white2tea

Gongfu Sipdown (2340)!

Enjoyed this session in the park this afternoon paired with a sweet, tangy and tropical passionfruit!! Though it took a while for this compressed black to open up, it made for a rich and full-bodied session with liquor that was almost syrupy in its mouthfeel. I think that because of the wrapper art I always expect this tea to be brighter and more fruity than it actually is, but instead it’s almost like a dark and slightly spiced cherry brandy. Sort of oak-y black cherry with an anise-like sweetness and strong undertones of cinnamon. Weirdly cozy for this bright summer day, but still kind of worked out well.

The passionfruit seems to pull forward the cherry notes from the tea, and amplifies the sweetness. Passionfruit is so boldly tropical that it’s not necessarily the easiest or best pairing, but it was fun to play around with and use it to inject a little more brightness to this sipdown!!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CwdZsuoOvXw/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gU2x8Li0oQ

Sipdown (1709)!

I brewed this Grandpa Style, and it made for a really dense and full bodied mug to sip on throughout the morning with an almost eclectic mix of tasting notes such as black cherry, rye bread, bitter chocolate, sandalwood, and leather – all with a brighter, sweet fruity top note though! Hard to pin down that top note flavour; in the past I’ve gotten peaches from this tea but with this brew method it just tasted far more abstract. This tea sample was inclusion in a relatively recent order, and though I do have a most of a cake left of this hongcha to sip through, I can’t argue that dragonballs are just super convenient…

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CfgzJIXOdB2/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuU3jXhgrfA

Grandpa Style!

Nursed this brew most of the afternoon. It even had a lucky little tea seed pressed into it!! Though I’m finding it slightly more biting and bitter in its top notes than expected, the liquor is thick and syrupy with an ultra pleasant floral sweetness to round out each sip!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CuP3apduvu2/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yiv-tEoLrA

Gongfu!

I went into this tea session with a completely blank slate of expectations, and was pleasantly surprised by just how soft and smooth the liquor of this tea was! It did get thicker and more rich as the session progressed, but for much of the steeps this sheng maintained a delicate floral sweetness. At times it reminded me loosely of elderflower or lilac simple syrup, but lacking any semblance of being close to cloying! Quite lovely all the way until it brewed out many, many steeps into the session!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CfJxOOju35d/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ZuQsCNlRU

Gongfu!

This is such an incredibly thick and syrupy black tea with really pungent and almost fermented tasting notes of waxy red fruits, with a slightly bitter undertone that has both woodier elements and notes of dark chocolate. It’s the sort of dark chocolate that gets so bitter that it kind of starts to be sweet again, with almost wine-like bright berry notes after the initial taste. It’s honestly very interesting, and between the stand out mouthfeel and really saturated flavours I’m having a great time steeping this one out over the afternoon!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce9LI7oujrL/

Song Pairing: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce9LI7oujrL/

Gongfu!

Starts off abrasively but in a pleasantly biting way, with an underlying sugar pea sweetness and slowing building peach heavy stonefruit note in the finish! This sheng has made its way into my heart so quickly, to the point where I simply can’t picture my tea stash without out!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkRNljeOFS1/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZywlOOJS_T0

Gongfu!

This was the second tea I steeped for us over our dinner party. If the Nadeshiko was the overall crowd favourite, I think this would have handily been the runner up. It’s an incredibly unique tea and from that first steep it just felt like perfect late summer evening backyard tea. Thick early smokiness but with such a clean finish and an almost sweet green floral character to the body. Kind of like lilacs. It reminded me of something I used to do as a small child at the end of the evening when camping. We would pour water over the fire to douse it, and I was dance through the smoke filled steam that would fill the air for the next few minutes. It was the freshest, cleanest smelling smoke you can imagine.

Gongfu!

Enjoyed this morning session alongside some sweet, tropical starfruit! This sheng made a really great first impression, but I don’t think I’ve revisited it in over a year now – maybe because all that is left of my sample is the beeng hole, which is definitely a bit frustrating to brew. However, after those first stubborn steeps of fighting to get this tea to open up, I had a great session today! Smooth and medium bodied with a mouth-coating honeycomb sweetness and a crisp finish of sweet yet vegetal fennel bulb! I can see why I remembered it so fondly from past brewing experiences.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C3EEbSqu469/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcXW7QUfMTU

Gongfu!

