tperez

Tiguanyinathon Pt. II

I actually wrote this earlier today, but the weather outside was too gorgeous to pass up! A cold front came through the other day and it really feels great. I Spent a few hours skating and few just sitting on a bench reading a book. :)

Early steeps: The early steepings have a tropical notes of pineapple and coconut, and a floral wisteria flavor that is very light for a Tiguanyin. Blindfolded I would have a hard time guessing if this is a tiguanyin, a Taiwanese oolong, or some combination of the two. It has a velvety smoothness that I’ve only ever tasted in sliver needle.

Later steeps: The changes in this oolong were less defined than some. A clean grassiness, and hints of honey and paprika appeared. The silver needle mouthfeel was replaced by a more milk-like creaminess. While I LOVED the early steeps on this tea, the later ones were good, but not particularly special.

Tieguanyinathon Pt.I
Sort of in the spirit of the “Saturday Sipdown” I’m going to be tasting the Verdant spring, summer, and autumn Ti Guan Yins sent to me by Autumn Hearth and maybe even some other TGY’s I have sitting around. :)

Early steeps: The early steeps are sweet and smooth with a nice, milky texture. The flavor is slightly floral and reminiscent of honeysuckle, and I also get notes of pumpkin and hazelnut. The leaves opened up really fast! By the 3rd steep they were almost completely unfolded.

Middle steeps: In the middle steeps, the floral sweetness was largely repaced by savory chestnut flavors, and something that reminded me slightly of turmeric (though that might have just been my cooking) :)

Later steeps: Around the sixth steep, the floral notes return to balance out the savory. These later steepings are well balanced, and have the flavors of the earlier steeps, but I also begin to notice new flavors like parsley and vanilla, a slight cooling effect like mint, and a cake-like fluffiness.

Wow, this is delicious! Tastes like a mix between an oriental beauty oolong and an Indian black tea, which I suppose is exactly what it is! Sweet, peachy, creamy, and a pastry feel with touch of cinnamon and vanilla.

If peach cobbler were a tea, it would be this one :)

A nice, slightly different Yunnan black! It has a deeper, charcoal/cocoa flavor than other Dian Hongs that reminds me a bit of Fuijan blacks and the Sumatra Black Pearl from Mountain Tea Co. Instead of the sugarcane/rum type taste of some Yunnan’s I’ve had, this reminds me more of Israeli date honey or a malty Belgian ale. Its also very infusable, first black I’ve had to last an entire kettle of water.

More in depth review to come, I’ve got a headache and feeling a bit woozy today for some reason :(

Thanks for the sample, Garret!

My first thought when taking a sip of this tea was “Wait, is this the right tea?” I had a few shu pu’erh samples airing out in small cups, but this one looked distinctly different, being the only loose leaf. Yep, this is the right one, but how can a 2011 pu’erh taste so clean?!? Despite its young age, there is little fermentation flavor left in this tea. :)

Early steeps: Being this was a young shu, I was fully prepared to set aside the first steep or so for pouring over my yixing, but I decided to take a sip, and it was remarkably clean and smooth. The main flavors that I picked up on were milk chocolate, cream, and white peppercorn. Sure there was a bit of off flavor, but for a tea less than two years old? This is amazing!

Middle and later steeps: The warm, creamy flavor continues, and I start to notice some bready flavors as well as a sugarcane note that reminds me of a Yunnan black. It is malty and delicious. I didn’t find the flavor to be especially complex, just sweet, smooth, and enjoyable. Perhaps more will come with age.

This is a very soothing pu’erh and would make a great “happy place” tea :)

No notes yet.

This is my first tea from Verdant. Thanks Autumn Hearth for all of these wonderful sounding samples! There’s quite a bit more tea here than I expected, I feel like I should have sent more :) My room is currently drowning in teas, teawares, and packaging between my Mandala and YS orders and multiple swaps that all came within the past two days.

This tea is quite vegetal, which usually isn’t my thing, but wow! This tea is nice and refreshing with flavors of green bean, bok choy, fenugreek, and clover. It has a nice, creamy mouthfeel with a subtle honey sweetness. Great stuff!

