White2Tea Moving Sale Results!!

Excelente’!

Yay! Great haul.

It only took a sip for me to get an idea about the “No idea – Shu” and know all I wanted to know about the “Sheng Puer … that’s all i know” – that they are stuff worthy of the garbage bin.

maybe they are in the awkward adolescent stage and will taste better in a few years? how can you tell when some flavors really comes out only after some steeps?

That’s a shame. All my freebies fell into the “good for daily drinking” category, and one was as good as some of the W2T teas I bought.

I agree with Dr. Jim on that. Some teas weren’t “wow,” but none of them were bad at all.

My order was for only $50, so it is quite likely that the worst of the freebies were sent with it, unlike your orders which I presume were for greater than $100. The initial steeps of both the shu & sheng were worse than the cheap regular drinking pu that I have. I did not bother to try them any more & dumped them.
I’ve no regrets about the main order, but the freebies were of no use to me.

I’m a total puer newbie, but from reading other people’s notes it seems that they often don’t feel the tea gets good until the 4th or 5th steep (after 1-2 rinses). So the notion of dumping a puer after the first steep seems odd to me.

Well Lindsay, I’m no expert on this myself (as evidenced by my purchase of the “Basics” pack), however I’m fairly confidant of being able to judge if a Shu is drinkable or not in the initial steeps & don’t expect that to change in later steeps. As it was an unknown cheap Shu, I gave it two relatively longer than usual rinses, but it was still yuck! I’m less confidant with Sheng, but as it was only 30gm, it didn’t hurt as much to throw it away as 100gm of Shu. Sorry to say that we will never know how the later steeps will taste as they are gone for good.

My freebie shou is pretty good.

I have had some bad shou – it’ll have a mud/grit texture despite filtering out of the gaiwan. The colour is muddy cloudy instead of clear. The taste is mega fermentation (though that could go away over time), fish, or strange like moldy cardboard. Maybe it needed some airing out.

http://deathbytea.blogspot.com/2015/05/taking-care-of-your-shous-puerh-airing.html

for any “bad” shous you may get in the future :)

There wasn’t any bad fermentation/mouldy/fishy kind of taste, and it had been aired for several days in perfect climate – it just had the taste of poor quality tea.

Psyck, that stinks (hehehe). If you didn’t have one though, the pick should be a valuable extra!

I find that the aged teas and shou from w2t benefit from several months of airing out the long term storage. Let us say I’ve learned my lesson from drinking teas as soon as I get them and finding my opinion is vastly different six months later.

After reading Cwyn’s comment, I went back to review my notes of one of the W2T freebies I’ve tried several times. I thought it would confirm what she said, but I found I actually liked it better initially than I do now. May be worse storage, or different reactions to a wet-aged style. Not a big swing: from 87 to 83.

@Dr Jim – I assume other people aren’t as fickle as myself, but I find I almost always enjoy a tea most on first taste. This is why I try teas multiple times before purchasing now. I can’t explain it, but I historically rate teas higher on first go and then later can’t understand myself.

I do that on a big order; I think I just get tired of the tea, or maybe just accustomed. But this was just 4 sessions over about 5 weeks.

It is now the 3rd puerh pick in my collection :-)

You got Sencha? what a crazy surprise :D

I know, right? :) I tried it today and somehow managed to go from a very mild first steep to a super bitter 2nd steep, lol. It got a bit better from there, but the flavour never really lived up to the amazing aroma of the leaves. I’m going to try it again with lower temperatures and see what happens. :)

some recommend using cold steep for the more expensive greens like gyokuro. maybe you can try that too :)

I do warm water brewing :) It produces a thick sweet almost espresso green tea soup. I love it! I use my kyusu and only higher quality green (fresh sencha, gyokuru, shincha). You might get better results that way.

Cold steeping overnight was a success! What temperature/duration/leaf:water ratio do you use for warm water brewing?

165 for sencha, personally. I use about 1 tsp leaf/6oz water for anywhere between 30-60 seconds. It all comes down to personal preference there.

My warm water brewing is less exact hahah. I use 5grams leaves in my kuyusu (roughly 8oz) I pour boiling water into my kyusu. I wait until the pot is hot to the touch on all sides. I then pour it out into my cups and cha hai. Then, I pour the leaves into the pot and allow them to warm up. Lastly I pour the now cooled water (212F to now 145/155F) back into the teapot. I wait about 30-45seconds. The water in the pot should be thick and colorful. This steeping process also makes for a lot more stronger aromas in the brewing session.

Mmmmm Bada.

right?! :)