white2tea

Gongfu!

Steeping up a pretty casual session with one of these minis! This is my first time trying this black tea and it’s pretty close to W2T’s site description; super sweet and syrupy, especially in the front half each steep in the earlier portion of the session. I find the deep garnet coloured liquor it produces so mesmerizing. Perhaps it’s subconsciously creating some suggestion bias, but it feels super apt for the coating, bright notes of sweet grenadine that I get in the fleeting top notes of most infusions before the profile settles into more of the spun sugar, chocolate, and malt flavours that better define the session. The aftertaste is particularly intriguing as it’s the least sweet part of the tea. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what the tasting note is, but it’s unlike anything else in the session.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CnXnIGguhV6/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F39ts57OcRo

This first one to be tried from my recent white2tea order.

Sadly, I’m not a huge fan of this. That’s not to say it’s not good tea, obviously it is. But it has fairly strong floral overtones, which just isn’t my jam. There are plenty of other nice flavors, tart stonefruit and winey notes, malty and savory grains, deep cocoa, and a touch of smoke even.

But the floral is a bit too strong for me to enjoy the cup. So this bag will be going into my rehoming pile, so it can makes its way to someone who will love it. :)

This is my first official White2tea puerh! (that I’m trying on my own/not from a swap). I really love puerh and it’s not something I get to have often so for a little treat I got myself some a few weeks ago and I had to try this one as soon as I opened the box. It’s creamy, hazelnutty, and smooth with just a touch of vanilla. I’m thinking I may need to order more than 25 grams next time, perhaps 50? Even if I love a tea I don’t think I’ll get full cakes of any of them because I don’t get the time to relax with puerh as much as I’d like and I don’t want it to just sit around.

Grandpa Style!

Brewed this up this afternoon while navigating the onslaught of Black Friday emails. This black tea is dark and sweet with plenty of warm, caramelized notes of baked sweet potatoes or yams. It’s also saturated with dense notes of buckwheat honey and and a golden marshmallow and burnt suger finish. It’s got strong Sweet Potato Casserole vibes which is pretty fitting, even though Canadian Thanksgiving was back in October.

Admittedly, I haven’t gotten through the metaphorical minefield of sales totally unscathed – but at least the damage is less than I’ve spent in previous years, and I have this delicious black tea to drink to cushion the blow…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0AN_CIukjr/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGycPDV_n5A

Gongfu!

This was my first gongfu session to kick start this new year!! Not a super conscious decision; I just knew I wanted to begin the year with something new. It’s a pretty aromatic tea with super syrupy liquor. The first note that jumps out is a nice, pleasantly funky dark golden honey note – almost pungent in its sweetness! It’s complimented with lots of rich starchy goodness, a slight taste of floral musk, and a intriguing note of brandied plums that weaves like a ribbon across the top notes, mid sip, and undertones over the coarse of the session. Definitely excited to see how this ages, but right now I feel like this is really solid bang for my buck – shockingly nuanced and really flavourful!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm4wR7uOimX/

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

I think we’re due for another drop in temperature this week but I’m starting the new year with Spring Peach anyway. I think this is the last one I need to taste from last February’s yancha box. Between the first box getting lost in the mail and not drinking much tea over the summer, it’s taken me a while to get to it. As with the others, I’ve saved enough for a more structured session with the teeny gaiwan later.

