2016 Midas Touch

Beautiful tea, nice leaves, taste starts a bit bitter even with flash steeps, then it turns sweet and stays like that until the last steep. Strong Qi, kind of agressive if pushed too far, long lasting body feels, Qi is on the speedy side, alert and relaxing sensations. I wouldn’t recommend it to beginners. I think this tea is high on caffeine, I feel some jitters after drinking a lot of it.

Midas Touch

Sheng Olympiad 2017

A few of these notes will intermesh with notes taken from my friends who had sampled this with me.

I had shared this tea with a couple of friends yesterday. I was planning on drinking an oolong for our second “party”, but they insisted on trying more sheng instead (and who am I to deny them the chance to taste good puerh?) while playing a game of Settlers of Catan.

I gave this tea two rinses prior to starting the session mainly due to the reason that there wasn’t much of an aroma from the leaf. However, on the third rinse/steep, there were subtle notes of “fruit or flowers of some type, with a touch of sweetness.” The flavor was subtle and unnoted for myself, but my friend had pointed out that there was a “sweetness, maybe honey,” subtly lingering on the tongue.

After a few steeps through, there were stronger notes of hay (?) and honeysuckle (?). However, these are the last notes taken as we continued with the tea, Catan, and fellowship. I thought that this had been a pretty good weekend with friends—who actually wanted tea! :)

Ooooooh yeah. I’m really liking this tea tonight.

Got this tea in the Sheng Olympiad. I had heard there was a lot of cha qi in this and it does not disappoint. It’s more of a calming effect though and not a “bouncing off the walls kinda loopy” effect that I’ve experienced with other teas.

The taste is absolutely wonderful too. I brewed it per the suggestion at almost boiling and kept to around 10s steeps. I tried to increase the time but I noticed some bitterness creep in so I’ve been dialing it back. The tea is flavorful throughout though even with some of the bitterness. Nothing too terrible as long as you keep the steeps on the shorter side. Very smooth. A little astringent. I wouldn’t say it’s an incredibly rich pu-erh with a lot of flavors but it’s an enjoyable taste. Not having to choke this down like I have been with others.

I could definitely buy a cake of this.

Brewed in a zisha at boiling. This tea opened up with lots of tropical fruits on the nose which slowly became an interesting savory herbalness. The brew is a thick golden color. Lots of honey sweetness which sits in the back of the throat and lingers on and on. Nice thickness with a good amount of slickness. Very slurpable. Good tropical fruit flavors with apricot and mango sticking out for me. QI is very energetic, strong, and heady. Lots of huigan on this with a lot of cheek salivation as well. Bitterness starts off non-existant and then slowly creeps in. Very dense, lush, and primal. Jungle like herbal and floral notes float around. One sip and my mouth is filled with floral perfume and never ending notes of honey, this sweetness lingers on and on causing lots of salivation. Cooling sensation is light. Good minerality and a hint of black pepper on the front palate. The qi almost bowled me over for a bit. For the price I’m a big fan of this tea. fresh notes of tropical fruit, lots of florals, jungle like savory herbal notes with lots of huigan and salivating, qi is very strong.

Another one from the group buy, also in orb form. This tea is very clean and really green tasting for puerh, even more than I would normally note with young, first year tea. Not really my thing, personally, as I don’t drink much green tea, but it does have a bit of puerh herb-y complexity with the sweetening after taste that starts to pop up in later steeps and a tiny bit of astringent citrus that gives it a very bright/golden kind of feel.

The energy is uplifting, but not overpowering. It has quite some endurance, though, as I drank it out over the course of two or three days. Overall, very green, very clean, and very light. Too much so for me.

This one was a pretty nice tea from Crimson Lotus. The dry leaf had a pretty light straw-like aroma. After a rinse though, I smelled a lot of sweetness on these leaves, mostly honey with maybe a bit of tobacco.

The first three steeps have a good mix of slightly citric, but still quite sweet, fruitiness with a softy honey finish and slightly creamy texture. The citrus was not sharp or acidic, so it was more like the flavor of lemon icing or something like that.

After those initial three steeps, the fruitiness remained, but no longer tasted at all citric to me. The rest of this tea was mostly sweet fruity honey in flavor. The astringency did pick up just a touch towards the middle of the session, but it never lasted long or anything. The tea had a pleasant silky thickness to it, and a gentle qi which I noticed only sometimes. One of the most honey-tasting teas I’ve had yet. Pretty tasty!

Got a very nice sized free sample of this with my last order to Crimson Lotus Tea. I brewed this in a solid silver teapot which I think brings out all the flavors of the tea. It seems to do this more than a Yixing Teapot would do. This tea started off sweet. Once the leaves opened up a bit a bitterness crept in. The bitterness lasted for a few steeps, maybe four and was eventually replaced by a sweet note again. I am not entirely sure what to call the sweet note of this tea that developed. Just calling it apricots seems a little off but I really did not pin it down. There was also a mild astringency to this tea. Overall over twelve steeps this was a very enjoyable tea. This is definitely an example of a sheng that is good to drink now. There was also a slight bitter aftertaste that persisted with this tea. This is one I would definitely consider buying if I put in another order with Crimson Lotus Tea. I don’t even know the price of this tea. I think it is one of their higher end teas but I could be wrong. In any case I have enough of the sample left for another go at it. Next time I won’t use the silver teapot but see how it is in a gaiwan. I think some flavors are much more pronounced in the silver pot.

I steeped this tea twelve times in a 160ml Solid Silver Teapot with 10.2g 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, and 2 min.

In an effort to like sheng, I brewed this one at half strength to calm the flavors down a bit. It worked a little bit. This one was like light green vegetables and a little sweet, so I’m thinking snow peas or something similar. There were some floral notes as well, but I was distracted by the sheng taste in the background that reminded me of soap.

*Disclaimer: it’s probably not the tea’s fault. I dislike sheng.

So this is the first of my samples from Crimson Lotus, just trying a few things out.
6g, 100ml gaiwan, 212F
Rinse- citrus, bright
10/10/15/10/10/16/16/20/30/30/40/40/1m/1/1/1/1/2/3/4/8
Started off soft and green with just the edge of bitter, bright and lemon. Middle moved to bittersweet, mouthcoating. I really felt the qi in these steeps – floatly and a lot of energy in my jaw.
Once I was past the flash steeps, sweet and green. A little bit drying, sweet, smooth. I lost time here.
Sweet, citrus and bittersweet continued until the end.
I like this one, probably better with a little more age though.

I liked this last year, so I was excited to try again.

The leaves are long and lightly compressed. I take a deep inhale and identify sweet and woody tones with a back draft of smoke and very faint blackberry. The leaves carry dark and heavy scents. I warmed my teapot up and placed a fair amount inside. The warmed leaf gives off fragrant aromas of wet wood, nectar, crystallized honey, dough, and some bitters. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The brew begins sweet and very tasty. I can instantly pick up strong floral characters, for I can even smell flowers in the liquor. The brew is potent and thick with a brief huigan and some slight sour tones. This tea is quite good. The qi is instantaneous with calming and an alert feeling. I call this type of “talk tea”, for I suddenly had the urge to converse, haha, My friend and I had a political debate while I was drinking this which fueled the qi even more. The brew warmed and settled my stomach and refreshed me. I was quite happy while drinking this brew. The later steeping yields almond tones with some honey. The qi beautifully developed further and further and caused caught a zooming sensation. I liked this.

Note: My second session was not nearly the same. The tastes were off and muddled. The qi was more aggressive. The aromas were faint. I don’t know what the problem was. It may have been storage conditions, for it became much colder than my first session.

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