Tommy the Toad

2006 Dayi 7572, this one has a sweet aroma from the dry cake and after the first rinse it turned into a slightly sweet mushoomy type aroma that is very nice it takes you to the edge of a damp forest after the rain at dusk and you smell the sweet forest floor covered with mushrooms and other strange things. 1st infusion you are walking into that forest and dusk is now night and you can taste the woods and earth and mushrooms. 2nd infusion and your nearing the middle of the forest and the woods are getting thicker and the mushrooms are huge and and it’s much darker about midnight now. 3rd infusion you decide to have a sit down on the forest floor for a while you are surrounded by a ring of mushrooms and its very dark, you hear a sound in the distant but you don’t mind you are peaceful and calm, you loose yourself for a while as you close your eyes and drink in the forest….bliss. 4th infusion you open your eyes and you see that its not quite as dark as before you know that dawn must be near so you stand up and start leaving the thick dark forest, its light enough now that you can find your way home. 5th infusion you’ve made it out of the thick forest into the outer woods it is dawn now and you can see you house through the sticks and shrubs you take one last look back at the dark forest and as you turn back around you are at your table and you realize that you did not just have a walk through a Dark Damp Forest from Dusk till Dawn, You just spent an hour with a really great tea that’s all. I’ve heard a saying before that went something like “each cup of tea is an imaginary journey” This Tea was an amazing Journey!I’ve had this similar aroma and experience from many puerh and its always strangely enjoyable, this is what tea can do for you if you let it :)

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I got some of this today in another tea swap, it is is pretty good, it was in another language and i tried it before I even knew what it was, it was awesome and I knew it was a flavor that I recognized but I couldn’t put my finger on it only after learning that it was Red Velvet Cake could I then actually taste it, I thought it was some type of chocolate tea at first. Anyways it is really good it just needs a little sugar in it to make it just right :)
This is from a swap I do monthly on the Tea Review Blog if the link if you are interested in monthly swapping :) http://www.teareviewblog.com/

A friend on Facebook did a swap with me a while back and she sent me Iron Silk Puerh from TEASOURCE along with some others, I enjoyed it and she sent me some more this time from INFINITEA, So I decided to compare.
Iron Silk Puerh is Puerh blended with peppermint, clove and licorice, I’m not sure whose blend it was first or if either of these are the “original” but they are both pretty consistent taste-wise, It’s a nice and interesting blend very tasty and smell wonderful, so wonderful in fact that after I tasted these in my tearoom we left for about an hour to have dinner and when I opened the door to go back into the tearoom
it was filled with aroma of peppermint(not the candy but the real deal).Like I said the flavor of both teas is pretty much the same nice Puerh that smell of mint with flavors of licorice and cloves which is very nice but the big difference
in these two aren’t the taste of smell but the Aftertaste and the Mouth-feel so I’ll talk about that. If you have ever put a clove in your mouth or chewed on a real licorice stick(again not the candy) then you already know this aftertaste and mouth-feel that I’m talking about, the numbing sensation of the cloves and sickly sweet bite of licorice that is the difference between these two teas. let me say that the appearance of these tea was very different Infinitea’s had sliced licorice root/stick that you could see nice perfect pretty little slices and no stems in the tea at all looks very
pretty while the look of the Teasource one has stems and the licorice pieces are more like shredded chopped up chunks and it’s just not as pretty as Infinitea’s.
Looks can be deceiving as they were in this case, I figured the pretty one would be the better one and I was Wrong. Tastewise like I said they are pretty same and good
but if ya like licorice or cloves or mint then you really want the one that gives you the feel of licorice and clove and taste and look because those two herbs are so much
more than taste. again if you have ever put a clove in your mouth or chewed a real licorice stick then you already know what I’m talking about and if you haven’t then honestly I’m not sure how to explain the taste or feel of it, I can tell ya that
cloves have a spicy sweetness too with almost numbing sensation in the mouth and back of the throat, Real licorice(forget the candy) you have to just try for
yourself because all I can say is sickly sweet lingering taste with different sensation. Ok anyways I’m crazy so I hope that made sense to somebody out there, TEASOURCE
Iron Silk Puerh wins over INFINITEAS because of the “real” sensations and mouth-feeling that INFINITEAS version lacked, That is NOT saying that the INFINITEAS one was bad or not good just TEASOUCRE is so much better.
I think it may have something to do with the “cut” of the licorice honestly because some things just steep better when they are more chopped up or shredded/grated rather than just sliced up, I’m not sure just my opinion, I feel kinda crazy on this one because I feel people won’t understand what I’m trying to say but I hope you can understand, I have trouble explaining or describing thing with words sometimes, sorry :)
Thank you Deborah from Facebook for providing this tea to me for this crazy post.
Steepster, Sorry this was so long it was copied from my blog :)
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I bought a Bamboo Tea Tray from Teasource.com and with it they sent me a sample of this, Ok I would have never,never bought this Tea on my own because I just wouldn’t but now that i was able to try it, it is not bad at all not too rosey/flowery but a very nice smooth flavor with a slight sweetness in the aftertaste, This one is prolly worth buying to have for company or something even, the little hearts are very tightly pressed and they expand into a good bit of leaves, 1st steep was not as dark as the next steep as usual but the following 3 steeps were very dark slighlty thick and very smooth by the 5th and 6th steep it was starting to look more like the first steep and i knew it was ending, I would recommend this one.

http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/2012/10/dark-rose-tea-by-teasource.html