This reminds me (quite a bit) of Adagio’s Mei Hua, but fresher and considerably better tasting. They look so similar and have pretty similar taste profiles, I wonder if they use the same processing technique? The Mei Hua is from Fuijian, which I looked up and found to be fairly close to Laoshan, but not especially so.

Wow, this is a wonderful shu. I wasn’t completely sure about it based on its slightly muddy appearance and not having heard of Yong De, but seeing it described as a favorite by both Garret at Mandala and (different year’s pressing) by Scott at Yunnan Sourcing, I figured a 1oz sample was certainly worth a try. And it was.

Dry leaves: The leaves are slightly larger than the Menghai pu’s I’ve tried, and are a warm, chocolaty brown in color. The smell is deep and rich, but I have trouble identifying any one note.

Early infusions: The first thing that strikes me in tasting is a sort of marshmallow “puffiness” to the liquer. Even in the first steeping there is no noticeable “off” taste. The tea is remarkably smooth and has a deep woodiness with a pleasant zuchini-like flavor.

Middle Infusions: Around the fifth infusion, the tea starts to open up in flavor with notes of saffron, sea breeze, and cantaloupe. The flavor is woodsy like dry fall leaves.

Later infusions: Around the tenth infusion, when the tea begins to be weaker, the flavors become more sweet and subtle. It has a slight vanilla sweetness, and flavors like a dense sourdough bread. The flavor is very clean, almost like a Yunnan black tea.

This is my new favorite pu’erh, very smooth, clean, and deep. A full cake of it has jumped to the top of my shopping list :)

This is a nice shu! This afternoon I was faced with a tough choice; which tea to try first. :D I was in the mood for pu’erh, and decided to try the phatty cake.

The leaves are attractive and fairly large in size. The compression on this cake is really tight around the center, I could hardly pry a piece out!

Early infusions: The first couple of infusions were a bit disappointing for me. It was a bit too mulchy and mushroomy, but I could taste the good, strong flavors underneath.

Middle infusions: All of a sudden, this tea was delicious! A bold, chocolaty flavor with a slight saltiness, and an unexpected hint of fruit; apricot and, blueberry maybe? Blueberry is definitely a new one for me. There is still a bit of “compost pit” hanging around, but its mostly gone. Around this time I also start to get some “qi” feel with some tingly feelings along the top of my head. Definitely the strongest feeling I’ve gotten from a ripe pu’erh.

Later infusions: Tea! Waht r u doing!! Stahp!!! I have some homework to get on, but these leaves just keep making more tea! These little leaves made at least twelve (I wasn’t really counting) nice, bold infusions.

This is a good, potent pu’erh, but my(not so) expert opinion says it could use a year or two to let the fermentation flavors fade.

I was more than a bit apprehensive to try these powdery, grey-green nuggets. Some people think pu’erh looks scary, but I find these to be far more intimidating.

The taste, however, is quite nice! The first few steeps tasted mostly of the sweet, grassy ginseng, while the later ones showed more of the flavor of lightly roasted Taiwanese oolong. The sweetness of the tea reminds me a bit of stevia, I wonder if there is any sweetener in the ginseng powder, or if that’s from the ginseng itself? The ginseng is quite energizing, and if I didn’t know any better I’d think someone had slipped some Red Bull in my tea. :P

I’m not sure I appreciate the simultaneously peaceful and hyperactive feeling I’m getting from the tea/ginseng mix. Overall this was pretty nice and I’d judge it to be of good quality, but I think I prefer my oolongs plain.

This is my first Da Hong Pao. It brews a nice warm brown-gold color. The taste is bold and dry and reminds me of a dry sack wine. Its mildly sweet and mineral, and the main flavors that I pick up on are apricot, clove, and slightly cooling spearmint-like note.

I don’t think I used quite enough leaf, as only the first infusion really seemed strong enough. I think I’ll be making it again with a bit more tea.

Received a sample of this with my last YS order.

The leaves are a dark olive brown with plenty of furry white buds. I wasn’t too impressed with the first two steepings, as they were mostly tobacco-ey and bitter. After that, however, the flavor became quite mellow and sweet. The flavors that come to mind here a ginger, almond, and wheat flour. This tea is fairly similar to my 2012 Wuliang Mountain cake, but gives a stronger ‘qi’ feeling which shines on the crown of the head. Very infusible, made about twelve times.

