Jesse Örö

I’m at work, gulping down a glassful of this tea.

Pleasant. Malty. Slight fruitiness present, could be more. Thinnish.
This works fairly well brewn in a glass grandpa style.
Colour is beautiful golden brown, as it should be. Leaves are shorter than I would have expected from Dian Hong-

This isn’t very interesting. Not particularly intense, not complex, no notable qi, npt strikingly harmonious.
This is a good, pleasant, casual Dian Hong.

Another sample from TeaVivre.

Leaves are whole, long as they should be. These aren’t handcrafted premium Taiping Houkui leaves, but quantity-produced, decent looking stuff. Colour varies from fresh grass to darker seaweed, stored properly.

Dry leaves smell like dry grass, I get a surprisingly strong association of Japanese green teas. Something oceanic here.

Taste of the first brew is surprisingly thick, somewhat slimy, or swampy. Not unpleasent, but not something I’d expect from a green tea. I guess it’s because this isn’t exatly fresh anymore. My water was also cooler than necessary.

Second brew, with warmer water, brings more natural results. Fresher, this time I associate vegetality with jungle, rainforest maybe. Still far from fresh orchid garden I expect from TPHK, this is going that direction.

Third brew doesn’t bring anything new out.

Overall, I’m slightly disappointed with this tea. I wasn’t able to get out much more than “usual” green tastes, this isn’t very strong example of Taiping Houkui. Although leaves look fairly well preserved, I’d say this tasted much better nine months ago.

No notes yet.

TeaVivre sent me some samples of their greens from last year.
When I received the package, I was quite impressed with labels. They have marked down production dates and manufacturers! Bag also had some storage and brewing instructions, and it was nice to note that wulongs, greens, white and blacks had distinctive shelf lives. Aluminium bags with TeaVivre’s labels contained smaller, sealed bags used by manufacturers.

This is fairly cheap, and judging be the leaves pricing seems fair. These aren’t strictly Mao Feng, bud and leaf. There are some lower leaves, some leaves have a bit of oxidation, some twigs etc. Leaves are generally whole. Leaves are fairly long, making production date (5/20/2011) seem realistic.

There seems to be two major tastes whirling around here. Weird, little ill-balanced round, almost milky taste, which changes into a light vegetality. I didn’t like the initial milky taste, and the vegetality should have been little stronger to balance that out, methinks. Aftertaste is fairly pleasant, round and soft, if slighly uninteresting.

Overall, I think this is fairly priced, quite decent tea. I have had a couple of casual glasses of this, and those I enjoyed a lot. Now that I sit down and drink this properly with focus, tea feels lacking in many ways. Then again, which green from 2011 isn’t now? This isn’t top tea, but TeaVivre isn’t asking a price of such from this. I would be happy to recommend this for a casual drinking, and I have very positive image of TeaVivre now.

Spring 2012 is here!

I’m having quite a bad flu, but I couldn’t resist trying out the first green of the season to hit the western market.

I like this, after a winter of wulongs it suprises me how strong can fresh green be. This is fairly vegetal, interesting sweetness. Reminds me of fresh peas, and overall tastes pretty much like the Xufu Longya from last harvest.
Well, this is about as far as I can go with my flu, tastebuds aren’t at their prime.

I found some of this tea in my cupboard. I remember ordering a small package of this tea at summer, appareantly I’ve tasted it once before. I feel bad of drinking this now, as this isn’t clearly anymore at its prime.

Taste is interesting. Slightly nutty, with strong oily taste and texture, with some burnt notes. Has definantly been an interesting tea, now tasting slightly weird, little off. Leaves do look ok, although not as nice as one would expect of Shifeng Mingqian… Hard to say as I don’t remember taste of this fresh, now I tend to think that this isn’t probably what its claiming to be. Nevertheless, tastes good, longjingish and looks beautiful in a glass.

No notes yet.

I just had a session with this tea.
My overall feeling is that this is nice tea, tastes like something I’d expect to pu’er from ‘90s to taste. Smooth, thick, slightly woody. Old tree deep inside of a dense forest, standing on it’s own in the middle of a forest opening.
Taste is quite simple, little too smooth for my taste. Presence of this tea is quite heavy, slightly disturbing in a way. Like that huge tree is blocking the sun, or something like that.
I’m currently looking for an affordable pu’er with at least a couple of decades of age, and this is one I am considering. I also have a sample of EoT Grand Yellow Label, waiting to be tested.
If you happen to have any suggestions of oldish sheng cakes that are around the same price category with this one, please hint me!

