1113 Tasting Notes
I got a sample of this with my recent Mandala order. Thanks Garret!
Man, this is super good smooth shu. I have been drinking on it all day :) Basically, this embodies everything I like about shu!
I sort of wish I had ordered some of this instead of the Bu Lang Gong Ting now!
Afternoon pick me up! I’m almost out of this one…only a couple of tsps left! I really enjoyed this flavor though and think I would pick it up again. Not at all artificial tasting. Rich pie-like flavor! Today’s hot latte included 3/4 tsp matcha and 3/4 tsp white sugar whisked in 8oz warm milk. GOOD STUFF. Plotting a matcha order as soon as I have enough money :)
Flavors: Berries
Preparation
How did the sugar work out? Matchaccino like?
It was just perfect for me. Just as much flavor as matchaccino but only about half the sweetness! I think about 2 tsp of sugar would be equivalent to the matchaccino sweetness level :)
Excellent! It sounds tasty. I think the less sugar version actually sounds great.
Sample sipdown! This one must have been hiding in my desk at work for a LONG time!
I had a bunch of leftover Indian food for lunch and now I’ve got curry breath! Ack! I’m leaving work early to get my tattoo touched up so I need something minty and refreshing to fix me up. This is perfect! Super GREEN tasting between the mint and the gunpowder tea :)
Sample sipdown! I believe Dr. Dinosara sent me this one ages ago. I hoarded it because it was so tasty! All gone now though :)
I love how juicy and natural the pineapple flavor is…pairs really well with the bright green tangy oolong!
Man, I don’t know if I did something wrong with this tea, or if it is really THAT different tasting than the Wild Monk cake I’ve got at home… I brewed it up and treated it just like I would my cake, and I’m getting hardly any smoke or sweetness or delicous shengy tang. Mostly I’m getting a weird bitterness…I’m on steep #2 and I’m going to keep going for a couple more steeps and see what kind of flavors I can pull from it. Any suggestions are welcome!
Preparation
Hmm, I think the issue might be since the leaves are LOOSE it is steeping up a lot QUICKER than I’m used to! I think I’ll be able to tweak this one and figure it out at some point…
Stephanie, when I got it in the note Garrett wrote to treat it like green, so my temp was like 175 and very short steeps like 5 and 10 sec . No bitterness detected
Yeah, I’m used to having to steep the cake up quite a bit to get it loose enough to brew…I think I just WAY oversteeped this.
Hello, everyone!! So good to see you here!! This crop of wild monk mao cha is now autumn 2013. The wild monk cake is spring 2012. That explains some of the differences as the newest mao cha will be less oxidized than the 2012 pu’er which has undergone more oxidation and “fermentation”. We do have a lot of customers brewing up the mao cha at temps less than boiling (175 or so) and enjoy it very much that way. In China, mao cha is typically brewed with boiling water, bringing out alot of the tongue watering sort of effects and stronger flavors. The first time I tasted it like that, I was blown away and wasn’t sure if I liked mao cha brewed like that. Now, I really like it. But still, I brew this up as a green tea at times, as well.
Have fun with it. The Wild Monk has a been a great tea for us. The autumn 2013 tea was just pressed into 100gram cakes, too!! It’ll be a while before we see it, though.
I’m definitely going to have to pick up another 2012 cake before they’re gone :) I just tried steeping these leaves a 3rd time and they’re spent, so I guess I did way over do it on those first 2 steeps. I’ll adjust next time and see if I can get some different flavors out of it!
Thank you Starfevre for this sample sachet! I really appreciate it :D
WOW this is a really good black tea! Super malty and rich. I totally dig the farmer direct/ fair trade model, too. Looking at the prices on their website, this is a very affordable tea, as well! So basically it is a win/win/win!!
Yum!
Apparently it loves me back! http://twitpic.com/dw9gye
It totally loves you back! So happy you are enjoying this one. I love love love this one, too. The Bulang shan stuff is great, but it is one small grade of leaf, begging for much shorter initial infusions. The Noble Mark is a blend of 4 leaves. I cracked up when I heard someone recently refer to this as a “gentleman shou”. That is fitting. Thanks for taking time to write about it, my friend! Tea ya!