My initial impression was “meh”, but the later steepings were delightful; this is a nice tea.

Eek! I got this free from Nature’s Tea Leaf for reviewing like a month ago, and just realized that I hadn’t posted a tasting note. Sorry!

The dry leaves are slim and tender with a cool green-gray color and are covered in a downy white fur. This is the second silver needle I’ve tried, and it seems to be much fresher than the first.

The tea brews a nice daisy yellow-gray, and the wet leaves gain a soft, grey, leathery appearance that reminds me of baby lizards.

The taste is sweet and smooth with notes of fresh linen, green peppercorn, and melon. The tea is very slightly floral and reminds me of freshly trimmed gardenia bushes.

This tea was wonderfully soothing and brought me back to center after a long, stressful day.

Got this from the “three free samples” promotion from Twinings, and I have to say it isn’t half bad! Pretty smooth and fairly smokey, but bear in mind this is the first lapsang souchong that I’ve tried.

Thanks so much Nicole for this nice black!

The tea brews a nice amber color. The taste is smooth and sweet with a slight floral flavor and hints of pecan and red grape.

Soo many teas I need to try and write notes for! And I think I have some more waiting for me when I get back to school. :P

Dry leaves: The dry leaves have a thick, chocolaty aroma that reminds me of brownie batter. Its mostly chocolaty, but with some nutty/bready smells as well.

Brewing: The wet leaves have a strong, juicy aroma of red apples. Not like “a little bit apple-ish”, like “if I was blindfolded I would think there was a red apple in front of my face” haha This tea brews lighter than I expected, with the red-gold color of oriental beauty.

Tasting: The tea has a heavy charcoal flavor that sort of reminds me of the coffees grown in Sumatra. I wonder if this is coincidence, or a flavor imparted by the land like the Wuyi “rock” flavor? There are notes of honey, walnut, fresh red apple, and I might be crazy, but anchovy? Not in a bad way, just interesting and I don’t have a better word for it. The tea has a soupy quality that reminds me of some Chinese greens like long jing and bi lo chun.

Overall this is a fairly nice tea. Not a favorite, but definitely unique and worth trying, especially with Mountain Tea’s low prices.

No notes yet.

Yay, no more cold/flu/whatever I had! On another note, my parents officially think I’ve gone crazy with my tea drinking habit. :P This is the first time that I’ve been home for more than a few days since my tea obsession started.

Ming Ming’s: I got this tea from a (semi) local shop about 45 minutes from my parents house, which I’d been meaning to visit but never had gone through with. The stars had aligned, as I needed to pick up my final paycheck and turn in my uniform from a seasonal UPS job (the UPS headquarters was about 30 minutes in the right direction) and I had dropped and broken my gaiwan (and I saw online that Ming Ming’s sells some) a few days before. For more info, check out my place review, but to keep it short it was a great experience and I was impressed by their teas.

Dry Leaves: The dry leaves have a strong aroma of apricots and fresh hay with a stimulating, menthol-like quality. Most are either single leaf or one bud and a leaf sets. The leaves look pretty fresh despite being harvested last spring

Brewing: After a quick wash the leaves give off a dense, marine smell with vegetal qualities. Asparagus maybe? The tea brews a mellow green-yellow color that reminds me of a light Taiwanese oolong.

1st steep: The first steep has a smooth nectarine flavor with touches of asparagus, white grape, and allspice. A thick, heavy feeling rests on the back of my throat and tonsils.

2nd + 3rd steeps: The flavors of the second steep are rounder and the fruit and spice notes are balanced out by salty-savory ones.

4th steep: This steep brings the tingling, spicy notes to the front. The main player here is allspice, but there are also hints of clove and white peppercorn.

5th steep: The fifth steep brings back the white/green grape (whichever you call it) flavor. The sweet flavors definitely topple the savory here, but its a battle that continually tips back and forth.

Later: The flavors continues to ebb and flow in the later steepings (I got about nine) A delicate dance of peach, ocean, and spice. This tea definitely gives me an energizing cha-qi type feeling. I’ve got to say this is one of my favorite green teas that I’ve had, though I often don’t even like dragonwell.