Glass gongfu bottle thingie, didn’t weigh the tea leaves, filling the water side of the bottle about halfway (100-ish ml, I think?). Dry leaves just smell roasty to me. Wet leaves after the first steep have an unappealing burnt grassy smell when hot but start to smell more fruity as they cool…peach? Apricot? Pineapple? Brewed tea is more fruity when hot and the roast flavors come out more as it cools. This really makes me want some peach pie. Slightly too much water or too little time on the second steep, tastes a bit weak. Still getting the peachy flavors as a sort of aftertaste as I exhale after a sip, though. Curious if I would have picked out peach if it wasn’t in the name or if the suggestion really pushes me that direction. Can’t decide if I think it’s more fresh peach or baked/grilled/canned/something-ed peach…almost seems to alternate between but it’s been ages since I last had a peach or peach baked goods. The problem with drinking tea in the evening, especially on holidays, is that all my local bakeries are closed and I can’t make an “emergency” pie/donut/croissant run when the tea makes me crave something. I think I need some peach pie and a peach cobbler fritter to see which would go better with the tea. Third steep is stronger but seems rather astringent compared to the previous two. Perhaps not quite enough water this time? You wouldn’t think filling a bottle to the same level each time would be so difficult. Aftertaste is still sweet and syrupy, like I just took a drink of fruit juice. If the next steeps are dramatically different, I’ll come back and edit my note. Not sure it’s very productive for me to sit here daydreaming about pie and donuts while I try to think of more things to say about the tea.

Random pick from the goodies from Valhallow. A bit giddy and overwhelmed with tea. Makes me happy like Scrooge when he woke up ready to become a better version of himself. Ah, but they didn’t have fancy tea like this in his part of the town. It was around but not where he was. This seems like a typical dancong. Has the usual qualities but I wouldn’t say it’s a superior version. Good aroma with minerality and wet stone and a mix of different rocks which also translates into the flavor. The mouthfeel smooths out with each infusion.

OH boy oh boy oh boy. I opened this last week in the midst of my sinus infection and was wondering why this smoked lapsang was so delicate on the smoke. Wow, do I appreciate my sense of smell more than ever. This is a wonderful lapsang. This is an incredibly smooth mouthfeel. The smoke flavor is perfect too. Strong enough to compete with the earthy tones of the base tea but not so strong that it’s overpowering. Woodsy notes. Bark. Deep woods. Campfire. Fire in an old house (not old house on fire). Leaves quite an everlasting impression in your mouth.

Gongfu!

This was a morning session paired with some bright, tangy maracuya – aka Passionfruit!! Love the balance of sweet, whispy smoke notes with heicha itself, which has notes of sweetgrass, dandelion greens, brown rice, and hot summer hay. I was back home in the prairies recently and spent an afternoon driving through rural Saskatchewan. We passed many different fields in the process of being combined. Though not at all smoky, the smell of the air as we drove by was quite similar to the notes of this tea. Very nostalgic.

I didn’t actually like the maracuya all that much. It paired fine overall, but the fruit itself had a bit of that “body odor stink” that tropicals fruits sometimes have. I ate about half of it, and then decided to just abandon it and enjoy the tea on its own.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw51GmWuDbe/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1j7oyoXjpA

Gongfu!

It’s been exciting watching everyone’s different tea orders from W2T’s most recent smoky tea drop come in, and it’s leaving me practically frothing at the mouth waiting for my own haul to come in. Thankfully, I have so many other smoked teas to keep my tied over like this heicha brick!!

Steeping this tea up today I can’t help but think of late July bonfires. In addition to prominent notes of sweet smoke; there’s a fresh, green and still slightly funky (in a good way) quality to this tea that makes me think of dandelion greens and other prolific Summer weeds. It’s that sweet and slightly sour chlorophyllic kind of aroma that permeated summer break for me. Sun blazing and sweat beading on the small of your back as you tire yourself out playing with kids staying at the nearby campsites whom you met less than 24 hours ago and became fast friends with. It’s the light of the stars slowly dotting the increasingly pitch black sky as the campfire crackles and plumes of fresh smoke mask the smell of someone’s older brother getting high in the bush behind the camper. Well, ALMOST masks it. It’s peak nostalgia for much more simple times…

So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that tea order comes in pretty soon, and it brings in more of this kind of tea with it!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqQ2jm1Oxlz/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5FnjEXYCw

Gongfu!

I’m sticking with very bold tasting teas as I wait for my my palate to snap back. Though I’m always down for a smoked tea, this one is particularly interesting because it has a lot of greener and more chlorophyllic notes. Things like dandelions greens and crunchy autumn leaves, but mixed with peat and tobacco. Oddly, I got a bit of a sultana fruity sweetness today, as well. It’s bringing me some comfort today as I continue to rest, hoping to get back to a more normal routine!