This is absolutely one of the best teas this spring. Seems like TeaSpring’s “Cha Wang” -teas are actually really good.

Tea is rich with umami, it has a strong nutty/roasted feeling very similar to Japanese teas. Something, however gives this away as Chinese tea. I think it is the sweet aftertaste, it’s kind of non-japanese. But really, could honestly mistake Luan Guapian for sencha.

Strong, surprising, Japanese-like while staying Chinese. This I like. I can honestly recommend. It’s quite expensive, although I would consider this worth the money.

No notes yet.

I was getting some cheap glass teapots from Yunnan Sourcing, and I couldn’t resist taking a couple of pu’er cakes as well, especially with the expensive shipping of them. I don’t now a lot about young pu’ers, and I chose to get three vintages of 8582. I have sampled a couple of older 8582’s, and I liked them, and these young cakes where cheap. So I bought this one made 2008, another from 2009 and a third being made 2010. A vintage comparison! Although Steepster doesn’t (yet?) support comparative notes, I’m gonna give some thoughts on the comparison on this single note.

FIrst, they all were clearly the same tea. The taste was about the same, difference was more on how the taste behaved.
‘10 first attacked me with a taste I believe most describe in English as astringent bitterness, but the initial nastiness made room for a liquiricelike sweetness quite common with young cakes. Although first shocking, the initial taste moved aroung quite smoothly, it’s roughness was quite round if one can say like that. Aftertaste was pleasant. I’d say potential, but I won’t probably be drinking this for a couple of years.

‘09 was most interesting one. First I thought this was slighlty more tamed version of ’10, but at some points it gave some weird tastes. It didn’t behave consistently. At some brews this was definantly the weakest one, but sometimes it really shined. I really don’t know why.

‘08 was my overall favourite. It’s taste was most harmonious, balanced. There was quite a bit of roughness, but this tea wasn’t as bipolar as the ‘10 and ’09. If these three cakes really form a valid timeline of aging, I’d say this is my vasual pu’er in a couple of years.

Now the interesting thing is, are the differences in taste due their ages, or are they resulting from different harvests? Their age differences are relatively large, the ‘08 being three times as old as the one from ’10. On the other hand, they are only a year from each other. That will probably clear out in a couple of years, as their relative age difference lessens. I’m excited in onberving the aging of these three.

This tea teached me how to enjoy young shengs. I cannot describe this really much, as I have always before shunned away from this young stuff. This is good, sweet, spicy, thick. I’ve even been able to enjoy bitterness in this tea!

I got this from Gingko’s blog sale.

My first thought when sipping this tea was “My god, this is the best tea I’ve tasted this spring!” After finishing the first cup, the rest of the tea in my chahai had turned undrinkable. So, kinda hard start.

Leaves are beautiful, wet and dry. I’ve been missing those tight, sharp needles! Aroma is dry, sweet. Leaves are dancing nicely in the pot ( I use small, gongfu-style glasspots)

Taste is complex, yet remarkably balanced. Sweetness, some sourness as well. Usually when tea tastes sour it tastes sour in a way I don’t like it, but this time it works for me. There is also the dry nut-like taste, which is tied to the sourness. Taste is quite wide. I am assuming I used too much leaves (I felt like using more than I usually do) and while that resulted in a great first sip, the taste quickly transformed, and got more bitterness.

I am not very experienced in yellow teas. There is something very similar in the body of this tea and Huo Shan Huang Ya I have, I’m assuming that’s the “yellow” taste. Tasting blind I would have assumed this was green.

If I’m going to casually drink some tea, I usually walk to my shelf, reach out for something else, and then quite often in the end I pick up this tea.

First I thought that this tea is a mere curiosity, it tasted so weird. It has light, spring-like sweetness, but also there is a weird taste which I am unable to name. I’ve found variations of that taste on Mengding Ganlu, and Amazing Green Tea’s Huang Shan Maofeng, but not this “weird”.

A sign of the quality of this tea is its ability to withstand temperature, I’ve been brewing this with water ranging from 70°C to boiled water, without a note of over-brewing. Also I have been steeping this for 5 minutes, waiting for leaves to sink. That works well, as well as five-second “washes” with hot water.

This is the cheapest Sheng-pu’er I’ve seen anywhere. Tuocha itself had a stingy, sweet aroma remindin me of mint. Leaves look quite good, pu’er looks like what it should be. Leaves are quite large, and for most part whole. It tastes like it smells, sweet, slightly stingy mint. Piece of tuocha broke up almost immediately when I added water, so I was quite careful with this tea. With a short steep this tea was quite enjoyable, a bit boring but much more than I was expecting for. I tried to steep a little longer, but bitterness scared me away quickly, I didn’t take more than three brewings. I should try to drink this again, and get over my disgust for bitterness, I feel there might be more in this cake than I initially thought.