This is a nice, clean tasting dragonwell from a small teashop near my hometown. Mild, marine flavor with notes of peach, allspice, and white grape. It has a strong throat feel and noticeably high caffeine.

More in depth review on its way when I get over this cold :(

Smooth, rich, and chocolaty! Mine came from Yunnan Sourcing as “Red Rhyme”, but I’ve read that the pinyin “Hong Yun” can translate either way, I believe this is the same cake.

This is a really nice shu with notes of chocolate, oak, and smooth red wine.

This tea definitely needs to be given some time to mellow out, but I think it will be nice given a year or so of aging.

Dry cake: The dry leaves have a nice milk chocolaty color with a good number of golden buds mixed in. The cake compression seems ideal (to this newb anyway), its pretty tight, but still loose enough to break apart without too much damage to the leaves.

1st infusion: I gave it a wash and brewed the first infusion; yuck! Tastes like a cup of fermentation. It really wasn’t worth drinking, so I transferred it to a cup to pour over my teapot.

2nd-5th: These were much more drinkable. There is still a some fermentation taste, but it was much less and joined by flavors of chocolate, celery, and oak.

5th-8th: This is where this cake shines. It still has a bit of compost flavor, but the “tea flavors” really come through with notes of date, pecan, cocoa powder, and red wine.

9th-10th: These were weaker, but otherwise like 5-8, and this is where I cut it off.

This isn’t the greatest right now, but I think it will be a nice tea.

This is the second raw pu’erh that I’ve tried, and a very young one. In my limited knowledge, it seems like a good candidate for aging (which is good for me since I bought a whole cake).

First off I’ll have to say that this cake smells AMAZING! The smell is strong and sweet with figgy and toasted qualities that fill the box where I’m keeping the teas that I brought home with me (at my parents house home on winter break). If they made “raw pu’erh” air fresheners, I’d buy a dozen! :P

The tea brewed a light gold/green color like a lightly roasted oolong, and the leaves opened up to be fairly large, most around two inches, but some larger or smaller. The wet leaves look tender and green like a good dragonwell.

The tea is pungent and sweet, with a predominately apricot flavor, a slight bitterness, and a natural sweetness. In the earlier infusions I found notes of orchid, green olive, and oatmeal.
The bitterness faded in the later infusions leaving sweet and mellow tastes of almond and cream with more a more tropical mango flavor that lingered across the front and back of the tongue.

This is the first tea I’ve tried that had more stamina than I did. I left off at around twelve infusions, though the flavors were still coming through strong. I’m definitely feeling the cha qi on this one. I feel aware and content, and feel the need to lay back and enjoy the day’s beautiful weather. :)

This is a fairly large sample from Teavivre (enough for three or maybe four brews) made in my new yixing pot :)

This is a very nice, mellow pu’erh! The flavor isn’t as heavy as the other’s I’ve had, and it seems like it would be a good “introduction” pu’erh with less shock factor than some.

Dry Leaves: The dry leaves have a pleasant and sweet roasted chestnut smell without any compost-yness. Its just nice and roasty, and smells the way I imagine a fully oxidized ti guan yin would. The wet leaves are fairly large.

Brewing: The tea is a nice bright red color, very deep, but not quite is brown/burgundy as the other pu’erhs I’ve tried.

Tasting: The tea is very mild and sweet with flavors of milk chocolate, walnut, buckwheat honey, barley, and roasted mushroom.

Wow, I realized I haven’t posted a tasting note (at least not a long one) in quite a while now! I’ve had quite a few new teas and written notes (on paper) about a few of them, but between a general funk that I’ve been in and the impending horror of finals week, I haven’t put anything online.

I made this tea in a gawian for the first time today (for some reason I’d never considered making blacks or greens gong fu until recently) and it’s really nice.

This won’t be a full note, but an “update” I guess with some more things I’ve noticed with this tea:

-One, is that it brews GREAT in a gaiwan! It brought out smoother flavors and lasted more than eight (I lost count) infusions

-Another thing I noticed is that its very creamy for a black tea, definitely no cream needed for this one

-Finally, I noticed some nice melon and milk chocolate flavors in addition to the spice and whiskey flavors I noted last time

Well, now I’ll head back to hitting the books… Wish me luck!