Featured & Popular Tasting Notes

We’re getting dumped on with far too much snow to make me happy in March (to be fair, I’m not happy about tons of snow any other time of the year, either!) which make me want to reach for something robust or roasty… instead I’m checking off the “green tea” prompt from the sipdown list this month. (Perhaps I can vicariously live out a nice spring day that way?!)

My steeped cup smells a bit strong on the lemon than the berry, though I can make out some raspberry on the nose. To taste, mostly I’m getting a fresh, bright, pithy lemon note, which blends nicely with the base. The base looked a bit gunpowder heavy to me, which is not a green tea I favor much, but the ashy taste I get from it is completely gone under the smooth and bright citrus, leaving just a mellow earthy/vegetal backdrop. I’m not really getting the raspberry much, if at all… there is a fruity sweetness to the cup, and I do get a whisper of a berry note as an aftertaste from the swallow.

I would’ve liked the berry to pop more, but I’m always down for a strongly citrus green… even when the weather doesn’t want to cooperate with that choice.

This review is from drinking a cake sample. This puer is a fragrance bomb. It is bright, citrus, sweet, amber, grassy, vegetal at first, then a sweet mineral, pavement, buttery, vegetal finish.

I feel this be a good puer, in its current young state, for an oolong drinker. It’s got that fragrance that you just don’t get in many puer, but what oolongs tend to have.

In comparison to the same priced 2016 We Go High, Tuhao is more approachable as it is less bitter. It is totally for an oolong drinker and a great tea to try if you are new to shengs that are expensive or hate bitterness. You more pro, want epic tea drunk, and got that young sheng gut for bitter – We Go High is a better match for $149 cake.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2016-tuhao-fuck-sheng-puer-white2tea/

This was one of my sipdowns from around the first of the month that I just didn’t get around to reviewing here until now. Looking at the scores for this one left me a bit shocked. I was a little surprised to see this tea being scored so poorly because it was a more or less excellent Dong Ding oolong in my opinion.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of tea leaves in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 17 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of toasted rice, roasted barley, vanilla, and baked bread that were underscored by subtle scents of orchid and roasted nuts. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of cream, sugarcane, steamed milk, cinnamon, and magnolia as well as a stronger orchid fragrance. The first infusion brought out a clearly defined roasted peanut scent and aromas of honey and grass. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of toasted rice, roasted barley, cream, butter, vanilla, grass, baked bread, orchid, sugarcane, and roasted peanut that were chased by hints of bamboo, spinach, honey, and magnolia. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of spinach, banana leaf, butter, watercress, custard, roasted hazelnut, and golden raisin. Impressions of steamed milk came out in the mouth along with stronger and more immediately noticeable impressions of bamboo, spinach, magnolia, and honey and hints of cinnamon. I also detected notes of banana leaf, custard, cattail shoots, minerals, golden raisin, golden apple, seaweed, watercress, roasted hazelnut, longan, roasted hazelnut, orange zest, zucchini, macadamia, and pear. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, cream, steamed milk, toasted rice, butter, grass, roasted barley, and sugarcane that were balanced by a complex mix of watercress, zucchini, roasted peanut, spinach, seaweed, macadamia, cattail shoot, longan, golden raisin, banana leaf, and golden apple hints before stronger macadamia, spinach, seaweed, and cattail shoot flavors emerged on each swallow.

This was a complex oolong with a ton to offer. It produced an exceptionally aromatic and flavorful liquor with tremendous body and texture in the mouth. Nothing seemed wrong with this one to me. I am not sure what others found to be so lacking about it.

I wanted to try Tealyra’s Earl Grey because I feel like I haven’t found the perfect EG that is currently for sale. It’s like bergamot is just disappointing now, when a few years ago so many bergamot teas were delicious. For example, Zen had the BEST cream earl grey, but then their supplier changed to a very different EG. This EG seems exactly like that replaced EG, and I don’t mean the perfect delicious EG…. I mean the bad replacement. The bergamot is just not the bergamot I’m looking for. There should also be a cream flavor they mention in the description, but I’m just tasting the unappealing bergamot. At least the black tea is brisk enough for me. Maybe this Earl could be the perfect Earl for someone else, but it ain’t for me.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug// 12 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 minute steep

Drank this tea during a Google Hangout; more of you get in Slack and join us :)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIQNXg2gLkl/

So… I pulled this out because I wanted an oolong right, but I really wasn’t ready for the complexity of this tea as I was expecting a tea that would die quickly with some fairly sharp note of light grass with sweetness and a floral punch like a tieguanyin normally is for me.

