea-leaf-rice-shou-pu-erh/ – go read more reviews!!!

Yum. Working on a review for It’s All About the Leaf for this tea – it’s really nice. :)

Just wanted to note that this tea grew a lot on me and in fact makes me want to try more sheng pu-erhs. It took me some time to come to terms with the world of difference between sheng and shou pue-erhs.

I love the bitterness it brings, it’s definitely very unique to me in terms of taste, it’s different from shou bitterness as well as oolong or blacks bitterness.

I steeped the tuo cha in the thermos today and was pleasantly surprised to find lots of citrus flavor on the second steep. It compares well with Darjeeling grapefruit flavor but beats it due to aforementioned particular bitterness. Maybe it was due to higher overall steeping temperature due to metal sides, but I never got that flavor from gaiwan or glass pot from this tea.

My first sheng pu-erh and I definitely was surprised when I first tried this one. Given I was steeping it as a usual pu-erh so it came out really bitter first time.

However, the little cake works perfectly for steeping in a pot and I appreciate the flavor now. It’s really astringent in a nice way and has a smoky flavor. It’s definitely not a classic pu-erh as I understand it so that just means I am more of a shou type of guy.

This tea tastes like some sort of herb elixir, something that would make you live forever or at the very least energize and boost you.

This is so sweet! So incredibly sweet! It’s a great sweet-green indeed! Smells like sweet grass but the taste isn’t grassy at all! YUM! I’ll say it again…YUM!

This is a Tie Guanyin that doesn’t lend itself well to a gaiwan prep, which is odd considering MOST oolongs do. At four infusions between thirty and fifty seconds, the palate profile was pretty much the same – pear-like, slightly cottony, and leafy. While I liked it, there wasn’t anything that stood out beyond the first infusion (which was the best). If one were to have this, it works best as a one-shot for four minutes in 190F; the “A-MURR-ican” way for oolong prep.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/02/09/review-tao-tea-leaf-supreme-anxi-iron-goddess/

Rose buds work quite well with blends, especially – as I’ve found – with white teas. Rose petal whites are awesome! But I digress. By themselves, rose buds are like lemongrass, they don’t work well alone. They need others to help ‘em shine. By themselves, they still contribute to a light, subtle, festively floral cup with a very “clean” taste, but they need a pedestal on which to stand. Such was the case here. These were absolutely beautiful looking; excellent smelling, too, both as dry and in liquor form. Can’t wait to try it with a Silver Needle sometime.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/01/16/review-tao-tea-leaf-rose-buds/

I was never a very big Keemun fan. It took a few Hao Yas and a couple of Mao Fengs to convince me otherwise. Since then, I’ve come to extol virtues whenever they are present. This one, however, was an unusual beast altogether. Given the name, I decided to adopt a “ghetto gongfu” method of prep. I did four different infusions – ranging from a minute to three minutes – and each had a decidedly different story to tell. The first couple o’ steeps turned up a golden liquor with a smoky, malt-sweet, mildly cocoa-ish cup. Latter steeps changed to a nuttier, woodier cup with a beguiling boldness.

I confess I am now a Keemun fan.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/01/18/review-tao-tea-leaf-keemun-gongfu-2/

This is the second Golden Monkey I’ve ever tried. I think – as a result – I might be going through a Chinese “red tea” phase. Or rather, gold tea. Golden Yunnans and Golden Monkey have overtaken all other black teas in my mind; save for Darjeelings. This Golden Monkey is no exception – sweet, nectary, mildly muscatel, light, yet revitalizing. And the best part? REALLY quick to brew. This could almost give Yunnan Golden Needles a run for their money. Almost.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/01/06/review-tao-tea-leaf-golden-monkey-2/

New company to me, and a new type of shou pu-erh. By the title, I assumed it was made with rice, but the product had no listing on the website as of yet. That is, unless it went by a different name, and I simply didn’t see it. (I wrote the vendor to clarify.)

That said, it was perhaps the best shou pu-erh I’ve tried to date. After four infusions, I detected nutty, woody, earthy, citrus, and rice-like notes. Very nuanced for a robust drink. It also darkens pretty quickly for the steeper on the go. For a guy that usually goes for sheng first, this was a game-changer.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/01/08/review-tao-tea-leaf-rice-pu-er-tuo-cha-shou/