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

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

Advent Tea! Wow this is nicely smooth and floral. Not a whole lot of smoke here, but I’ll try to steep it a few more times. A nice change of pace from clove and ginger and chocolate. The second steep was still floral, but quite a bit weaker. Maybe I’m expecting too much from this delicate brew, but I wish it steeped longer. Thanks for sending it Lexie!

I’ve been so bad about writing tea notes! I’ve been drinking tea before bed and thinking I’ll do notes the next day and never getting around to it.

Citramalt Black was included in my Black Friday weekend order as a freebie. I couldn’t find it on White2Tea’s site to check their notes about it. I dumped several quick gongfu-ish steeps into a thermos and meant to sip it last night while working on projects but it was so cold that I just buried myself in my blanket nest and went to sleep instead. Luckily, the tea was still the perfect temperature when I came back to it today. From the name I guess I was expecting a lot of citrus type flavors. I mostly get dried cranberry or tart cherry, maybe a little bit of prune. I like it. Not as strong of a lemony acidic feeling in the mouth or stomach as I’d feared. I usually love citrus so I’m not sure why I was worried about this tea. It has a bit of a drying, astringent feeling in the mouth but nothing extreme, and I may have overbrewed it a little. The brewed tea is lighter colored than I was expecting (yeah, I know, color is a terrible indicator of “done-ness”) and like a lazy person I didn’t measure the amount of tea I used (three good pinches looked about right). I checked the first steep at about 20 seconds and it looked awfully pale (<3 glass teaware) so I let it go another 10 seconds or so to see if that helped (trying to count without getting distracted, because that’s soooooo much less effort than setting a timer). Even with haphazard brewing its tasty. It would probably be good with a snack of dried fruit or good homemade fruitcake (not that weird store bought stuff that looks a little too much like it’s made of Play-doh and plastic fruit and never seems to go moldy even after years of hiding in the back of your cupboard).

Teas that never got notes:
White2Tea Tiltshift 2021 mini (was supposed to be the new 2022 one, didn’t notice I was sent the wrong ones until I was unwrapping one…their customer service has been great about taking care of the mishap)
White2Tea Judy mini
White2Tea Ban Tian Yao oolong
White2Tea 2022 Green Hype
White2Tea 2016 Fortune Teller maocha (yum!)
White2Tea 2016 Mengku dragon ball
2019 Zu Xiang Wu Liang Moonlight White (drank LOTS of this)

Teaware Casualties:
Small glass pitcher/cha hai – got clunked in the sink while rinsing

Working my way through some old samples I never got around to drinking. This one had some interesting aromas after the wash, I was getting warm brown bread, the kind you bake with raisins and molasses. Brewed up a nice dark brown just short of black. The flavors in the aroma don’t really bear out in the cup, most of what I’m getting steep after steep is just, well basic shou flavor is the only way I can describe it. Just a clean basic shou with moderate body. It’s perfectly fine, but there’s nothing really interesting going on here.

Brewing up some old samples that I had never gotten to. This one surprised me, in a good way. The “lumber” here is less pure wood or wood smoke flavor, and more like a forest on a rainy autumn day. Reminds me of a cabin in the woods. Earthy with plenty of petrichor, a bit of mushroom broth, a hint of camphor and just a trace of wood smoke like someone’s campfire smoldering out somewhere down the trail. Thick and hearty with no astringency when pushed. A comfy tea. Would buy again.

Drinking up some of my old samples I never got around to. On the nose there’s some camphor, wet rock, and a little wood. Despite brewing up a very dark reddish black, I wouldn’t call it thick or heavy bodied. There’s a bit of a bitterness/astringency there that becomes more pronounced than I’d like when I try to push the shou to get a richer brew out of it. Early steeps are camphor, wood and a little bit of that wet rock/basement, getting more medicinal until only the bitterness remains.

Overall, I found this slightly disappointing, I wanted something creamier than this offered. Probably wouldn’t buy again.

Gongfu!