This raw pu’erh starts off with a quiet presence and subtle sweet vegetal notes. It eventually settles into something more substantial where the delicate, fresh notes of bean sprouts, snow peas, and edamame finish much more snappy. That striking crispness to the finish, combined with a fine balance between soft astringency and velvet-like creaminess (in taste and body), leaves a much more lasting impression than the early infusions. The difference is that the first steeps felt unfinished in their delicate nature, while the late session gives a more purposefully restrained feeling…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CwtCs3eO2Hi/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4CMtcoELOI

Gongfu!

This is from my recent Spring Pu’erh haul! It’s the first tea sample from this order that I’ve steeped up because I simply couldn’t resist the description of heavy honey sweetness appealed to me so greatly! It’s actually a pretty great description for this tea though! The texture of the steeps is so soft and gentle, but the taste really does have a kind of sticky honey sweetness that lingers after each swallow! More of a deep, golden honey with some subtler floral undertones. Excited to see how this sheng progresses with some time!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CerPbvcu89K/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S_8C8mYEkQ

Gongfu!

I’m definitely guilty of underestimating how much the leaves of this heicha would expand once I started brewing, and of subsequently really overloading my gaiwan. Despite a few intense first steeps, I managed to course correct with much shorter steep times and land on something really enjoyable! Definitely smoky top notes of tobacco and brown rice, with more of a sweet and grassy mid sip accompanied by a pleasant, round feeling but slightly astringent body. The finish was my favourite aspect, as it was the most sweet tasting with a distinctly fruity and lingering flavour that I would liken to somewhere between a fresh, ripe apple and a more soft and muted baked apple!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrBhs7NgRmq/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axo5KqCMIAk

Gongfu!

Enjoyed a late morning session of this very peculiar heicha. The dry leaf aroma was both really appealing and really off putting to me for different reasons; the distinct almost sweet hickory smoke aromas made my mouth water while the very sharp green notes of oceanic seaweed made me grimace. I very much felt pulled in two different directions. Thankfully, once steeped, there’s a bit more harmony to this tea session than that dry leaf would have led me to expect! I stacked my infusions about three at a time in this pitcher, and what I found was that the distinct and delicious smokiness was very much as I had smelled, while it was met with more of a grassy green undertone and some more unique notes of slightly under ripe banana or plantain. It’s a bit of a flavour trip, and one that by the end of the session I wasn’t sure I was ready to be done with!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cegl3rxumqS/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-rhzpiWiAg

Gongfu!

This Saturday afternoon I’m steeping up a session of the aptly named 2020 “Saturday Mass” chenpi blended shou pu’erh!! This is a dark, heavy and medicinal ripe pu’erh with a lot of those aromatic, bitter and pleasantly oily and coating citrus notes up front. Like, just a massive punch of deep, dense orange. It does subside a fair bit after the first three or four steeps; and as that pivot happens the more velvety and brothy notes of the shou itself make themselves more known. A mix of wet potting soil, heavy cooking cream, and an unctuous umami flavour that hangs in the back of the throat along with the traces of pithy, medicinal chenpi!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqyYcTPubyD/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEi9Hgm_Q_w

Grandpa Style!

(Continuing my chenpi streak…)

Compared with yesterday’s session of Dripd O’Bitters, the thick and oily liquor of this tea is a lot more sweet and aromatic but it still has much of the same dark earthy body and slightly bitter medicinal orange rind notes that are both so soothing and coating on the throat! This one is definitely easy to slurp back, and brews on and on throughout the day!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CePBgEZOFvX/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GKoQmYRQvI

Grandpa Style!

This is W2T’s fifth anniversary cake. Back in 2017 I was just dipping my toes into the world of pu’erh tea so this was something I absolutely passed over, as it was very intimidating to me at the time. It’s hard to imagine exactly what kind of impression this pu’erh would have had on me back then, but experiencing it now there’s something just absolutely brilliant about it! It makes me excited for five years from now – not just to see what this tea will be like, but to also see how much will have changed in my own tea journey!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdl0nToubzH/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q91pLJg5mRs&ab_channel=BlocParty

Grabbed this very old sample from the final “Here’s Hoping Teabox” which occured right around the time I joined Steepster (thanks to all participants that added tea and tea-sipper for organizing!) Finally drinking this for my “one gong fu session a month” goal.