At the time of my first purchase I had no Clue about this “Golden
Flowers” so I was like WTF is this in my Tea? I later learned
about it and realized that I love it, Before I knew about it I wouldn’t
keep the first purchase in the house My only though was to get that
Fungus as far away from Lance as possible(gave it to my brother)
because I didn’t realize it was harmless to him too,
I thought it may damage his lungs
because he isn’t well (long Story) but that is a thing of the past and
now that I know we can both enjoy the Fu Zhuan.
It’s nothing spectacular but I enjoy it a lot it has a very earthy
flavor and It does kinda taste haylike to me, I use it when I make
my Butter Tea and use it for other recipes also.
This Tea looks like something you would not want to drink, it is
full of stems and sticks and the leaves really look old and crusty
but it really is not bad, This particular one has less “Golden Flower”
but still tastes pretty good. Very smooth and kinda hard to
actually describe the taste it almost has a raw/green puerh taste
but brews up like a ripe puerh tho I personally wouldn’t even call it
a Puerh myself it is something else. The Gold dust is good and not
scary at all you guys should try this one. This one has very little “Golden
Flower”

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This is a very nice green tea it is light and grassy with almost sweetcorn type notes, creamy smooth like an Oolong with some astringency towards the end and lingering mouthfeel, this Green Tea has some Oolong nuances. The Aroma was typical grassy/vegetal green tea aromas, Overall a very Pleasant Tea for everyday drinking.

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I’m not sure that I like this one as good as the one from Siam Tees but I’ll compare them together soon :) look at my blogsot for it I hope my pics turn out good! http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/2012/10/lan-gui-ren-ginseng-oolong.html

Very nice with milk :)

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This one is very nice also, I am a huge fan of the DMS Black Pearls and this loose leafe very is just as nice it its own ways, i feel it it have a lighter flavor profile very nutty and roasty also with hints of cocoa, the leaves are pretty to look at too that always important to me, and the Aroma of this tea is wonderful to it seems to have some citrus or even piney notes in the aroma i think that aroma come into play with the slight floral or bloomy notes of this tea, Very Good Tea to me.

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I’ve had many ginseng oolongs lots of them seem to be on greener less fermented/oxidized this one i think is medium and it brews up a nice dark amber brew with id just how i like an oolong, The ginseng coat don’t cling to the leafe forever either allowing the leaf to open up much faster than most yet there is still plenty ginseng flavor to this tea I really enjoy this tea, i knew it would taste good i’m very glad to have orederd it.
I can’t smell ginseng for some reason at all ever but the aroma of this one at first brew was reminiscent to a heavy baked tgy. very nice tea, i love it, i can’t smell ginseng but i taste it sometimes :)

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Very good tea, Starts off light and grassy with bitterness then goes a little darker almost like a ripe Puerh with no grassiness but still some bitter in a good way, it keeps getting a little darker each time but with a pretty consistent typical aged raw puerh flavor until finally it starts slowly fading away.This is one of those feel good teas to me that gave me the “High” “Happy” feelings that I love so much. I can enjoy this tea for its taste and that wonderful feeling. I’ll end up getting more of this one I’m sure :)

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This is a very enjoyable tea, the dry leaves were bright and pretty, slightly broken(may have just gotten smashed in shipping) with a slight green tea like aroma, 1st steep was very light with a nice floral aroma, 2nd steep lost a little of the floral aroma and a very nice green taste to it with a nice “buttery” mouthfeel, 3rd steep was perfect the leaves had opened and the aroma went from floral to a more grassy type aroma with even better mouthfeel, the flavor was at its best also with a nice green tiguanyin flavor that we all love followed by a grassy vegetal aftertaste.Nice Tea :)

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This one was nice to look at, Everybody took a sip but none of us actually drank it, We put it in the middle of the table in a wine glass and watched it open and enjoyed just looking at it :)

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This tea smells as good as it tastes, almost almost smells like a chocolate bar laying on fresh cut grass lol weird i know but very good. Many steeps from this one too pending on how ya do it, i do short steeps from the gaiwan at least 8 times before it even starts to fade and then it still very good until about the 12th steep. I bump the rating on this one up a little bit :)

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I drink this one daily so Ive stopped adding so many tasting notes to it lol but this morning i woke up with a dry sticky mouth and it was so damn good and refreshing to have an ice cold pitcher of this in the fridge, i stood right there at the fridge with the door wide open and drank a small cup :)

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Epitea is SHADY, they remove comments about their teas from facebook if they don’t agree with, thats kinda kills the honest feedback if ya ask me, oh well the teas they sent me were NOT that good at all. negative feedback is still feedback.

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I think this tea is very good :) i don’t understand the bad reviews.

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This one is yummy delicious, I got some in a swap and I hate to admit that I forgot who it was that sent it to me, THANK YOU MUCHLY YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!!

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mmmmm, so good :)

Lance drank this one for me because I saw hibiscus on the ingredient list, He liked it said it was pretty good, he drank it up pretty quick so it must have been tasty :)

I just now tried this one, not very good at all.

I’m not sure about this one, its ok nothing wrong with it at all but seemed like something is missing from it, unfortunately I got only one pyramid bag of each of my Epi Tea samples which just wasn’t quite enough to really get a good impression of this one it was just gone too soon and the resteep just wasn’t happening. from what I could tell from one decent cup is that it’s not that bad but I really couldn’t say it was good either, it was different.

I didn’t care much for this one myself so I gave it to Lance he enjoyed it, he said it was a bit strong but that it was quite good.

I don’t have any details about this one, it just says from meng hai tea cooked around 2005. i got this one in a swap tho im not sure who from or when, i do know that ive had it for a while and i’m glad i found it cuz i obviously hid it away(crazy people hide stuff lol). its really good, nice and dark with slight fishy smell which isn’t a bad thing to me, very smooth and tasty tea tho. not bad at all.