This tea opened up and brewed wonderful, middle level viscosity, sweet low roasted oolong goodness. I went to go buy some online while in the chat with the thought ‘yeah, I’ll shell out $10 this week for an ounce of this’ as I got to the 8th steep and it was still going. Well, turns out this is out of the price range I am looking for…
http://daoistmeditation.com/product/taiwan-organic-honey-tieguanyin/

It’s one amazing tea that doesn’t die as quick as you think it would. I got over 12 steeps and each one had the nice medium hue and thickness to the liquid. Quite an enjoyable session, now I’m left with only 18 grams; but it’ll do :)

Another gongfu session of this from last night.

I followed the advice mrmopar gave after my previous session and stuck with shorter steeps at a lower temperature this time around. 6.5g of leaf in a gaiwan with 90C water and steeps ranging from 5-30 seconds.

Mrmopar was right – brewing at a lower temperature with short steeps does get rid of a lot of that bitterness. I think I’ll stick to 90C as my default temperature for young shengs from now on.

How was this tea based on these new steeping parameters? Fruity, vegetal, with a typical “sheng” tart flavour. It kind of reminded me of vanilla yogurt. No smoke. Some astringency on later steeps as it coated my tongue. However, near the end of the session I was developing a headache and I felt bloated from having over a litre of liquid in my belly.

This wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’ve been quite as seduced by this poundcake as other Steeptsterites. Considering that Paul from White2Tea has announced he only has about 100 cakes of this left in his new warehouse, I’m happy to let others have their chance with it.

In the meantime, I used up about half of the free sample I got from the W2T sale. I’m going to send the rest off to Ubacat, since she expressed some interest in it.

Grabbed a bag of this while at the Lupicia store in SF, and I’m so glad I did. Very much coffee-like, with notes of burnt sugar in there. I don’t get honey, but I’m cool with that!

I’m revisiting the cold brewed version of this despite not being overly impressed the first time I tried it that way. The main reason for this is Daylon R Thomas’ comment on my last tasting note saying he cold brews this as a way to draw out vanilla flavour.

Personally, my last cold brew was all chocolate so I’m hoping that by altering the steep time (to make it shorter) I’ll taste some other flavours. And you know what? While this still was very much a predominantly chocolatey cold brew I got some other layers of flavour too. Some vanilla, a little malt. So, trying the cold brew again was worthwhile! However I do only have one more bloom left so I know I’ll be finishing this one hot because that’s the way that I enjoy it the most.

I tasted this before I read up on it, and I wouldn’t have tagged it as a Darjeeling. My groggy, caffeine-starved brain (stormed overnight; no power this morning till we’d been up about an hour) classified it as “watery Assam with some really nice dark, sweet notes.” However, it was enjoyable, and I’ve got the basket of leaves on standby to doctor up with something a little stronger.

It must be spring. Why? I craved green tea. I looked to my green tea box and I found only a few small pouches. And I was craving receiving new teas. Because it makes me happy somehow. Tea mail! It has arrived yesterday and even I took a bit of Yuzu Midori (yes, I know, I shall share some with you derk, as I know you love yuzu, and I will).

Anyway I was more attentive today to this tea, which is actually tea I already had so I know how I should prepare this tea nd how it is suppossed to taste like. But I have a plenty to enjoy… 50 grams – 1 heaped teaspoon I have used today.

It is very similar to the December experience — sweet, quite full of umami this time, sugar peas, smooth and a little broth like. Brews acid green, but it made me smile today as after-work tea. It has got nice caffeine boost as I have been sleepy before and I am not anymore.

I can’t wait to try gongfu it as well.

Very fragrant, fruity aroma like baked plums. Fairly light bodied with a little malt and sweet potato. Good but nothing special. Will have to play around with it to see if I can bring out the fruitiness from the aroma.

11th Tea of Christmas 2022

I had to chug this while heading out the door yesterday and am a little sad about that. It was tasty though – as I remember it being in the past. More of a candy rum than real rum, which is fine by me! I still don’t love that vegetal base (Chinese Sencha) but it doesn’t show up completely empty-handed and grass-stained; it also decently amplifies the butter and citrus notes. I enjoyed this one in the past and still enjoy it now but need a little more time to savour it (maybe Boxing Day?).

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Steepsterites! Now back to hovering over the turkey.

Used the entire 8.6g sample I received of this from Liquid Proust in a 100mL gaiwan. That’s a bit more than I normally use for sheng, so I was worried it’d be way too strong. Instead, I was treated to a wonderfully mellow session with this tea. One of my favorite shengs yet. I was surprised by the clarity of the citrus notes throughout this tea (having never encountered these in sheng before), but especially in the first few steeps. These first 3 or so steeps were citrus in the front and hay on the back of the sip, with relatively little body but a soft texture. After this, the citrus flavor became a bit less sharp, the hay morphed into a sweet floral flavor (orchid maybe), and the body thickened up a bit. This tea went on in this beautiful way for ~16 steeps, all of which were very pleasureable.