80ml (shiboridashi) | 4.15g | 205F | Rinse/10s/15s/20s/25s/30s/35s/40s/45s/50s

I gave the tea a pretty long rinse while I was getting all the gong fu stuff ready. The leaf had a very sharp and somewhat bitter wet hay aroma afterwards, which presented in the rinse liquid. My first infusion is more mellow, though (which I prefer) so maybe a long rinse is to my benefit. There is a bit of that grassy/hay quality in the aroma, but it is very floral, and lacking the sharpness. It tastes like a pollen-heavy floral nectar, chased by a little grassy/hay note, and just a hint of bitter melon. The second infusion smells delightfully floral with a bit of a fruity undertone, and a new gold raisin flavor is presenting in the flavor, with an apricot/nectarine sort of stonefruit aftertaste. A green tea sort of beany/smoky note lingers on my tongue, as well. Went through nine infusions before the liter of water I’d heated was out so I wrapped up there, but I think it could’ve given even more.

Gongfu!

To be honest, this isn’t my favourite of W2T’s heicha offerings but there is something about the mix of roasted peanut and almost “waxy” chocolate notes that makes me think of the Glosette’s peanuts that I dreaded getting while trick or treating as a kid. As an adult, I enjoy them much more and so this session feels almost, sort of, vagueelllyyy Halloween adjacent. Of course greener top notes of tobacco and a slightly scotch-like mossy finish shatter that metaphor quite quickly. Suffice to say, it’s working for me in this particular mood and moment in time!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cy9A40tOxLP/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S7Mh4zY50k

Gongfu!

Enjoying a tea session of this tea at the park this afternoon! There’s something about this heicha that really brings Glossette’s Chocolate Covered Peanuts to mind for me. It’s just sort of the exact right combination of raw peanut flavour with that borderline waxy milk chocolate note, though this tea also has a hint of tobacco or peat-y smokiness as well any made just a smidge of sweet grass. I never liked Glossette’s as a kid, but despite that there’s still something pleasant and kind of nostalgic about experiencing those flavours in this tea!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CdTv8RyOdgd/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAS_VJgYfBs&ab_channel=Petey-Topic

Gongfu!

I’ve been on a strong white tea kick this week, so I’m continuing down that path with a tea session of 2018 Arbor White. In general I much prefer the black tea version of this material, but today the sweet and syrupy liquor and brighter and more fruity nectarine/apricot and honey leaning tasting notes were more in line with my cravings. Along with that sort of “fruit nectar” like quality, this is also a white tea with that trademark straw/hay flavour as well – almost in equal parts to the sweet fruitiness, at least with today’s session. It’s really nice, but truthfully probably my least favourite of all the white tea sessions I’ve steeped up this week…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CdOdHujO77M/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP8S8u_cXBo&ab_channel=RadioFantasy

4g, 175mL(?) KamJove. Yeah it’s low ratio. Can’t handle too much young sheng, but still can’t help but indulge once in a while. Quick boiling rinse, w Brita tap. Sometimes boiling, sometimes not. Not focused today. Maocha is from Paul’s mystery box. This still tastes mostly young. Standard basic young sheng notes: dried apricot and peachiness, some mintiness. Some dried apple like notes. Not particularly bitter, quite sweet. Decent mouthfeel. Some warming initially, but very cold after.

Would like to do a normal ratio session run, but it might be a while before I get around to it since it’s not entirely in the sort of comfortable to drink age yet.

Gongfu!

Started my morning with a tea session of Natty Red – complete with bonus tea seed pressed into this chunk of the hong cha cake! Smooth and medium bodied with an abundance of sweet jammy red fruit notes, and a malty woody overtone! A bit of a shorter session but still a lovely way to kick off the week!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CdEGxAvOo65/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Hu3pTjXKE&ab_channel=EarlSt.Clair-Topic

Brewed up grandpa style. It’s slick and syrupy with a fruity and floral profile backed by just a hint of a greener edge. The aroma is fresh elderflowers and very Spring-like. Brewed grandpa style, this tea does pick up some astringency but it only further leans into the citrusy grapefruit notes that make up much of the mid-sip.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4be1J7OyZK/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qUZ1GJdmok

Grandpa style… ish!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc-9DYiueFp/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M02UGmRYQ_4&ab_channel=Durry

Grandpa style!

It’s been a long day, but finishing it off with Judy at golden hour certainly is a nice way to cap it off! This is such a beautifully sweet yet gentle tea! Focusing on just enjoying the taste in the moment, though I definitely want to write better tasting notes that do it justice at a later date.

My friend Justin Other on IG actually wrote a song all about this tea and how much he loves it (you can find it in Spotify) and, as I was drinking this cup, all I could think was “Ok, Justin… I see you and I get it!”

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cclx5SnuqIn/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSnIACaT-RI&ab_channel=ANTI-Records