tperez

Nom nom nom! This has a nice mix of interesting ingredients. I’d have to say this is my favorite pre-mixed chai that I’ve tried! The pu’erh is nice and strong, and the coconut and other ingredients compliment/smooth it out nicely.

The only thing is that its not quite as spicy or bold as I like, so I think the next time I make it I’ll add some fresh ginger and some extra pu’erh.

Thanks Zen Teas for another great sample!

I was really excited to try this tea, since I’d never tried an aged oolong. Also, it’s pretty weird to drink something that’s older than I am. I guess you could say I have a bit of a “thing” about old/vintage things. There’s a kind of power/stateliness to things that have been tucked away for years, that have been held and used by people years ago.
Not that this tea is THAT old, but for a tea it certainly is. :)

Dry leaves: The dry leaves have a bold, musky aroma of roasted chestnut, hickory, and musk. The leaves are small, dark, and silky and looking; rolled into small, tight pellets with a chocolaty brown color.

Brewing: When I poured water over the leaves for the rinse, they released a strong aroma liked meat being cooked on a wood-fired smoker. This tea needs to be steeped longer than most oolongs until it turns a nice red-brown color. When wet, the leaves a dark black and slick looking. They unfurl just slightly and truly look like “black dragons.”

1st steep: The tea has an strong but smooth and elegant smokiness not quite like normal smoked teas like gunpowder/lapsang. It tastes of oak, camphor and cinnamon with an underlying coconut note. The taste is rich, stately, and slightly reminiscent of whiskey.

2nd steep: The second steep has much less smoke, but is otherwise similar to the first. This tea is very buttery. There’s no detectable amount of bitterness or astringency.

3rd steep: The third steep has a savory flavor like slow roasted meat. There are strong notes of oak, with a new piney and milk chocolate flavors. The mouthfeel is smooth and heavy like coconut oil. This steep is slightly sweet.

4th steep: The forth steep remains similar to the previous, but reveals a deep, pu’erh-like sweetness.

5th+ steeps: Later steeps remained similar and gain more and more buttery smoothness. Around the eight steep, I need to increase the brew time all the way to about two minutes, but the tea remains strong. It begins to fade around eleven.

Reminds me of: The first time I played my violin, which belonged to my great great great grandfather. Like the tea, it was something completely new to me (I had no idea how to play it), but I could feel the beauty and power of the instrument. Its exciting to hold something completely foreign to you, yet so old and beautiful.

Got the samples from Tea from Taiwan today, and they were packed in nice little vacuum-sealed pouches. I decided to start with this one. Not sure about everyone else, but whenever I get something from a foreign country, I feel the need to keep the packaging. :) These cute little packages with Chinese writing are definitely getting saved.

Dry leaves: The leaves are fairly small for an oolong, most of them around the size of gunpowder green pellets, but some are larger. They have a nice pear-like scent

Brewing: The tea steeps a nice pale yellow color like dried daisies. The steeping leaves a peachy smell with a slight marine quality. The leaves expand nicely, and most are in good condition.

1st steep: The first steep of this tea has a surprisingly vegetal/brothy flavor, something I haven’t encountered in an oolong before. There is a nice, fresh pear taste mixed with the vegetal qualities of a Pi Lo Chun and the brew has a natural sugarcane sweetness. The flavor lingers on the top of the tongue.

2nd steep: The second steep continues on the themes of the first, but this time with reduced vegetal tastes replaced by a slight grassyness and cooked peach flavor.

3rd steep: The third steep show continued reduction of the vegetal qualities and increasing sweetness. There is a slight hint of vanilla bean.

4th steep: Even sweeter yet, the dominant flavors in this steep are those of peach and vanilla with a slight floral touch. The later steeps remained similar and gradually lost flavor.

It is lovely out (FINALLY feels like fall), I got some great teas in the mail, and the speakers outside the basketball arena (which are ALWAYS on) were playing New Fang by Them Crooked Vultures when I walked by. I think its safe to say that today is a good day.

I made this tea a few days back using 1 tsp of tea and slightly cooler water with pretty poor (gross) results.

I decided to try it again today and made it using about twice as much tea and near-boiling water, and the tea it made was better (drinkable), but not especially good.

Dry Leaves: The leaves twisted and deep brown in color. They have very nice, bold aroma of clove and charcoal.

Brewing: I first did a quick rinse steep, which released a powerful smell of clove and tobacco. I let the leaves sit for about a minute, but not much expansion occurred. In fact, they didn’t really open up until the second steep. The wet leaves vary from black to a deep military green and have a nice fruity scent. The tea brews a mellow orange color.

1st steep: The first steep has STRONG, musty tobacco and charcoal flavors with fall spice and a slight pluminess in the background.

2nd steep: The second steep was noticeably grassier and considerably more pleasant than the first steep. The charcoal and tobacco flavors had died down, and there were slight cantaloupe and cocoa notes.

3rd+4th: The third and fourth steeps were mellower and by far the most enjoyable. The predominant flavors were of clove and grass, and were slightly chocolaty with a lemon sweetness. I tried making a fifth steep, but it came out weak and tasteless.

Overall this was meh. I feel like my tasting note makes it sound a little better than it actually was.

Reminds me of: Clove cigarettes, dirty cars, my uncle Mike

Yay, I found a good use for this tea!

On its own, its just too vegetal for me, and I’ve barely touched it since I bought it. It has STRONG artichoke, spinach, and marine flavors. But being a pretty strong green, I decided to make some chai with it, and it turned out quite nice! I used my normal chai ingredients minus the fenugreek and coriander, plus some lime juice, fresh basil, and some dried red chili.

