100

Just grabbed a random Bana sample, & this was the one. Quick rinse & leaving the leaf to settle for 10 minutes.

Firstly, the aroma. yes, its nice & complicated fruity smells. I’m looking forward to this a lot. I mean it really smells good.

First steep, & its a murky one. Thick-looking liquor, wonderful taste. Its soft & sweet but with just a hint of bitter. Its deep thick & lovely, with a honeyed edge.

Second steep & theres a little intense chi energy building already, but im also a bit hungover so that has an effect. Taste is great, i share some with my friend whos never had any puerh before. She cant place any of the flavours. Its lovely.

Lovely mouth coating thickness, & soft bitter streak on the finish of each sip & a lively bunch of flavours. Its a bit fruity & sweet, leafy & has some great floral/leafy/menthol aroma & huigan, its one of those nice ones that goes up into your head & fills your brain with steamy cooling lushness.

By steep 5 the flavour is an interesting complex menthol leaf flavour. I’m finding it hard to place the flavours but its going down a treat. Theres a lot going on.

Always a subtle bitter outline to the taste but at its core its thick, sweet, fruity, leafy, menthol. I’m basically really digging this, as Moot said its a kaleidoscope rather than one melded flavour & that is something I really appreciate in a tea. I can taste something a bit like green Wine Gums, which happen to be my favourite sweets. Totally making me smile. This was steep 5 with a 20 second around 85c/90c I think.

I LOVE the balance of this tea. I could never work it out, its exciting to drink, i’m relishing the changes happening in my mouth as I type this. The leaf never got ruined, bitterness never became dominant, every steep was a fresh one with its merry-go-round green-wine-gum vibrancy (while still being honey-sweet bodied & also leafy-bitter). I could also taste something akin to high-mountain Taiwanese Oolongs, although I had one this morning so It could be that.

I think I could write about this tea for a while, oops I left the gaiwan brewing on the 8th steep. Still vibrant & drinkable. I ponder if this is the sort of enjoyment animals that eat fresh bitter leaves get?

Also my nose is a bit blocked, is this is adding to the enjoyment by catching the aroma?Maybe sticking things in your nostrils to catch puerh vapour will be my next invention.

Great tea.

Flavors: Bitter, Camphor, Fruity, Menthol, Pleasantly Sour, Sweet

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 15 sec
Rasseru

Only thing bad about this tea is that it was so nice, I drank it too fast im a bit uncomfortable from the caffeine

Sqt

Strong review! Would you still stand by that score today?
In other words, how tea drunk were you when you wrote that? :D

Rasseru

I must admit the only other time I had some more recently it wasnt as good as the day of this review, which was a perfect session.

Try a sample and follow the instructions on the website exactly, I remember thats what I did when I tried it first.

i’ll have to do it again but follow them to the letter

Sqt

Will do, thanks. Not often once sees a 100 rating so it made me curious :)

Rasseru

I’m drinking this now. It tastes more floral, bitter & menthol than how it tasted on the day I reviewed the sample. The huigan is a kaleidoscope of flavours, bitter-floral. Its a hard tea to pin as it changes a lot.

Today almost yiwu-esque but without the vegetal roundness, more flowery

Sqt

Interesting :) Only one way to find out now. Yes I do find that teas not only change over time, but day to day (more due to environmental factors and the state of one’s own palate)

Rasseru

the huigan is super cooling, really feeling it now, steep 6.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

Comments

Rasseru

Only thing bad about this tea is that it was so nice, I drank it too fast im a bit uncomfortable from the caffeine

Sqt

Strong review! Would you still stand by that score today?
In other words, how tea drunk were you when you wrote that? :D

Rasseru

I must admit the only other time I had some more recently it wasnt as good as the day of this review, which was a perfect session.

Try a sample and follow the instructions on the website exactly, I remember thats what I did when I tried it first.

i’ll have to do it again but follow them to the letter

Sqt

Will do, thanks. Not often once sees a 100 rating so it made me curious :)

Rasseru

I’m drinking this now. It tastes more floral, bitter & menthol than how it tasted on the day I reviewed the sample. The huigan is a kaleidoscope of flavours, bitter-floral. Its a hard tea to pin as it changes a lot.

Today almost yiwu-esque but without the vegetal roundness, more flowery

Sqt

Interesting :) Only one way to find out now. Yes I do find that teas not only change over time, but day to day (more due to environmental factors and the state of one’s own palate)

Rasseru

the huigan is super cooling, really feeling it now, steep 6.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

Profile

Bio

Artist, electronic musician, photographer, asian food, vinyasa yoga, chemistry, biology, physics, spirituality, mind expansion, scifi, Comics, Books, computers, tea.

Basically loads of Fenghuang, jade oolong & sheng puerh.

90+ is godly

80-90 is something i would buy again.

60-80 ok, but probably more bland or basic in their flavour.

0-60 something tastes wrong with this one.

Russell_alderton on instamagrams

Location

Black Dragon st, UK.

Website

https://looseleaf.blog

Following These People

Moderator Tools

Mark as Spammer