After an unfortunately rough homecoming to Montreal, I’m honestly just trying to find a little peace and comfort back in my usual tea space and the combination of good tea and sitting down with fresh teaware, my plants, tea pets, and all of my silly little bits and bobbles after two weeks away is helping achieve that. This tea is so thick with the creamiest mouthfeel and taste. On one hand, it has an almost “Thai Milk Tea” like malt and nuttiness, and on the other, it’s umami and earthy. Those slightly more savory, brothy earth elements feel a bit like taking the first sip of a really good soup and having the fog lift after an endless feeling cloud of sickness. Unfortunately, that’s a feeling I know a little too well right now. The last two weeks have been rough in more than a few different ways.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CvvQjvau2_i/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eWvpql4QfA

Gongfu!

Now that this tea has had a chance to start to rest, I’ve been dying to crack into the cake and steep it up! The first thing I noticed was how unbelievably soft and smooth the texture if the liquor was – one of the mostly silky and velvety pu’erhs that I’ve tasted in quite some time. Several times while sipping the phrase “earth butter” popped into my head; it feels so fitting for this pleasantly earthy and highly creamy shou that has a real “melt in your mouth” quality. I fully understand W2T’s description of this tea as the ripe pu’erh version of steamed milk – it’s almost painfully spot on. What a beautiful way to start off the weekend!

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

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7L4HRJs4lI

Gongfu!

Enjoying today’s session of 2021 Yesheng Gushu Hongcha from W2T paired with some sweet, perfectly ripe red plums (don’t let the peach print on the teacup fool you). As with most of the Saturday’s in recent memory, it’s been so grey and rainy all day today. Not much natural lighting to go around. I was kind of hoping to spend the afternoon out at the park; I want to make the most out of enjoying tea outdoors before it gets really cold here in Montreal. I think that’s why I gravitated towards this particular tea pairing today. I just needed something a little sweet to make the most of the afternoon…

This tea does deliver on sweet, and in a big way. It’s one of the more syrupy and rich black tea cakes that I have from W2T with just an explosion of thick, jammy fruit flavours. Over ripe, waxy red fruits and lush, coating stonefruit jams and compotes, and juicy purple berries. The kind that fall apart as soon as you pop them in your mouth. With the red plums I’ve been snacking on all afternoon, it’s just a session that doubles down hard on the often overlooked indulgent side of fruit. Of course there are other tasting notes present to appreciate. Dark honeys, red wine with just a bit of a fermented sort of funk to it, and, at times, the pleasant bitterness of really good dark chocolate. But it’s that pungently sweet “redness” of it all that I needed today. It hits so good.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyrOCQ0uhZp/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7JjS_Cy-vo

Gongfu!

So, like past years, I haven’t only been drinking advent teas. Admittedly it’s been harder to sneak in other teas this year, but every now and then I just need to brew something up that’s not on the docket for the day – like this tea!

I think the biggest thing I’ve been craving this year is just more black tea. There have been a fair amount in my five different advents, but it’s honestly felt like there have been so many more green teas and oolong than normal. So, gotta supplement that! This black tea has got a rich and syrupy liquor with a pungently sweet floral aroma and heavy notes of fermenting red fruits, roses, and bitter baker’s cocoa. Really unique and punchy!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Clq9J1Euqf3/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3YZkWFFWyg

I received my first order from White2tea and I am really looking forward to trying all the teas. I tried 2018 Hot Brandy first. It is the first time I tried a pressed cake with a combination of Black and White teas. I really like it. It has a unique flavor. I can taste more of the flavors when it cools down. I am glad that I can taste the white tea and the black tea does not overpower it. Like floral flavor. It would be interesting to try this tea cold brewed.

The name is so repulsive and hilarious. Nothing like the tea tastes. It’s fantastic. I am giddy with excitement while it steeps. The aroma coming off the leaves in the water is strong in mineral and buttered popcorn notes. The flavor is packed with minerality. Wet rocks. Rocks wet with crushed summer flowers. If you steep it too long it becomes astringent. Not quite like an Assam but kind of puckering like an herbal steeped too long. The mouthfeel is soft. Mainly minerals but a bit of summer flower presence too.