No bitterness at all in this tea. Not even very much mouth drying effect. It was very refreshing and reminded me somewhat of drinking warm fruit juice. I will seriously consider picking up a cake of this with my next big YS order. Has anybody had the 2014 or 2015 versions of this one (assuming they exist)? I might have to try samples from those cakes as well to see how they compare.

Thanks again for the raw pu samples, LP! :)

OH HELL YEAH!
My best friend came over last night and we picked out five pretty high end teas to drink with this included. We only ended up drinking three because we resteeped this tea four different times. This is one sneaky tea,who would of known it was a black tea by tasting it?
Water at 205f poured right over these guys. The lychee is strong and last throughout the steeps.
Now I want to know where I can find me some black pearls without jasmine in them so I can start to play with them.

This is a good tulsi blend, in my opinion. You wouldn’t think that caffeine and tulsi go together but somehow it seems to work here. I only wish they sold this in loose leaf form. Of course, it’s easy enough to put your own tulsi in black tea, and sometimes I do that as well.

I’ve been drinking this one for the past few days, trying to find my way around it as it is a tricky tea. To avoid the soapiness, I underleaf and that seems to do it.

The pineapple has become a muffled whisper. Not quite memorable.

I purchased this tea in December, so it is nowhere near a year old, or possibly approaching that age if I bought it on sale. As it is fading quickly, I am trying to move through it in the coming days.

The fading pineapple has been frustrating me, so today I added a bit of Camellia Sinensis’ One Night in Rio, a pineapple coconut black tea blend: fifty-fifty ratio. That did it. The pineapple has brightened up while the coconut and marshmallow give it a softer rounder feel. The only thing missing now is a tea base with a bit more backbone.

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge – Tuesday, March 30th: National Virtual Vacation Day Tea #1

Thinking of “vacation teas” I guess this was the only one that immediately came to mind.  Envisioning Japanese cherry blossom trees!  The flavor of this was on point today. Very strong cherry blossom florals with a hint of strawberry.  I think it really works best with the first steep being one minute.  And I’m planning on a third steep.    I think of Japan but oops, the base is Vietnamese and Indian teas.  Oh well, I’d go to those places as well.  One can dream. 

L is for…Lemonberry Whip

So I started work this week. I was commuting from Hamilton to downtown Toronto to take Teams calls which was time consuming and seemed silly. Even sillier is that I am working at the company I have worked at off and on since 2016 and had to do all the training…again…for the 4th time. In fact, I was referred to in some of the training sessions because my experience with the company was extensive. Also, I get panic wheezing aka stress induced asthma and I guess from adjusting to the commute and new schedule, my body freaked out and I had to work from home for 2 days and get a covid test (while remotely attending a work meeting). No covid. Yay! Also, I found out I passed my second bar exam which means I will be a lawyer once I finish my articling. Also yay! This is all to say that this week has been hectic and I have been off tea for a little while and finally today I had a moment to breathe so I decided to do another day of alphabet teas.

This tea came from me from the subscription Roswell Strange enrolled me in for my birthday this year. Thank you!! I have had this tea once before and remember enjoying it quite a bit. I do get the rooibos base a little more than I like but the front of the sip is a lot of fluffy lemon/vanilla notes. The kind of fluffy lemon that makes me think of Harney’s Wedding Tea or Butiki’s Lemon French Macaron. So that initial lemon really speaks to me. On top of that lemon, I am getting blueberry. On their own, both are great but I find they hold each other back slightly b/c they are competing for attention.

This was a pit stop along a brief hei cha journey that actually began over a year ago. I sampled some tian jian a while ago and enjoyed it, so I invested in another tian jian, some liu bao, and some fu just to get some bearings on the hei cha world.

Much like my liu bao experience, my fu experience has required some getting used to. It is very yeasty and grainy – almost starchy – and not at all what you get from any other tea.

It’s not bad; in fact, it is intriguing because of how different it is. I had an easier time aligning tian jian with hong cha (sort of), and liu bao with ripe pu’erh. This guy, though, stands alone. Imagine putting a little brewer’s yeast into a black tea breakfast blend and you get sort of close.