I bought ten of these for a particular reason, I am planning to experiment with aging. I’m gonna hide one of these in a really humid cottage, one in somewhere dry, one in a normal shelf… Maybe I put one in a spiceshelf for a year.
Then, after 5-10 years I’ll have a pu’ertasting, and the effects of aging can be tested (?). Of course, this isn’t a high quality sheng, but I didn’t dare to sacrifice anything good for this.

No notes yet.

Ahhhh, now this is fresh quality green tea.
I won’t be writing a long note now, I got a packet of teas from AGT today, and I drank them all today without concentrating really much in the analysis.

Vegetal, grassy, sweet, complex. Taste is quite archetypical chinese green, in a really good way. This will probably be my “default” green tea this spring, the one I’ll be drinking regularly.

Qi is especially strong, even for a quality green. Or maybe I just haven’t drank anything this fresh and good for a long time.

I haven’t really enjoyed darjeelings for the last couple of years. I have always participated in First Flush -tastings whenever possible, I felt that DJs are supposed to be tasted every spring. It was my duty, but not a particular pleasure.

I haven’t tasted anything from Teesta Valley specifically, so I am comparing this to my general memories of Darjeeling FF2010.

Dry leaves were especially green, I recall last year’s leaves were darker. This is also reflected in taste, this tea was really light. Taste sort of flows through me, it is hard to get hold of anything but a sweet, somewhat floral aftertaste. I find this taste seducing, teasing, but pleasant. Maybe this year I enjoy Darjeelings!
Aftertaste hit pretty quickly, and it is sort of honeylike, floral berrythingy.
There aren’t any elements I commonly associate with black teas, and that I like. It may be my light brewing, I used few leaves in a low temperature. I tried later with more leaves and hotter water, and I think the tea lost its balance with higher temperature.
Overall a really nice tea to have.

No notes yet.

Spring 2011 harvest!

Gentle, sweet, harmonious, vegetal. Had a nice tingly mouthfeel. Tea brings forth associations of rivers and streams of water in a rainforest. Moving, restless water.

Different parameters gave varying results, this tea can be good in many ways. I think that temperature should be under 80° C but the steeping time can vary. I first drank it with small amount of leaves, steeping time ~1minute, and the result was smooth, interesting, quite clearly green tea. I noticed an interesting tate, which reminds me of Korean green teas, and I tried to emphasise it with larger amount of leaves. On the edge of being oversteeped, this tea was quite interesting, strong in mouthfeel and less vegetal.

Nice, calm, balanced. Not especially old, but this one has quite mature Qi.

The taste is soft, round and harmonious, first steeps had sweet aftertaste which diminished in later brewings.

I brew this in 1,5dl glass pot, and around second brewing I started to get slightly dizzy. Qi isn’t aggressive, the tea is past its youth. In a way this tea is right now at a very boring age, it isn’t young and arroganta and interesting, but it hasn’t yet reached the deep wisdom and calmness of elder pu’ers.

One of the best wulongs I’ve drank this season.
Really harmonious, quite different from other Tie Guan Yins I’ve drank recently. Usually I find Tie Guan Yin quite imbalanced tea for my taste, the characteristic floral aroma is usually too strong and aggressive for my taste. This TGY is really well balanced, the aftertaste isn’t too heavy, floral-aroma is sitting peacefully in the background.
Jadepisara says the Gaude village is one of the most famous TGY producers, and I understand why. Too bad there isn’t a lot of this tea anymore.

I have mixed feelings about this tea. First steep had a nice, soothing, smooth taste. Presence was calm. Tea was really mild in taste. THe second brew, however, started to have more taste, and the taste it gave reminds me of Darjeeling teas. I don’t want my white pu’er taste like Indian black. Tea leaves get darker with every brew, and taste as well. Interesting phenomenon, although not very pleasant, I think.

First steep was nice, if only I could get that taste with later brews…
Lower temperature gives a dry, really unpleasant mouthfeel.

I seem to be reviewing only teas from Théhuone these days. I don’t bother ordering tea from foreign shops this part of the year, so I turn to a local shop.

Their wintercrop-TGY was really good last year, and quite good this year too. The floral aroma isn’t as aggressive as it can be, and I like that. Sweetness is quite interesting, too.
I think this is quite good tea, not spectacular but good. Great tea for waiting the spring.