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This tea is a blind purchase from a new FL order of some puerh cakes. For the price ($0.07/g), this tea is quite complex and enjoyable! I wonder how the tea would have tasted fresh as well, given its now almost two-year age.

Mild bitterness and sweetness with no astringency. Longevity is 6-7 infusions. Mouthfeel and hou yun are leathery.

This tea is made by a man named Li Chao Yuan, who owns a small tea factory on this mountain.

Harvest: Autumn 2021.
Location: Yingpan Shan (20 km SE of Puer City).

Dry leaf: Dried apricot:
Wet leaf: Malt.
Flavor: Apricot, floral, bitter, sweet, leather, honey.

I’m just back from a two week vacation in Europe and man, did I miss tea! First new tea I’ve tried on my return and the third from Eco-cha. This one is objectively great, but quite floral for my tastes. Much cleaner, crisper, and more complex than the Alishan I tried from TeaVivre.

Mouthfeel is full and creamy. Longevity is 8-10 infusions. No bitterness or sweetness. Would probably be hard to overbrew this. Drop brewed and the parameters were fine.

Harvest: Winter 2022? Can’t remember.
Location: Ruili Village, Meishan Township, Chiayi County (1200 m elevation).

Dry Leaf: Floral, vegetal.
Wet leaf: Same.
Flavors: Floral, butter, cream.

This is what yancha strives to be, IMO. Best roasted oolong I’ve tried. A perfect tea for fall/winter.

Medium sweetness with no bitterness or astringency. Mouthfeel is toasty and smoky. Nice hui gan. Longevity is ~8 infusions.

Another great tea from Eco-cha! They are super impressive so far. Their price-to-quality ratio seems pretty insane too! Will be buying more of this come fall/winter.

Harvest: Winter 2022
Origin: Yonglong Village, Lu Gu Township, Nantou County (elevation 700 m).
Cultivar: Qing Xin
Roast: Heavy but tastes medium?

Dry Leaf: Malt, wheat, bread, dark chocolate.
Wet Leaf: Same
Flavor: Toast, dark chocolate, hazelnut, coffee, smoke, sweet.

IM IN LOVE! This is perfection. One of the most complex teas I’ve tried. Flavors are plentiful and they pop into existence as the tea sits in your mouth. That said, the most predominant flavors to my tongue are papaya and cream. Even with so much complexity and flavor, there is NOTHING harsh about this tea. No bitterness or excessive flavor. Mild astringency develops starting at infusion 3. Yields ~10 infusions.

Drop brewed this beauty and I think the parameters were fine. Could potentially push the heat more in the middle infusions, but hard to believe this could get better :).

Mouthfeel is creamy and thick. Hui gan is strong and lasts many minutes. Hou yun is full and like rolling an “r.” Headiest oolong I’ve tried, and a cha qi that I enjoy. Relaxing, day-dreamy qi. Medium-high sweetness.

My first Shan Lin Xi (translates as Pine Forest Stream) and I’m thoroughly impressed. This batch comes from the Fanzaitan area specifically. I can’t claim to get any floral or pine notes as others have mentioned.

Do my eyes deceive me? Is this tea really so cheap? I’ll be buying this by the barrel. Thank you, Eco-cha, and I SO look forward to trying the other samples from your shop.

Harvest: Winter 2022
Origin: Fanzaitan, Shan Lin Xi (elevation 1400 m).
Cultivar: Unspecified, but usually Qing Xin.

Dry Leaf: Dried apricot, dried pineapple.
Wet Leaf: Apple pie.
Flavors: Cream, cucumber, broccoli, sugar, sweet, pineapple, coconut, sugar, papaya.

Second of three shou samples from KTM and this is good stuff!

No bitterness, astringency. Maybe the slightest hint of sweetness, but not much to my palate. Wonderful clay-like mouthfeel and deep, earthy flavor. Flavor profile is a bit one-dimensional to me. Still quite the nice tea. Highlight is definitely the mouthfeel.

Will need another session to determine if it’s cake-worthy.

First of three shou samples from KTM. Pretty nice!

Thick, wet mouthfeel. Very fragrant dry and wet leaves for puerh. No bitterness or astringency. Medium fruity sweetness throughout. Impression is rain-soaked soil of a decaying forest floor. Brings me back to hikes on the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica.

Don’t think I like it enough to cake it at the price point, but it’s definitely nice and I might reconsider if I had more money and hadn’t just bought a bunch of cakes. Certainly not overpriced!

Last of the samples from PJ. This one is sold out in cake form. Definitely a nice tea I’m glad I got to try. Will enjoy drinking the rest of the sample for sure, but I probably wouldn’t have caked it even if there were any left.

Smooth drinker with no bitterness and medium-low astringency, but flavor is fairly weak and hard to decipher. My palate may have been having an off-day, though. Tea seemed to peter out after 8-9 infusions. Mouthfeel is at least very full, creamy, and intriguing. Don’t get any dulce de leche notes as PJ lists on his website, but certainly some cream flavors and hints of vanilla. Will certainly enjoy drinking the rest of the sample.

My experience with this PJ sampler was fun and certainly worth it. It has been interesting to try teas from a boutique factory. I plan to order more from him in the future.

Blind bought a cake of this shou because it was cheap and reviewed favorably by mrmopar. This tea has the darkest flavors of any I’ve tried for sure. Nothing fruity, nutty, or sweet. Just pure, dark, relatively intense richness.

Mouthfeel is thick and nice. No bitterness and trace astringency. 12+ infusions. No noticeable aftertaste.

A blind purchase well done! Glad I followed mrmopar’s opinion on this one :).

Also, if anyone would like to try any of the teas I’ve got, I’d be glad to swap some samples – just DM me!

7542, take 2. Different vendor, different year. From a fresh order of KTM samples, most of which are shou. Had I known how hyped the 2010 vintage is before making this order, I would have gotten a sample of that instead haha.

This one is hands-down better than the 2006 vintage. Not sure how much of the difference is due to storage parameters. Pleasant tea to drink, although I cannot discern much flavor no matter how hard I try. Mouthfeel is neither watery nor full. No bitterness with low astringency. 10+ infusions. Like its predecessor, this tea is also heady, with cha qi kicking in at infusion 7-8.

I find it hard to fathom that the 2010 vintage is superior enough to this tea to warrant caking it. Perhaps I’m wrong, however, and the vintage really does matter that much. Or maybe I just don’t enjoy the cha qi experience as much as others?

Surprised they have this one on Steepster haha. Blind bought a cake of this because it was so cheap (< $0.04/g!) and I wanted to try a different type of heicha than shou puerh. This tea is in bits – some of the smallest I’ve seen in loose leaf tea. Lots of bits of stems too.

I think this is a decent value for what it is. I was hoping for it to be tolerable at least, and that it is. Flavor is a bit sweet, but fairly simple. No astringency or bitterness. Mouthfeel is decent, but not as full or interesting as many shous I’ve tried. Flavor profile is very different from the shous I’ve tried. This one completely lacks any earthy/forest floor notes that are common in shou. Longevity is poor at 5-6ish infusions, but I didn’t try to push the times in the later infusions.

I can see myself sipping on this from time to time, as a break from shous. Will likely take me a long, long time to get through the brick haha.