Anyway, I would certainly recommend this to anyone who really enjoys exploring the breadth and depth of Chinese teas. Because it is so different from everything else, it is a necessary pit stop. It took me a full year to wrap my head around it, and I still am, to be honest. Probably not a re-purchase for me, but I’m holding a little back so I can revisit it in another year or so.
*
Dry leaf: brewer’s yeast, black tea breakfast blend. In preheated vessel – stronger aromas as before, with notes of starchy cooked yam, and hints of grape syrup and bruleed sugar

Smell: brewer’s yeast, cooked yam, dry spices

Taste: brewer’s yeast, milky mild black tea breakfast blend, hints of dark caramel. Aftertaste of hardwood, cream of wheat, with hints of lemongrass.

Sipdown! (22 | 58)

Really enjoyed this one. It’s very malty and smooth, but also has a wonderful honeyed fruit sweetness to it. There are some raisiny notes, maybe dates, even a bit of a dried cherry thing going on. Plus it also has some deep caramelized sugar character as well, along with aromatic wood and a touch of earthy, musty hay. The texture is also quite thick and satisfying, which makes it a great morning cuppa.

All around just a lovely tea. I wouldn’t call it super complex, but it makes for a wonderful daily drinker, and I would consider ordering a full cake.

I’m finally back in town, and that means I can return to my tea table. I have missed my yixing dearly and have been awaiting a nice puerh session. This is the brew that I have chosen.

The cake consists of massive long and slender maocha. The leaves are beautiful strands of tarnished silver and aged bronze. The carry a deep sweet pipe tobacco scent. I placed a generous chunk in my warmed yixing and gave it a shake. The tobacco scent deepened into a more plum and light wood aroma. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The brew starts out as a light jade color, but it deepens to slight gold. The flavor is sweet and syrupy. I was fooled though. The liquor turned on me and went sharp and bitter. My tolerance has diminished since I’ve stepped away, so I was slightly floored by this brew. I stood my ground and continued my brewing. The flavor is a great balance of bitter and sweet. This brew caries a lot of flavor. These flavors being, a slight wood with smoke, some sweet grapes and hay. The huigan is wonderful! It takes a few steeeping to settle, but it follows well throughout brewing. The qi is what had me hooked. It begins a swift and harsh ride. My brain was racing, and my body sweating. Then, it smoothed out, almost instantly, to a light and uplifted consciousness. I loved this brew. The leaves when steeping are a brilliant green, and it kept a consistent golden colour well into brewing. This was magnificent, and it was a great way to resume my puerh journey!

https://instagram.com/p/7fauxDTGQf/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

https://instagram.com/p/7fgRiszGaX/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

I can’t recall the last time I had a Joy bar, but I’m a little confused because I clearly recall the advertisements saying “Almond Joys have nuts, Mounds don’t.” so shouldn’t this be more of a Mounds tea since the coconut is the main focus? Or are Joys just a general term for a type of candy and some candy company in the 80’s was killing it on the misleading advertising?
Anyways… the instructions for all this tea say to use just cooled boiling water and it makes me wonder how much R&D they did on their teas. I steeped this at 175F instead. The bag smells both chocolate like and artificial at the same time, but I couldn’t tell you what is making that impression. There is a light sheen of oil on the top of my tea, which I’m not a fan of. The cacao shell flavor is what comes through strong. There is a hint of something fruity in there, but it’s very fleeting. The coconut is hard to find. The green base is undetectable. This tea isn’t bad, but it doesn’t have much of anything going for it either. It’s quickly forgettable.

Counted over fourteen steeps this was an excellent tea. There was a lot of fermentation taste at first. This taste was a little unpleasant but not fishy. It was think and rich in the first six or eight infusions and I think you could say there were notes of bittersweet dark chocolate in there. This chocolate taste disappeared along with the fermentation taste and the bitterness around steep eight. Well really the fermentation was only strong through steep four or five. Another note replaced this bittersweet note, a sweet note you would call it. Not really fruity or dates flavor, more of a neutral sweet note. Still this was one good tea. It is definitely worth buying a sample of. I have not yet decided if it was worth buying the whole brick yet. When I have drank it four or five times I will decide this. But it was one of the very best young ripe teas I have tried. Now as to cha qi, Scott says it has some, but I didn’t really feel it. Maybe I will feel it before I finish my cup who knows.

I steeped this tea fourteen times in a 160ml silver teapot with 14.3g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min, 2.5 min, and 3 minutes. Again I definitely recommend a sample of this but I have not yet decided if it was worth buying the whole brick. If I drink it again and it is still this good I will judge it to have been worth it.

Kawaii must’ve gone back in time to hijack an Aloha Airlines plane to use their cookie oven and then piloted the plane through a portal above Mt Shasta only to end up in my kitchen 4 hours and 30 minutes south down I-5 with a pan full of warm chocolate chip cookies that turned into a mug of tea as she disappeared before my eyes with arms full of smiling kitties.

Really, you shouldn’t have!!

2tsp:10oz, 212F, 5+ min