I think this will be my official green for messing around with mixing possibilities, as it stands up fine to other flavors.

Nooooooooooo! I wrote out a nice, really long tasting note, and ended up with the “oops” screen the first time… ugh. :P

This is a nice light oxidation oolong at a pretty affordable price. I brewed it gong fu style and got nine steeps out of it. My oolong notes tend to be pretty long, so brace yourselves!

Dry leaves: The dry leaves are tightly folded and have a more linear shape than ti guan yin. The smell is nice and roasty.

Brewing: This tea brews up to a nice, light golden color. It has a strong honey aroma that evolves over the steeping process. The smell begins like fresh trimmed bushes, develops a more floral note, and slowly fades to warm honey.

1st: The first steep was very fresh and grassy with notes of nutmeg and lemongrass. It has a strong natural sweetness and moderate astringency.

2nd and 3rd: During the second and third steeps, the grassyness and astringency mellowed and were replaced by the warm, floral flavor of honeysuckle.

4th and 5th: In the fourth and fifth steeps, the former flavors were joined by fruity black currant notes. The flavor continued to grow smoother.

6th to 8th: Over the sixth, seventh, and eight steeps, the flavors continued to mellow and the honey flavor was greatly increased. The flavor was milky smooth.

9th: On the ninth steep, the flavors and smoothness began to fade, so this was the last, though it probably could have gone one more. Honestly, at this point I’d had more than my fix of tea. haha :)

This was a nice, grassy oolong that felt to me like a cross between ti guan yin, milk oolong, and a Japanese green. Once unfolded, the leaves were very large, some up to three inches. I definitely plan on ordering some of this when the sample runs out :)

Thanks Nature’s Tea Leaf!
The samples came today in a nicely packed box. They look and smell wonderful, and there’s a whole ounce of each! This is my first Fuijan black, so take my review with a pinch of salt. :)

Dry leaves: Opening the pouch, there is a bold aroma of pepper and clove with a melon coolness. The leaves are longer than those of most blacks, and are jet black in color with a few golden tips.

Steeping: This tea brews up to a nice warm brown color. The leaves expand and unfurl to a smooth muddy, melted chocolate brown.

Tasting: This is a nice, bold black tea. It’s pleasantly bitter with a woody, peppery body and notes of cocoa, clove, and citrus.

Holy leaf expansion, Batman!

Saved just a bit of this for the christening of my gaiwan. I was thinking maybe I hadn’t saved enough, but as it turns out, the leaves expanded to fill the entire cup.

I lost track of how many steeps it made around seven. I don’t have much to add to my previous tasting note, but this is an amazing quality oolong! :)

No notes yet.

Drank the last of my samples from the wonderful Mr. Mopar today. I think raw pu’erh isn’t really my thing. This tea was good but didn’t get me excited to keep drinking it. This tea made a gold-yellow brew with citrus and grape skin flavors that reminded me of a Darjeeling tea.

This had some very large leaves in it, one of them really massive! I felt I had to take a picture of it (with my junky phone camera) which kind of looks like I used instagram filters or something, but that’s just how the pictures on my phone come out haha I drew in the rest, since this this monster of a leaf was only part of it, and the picture quality is pretty bad.

http://i1075.photobucket.com/albums/w433/thomascperez/-1_zpscb4852dc.jpg

My phone had Instagram before it was cool! lol :P

No notes yet.

Sipping my first brew from my first pu’erh cake. No classes this afternoon, so I’m settling down with a good book and a kettle of water on the stove :)

Edit: I doubt that the odd flavor was Pekko’s fault, it probably absorbed the scent from something else during its voyage across the pond; so I’m giving this a 70 as not to change the “Steepster Rating”

This tea is… Interesting…

Dry leaves: I opened up the bag and noticed a familiar smell that I couldn’t quite identify. The leaves are small, curly, and soft, and have a nice olive and white coloration.

Brewing: The leaves unfurled to reveal small young buds, and the liquer is a pleasant light yellow. While steeping it, I again smelled that smell that I couldn’t quite place.

Tasting: As I brought the cup to my lips, my brain cried out “TABASCO SAUCE!” for that is exactly the smell I had been thinking of. Confused, I took a sip and experienced a nice, light throat sensation and found a pleasantly bitter taste with notes of pine and melon… and, well, Tabasco sauce (not the spicyness, just the flavor)…

I’m now on the third steep, and still confused. The taste certainly isn’t unpleasant; in fact its growing on me, but I can’t seem to shake off the feeling that I’m drinking some very mild Tabasco.

For the benefit of my sanity, I may have to send some samples to someone o_0

This is a really interesting tea, pretty much unlike anything I’ve had

Dry leaves: Feel super feel super fresh and soft. They have a pineapple top shape and white, velvety skin.

Brewing: The leaves expand just a little bit, but retain their shape. The tea is the lightest colored brew I’ve seen, almost like water.

Taste: Very light with no bitterness at all. Hints of honeysuckle, green peppercorn, and fresh-cut leaves over an underlying note of fresh hay. This tea reminds me slightly of rosewater, and has a unique combination of fresh, earthy, and floral flavors.

Reminds me of: Trimming a gardenia bush on an damp, overcast day

Received my Yunnan Sourcing order today!
The teas smell great, but sadly the lid of the gaiwan I ordered was cracked despite some really intense bubble-wraping :(

Dry Leaves: Really lovely shiny golden buds with some black mixed in. They have a velvety feel, and are very soft and fresh feeling compared to other blacks I’ve had.

Brewing: They produce a gold-brown colored tea with a honey-like aroma. The leaves are almost all whole, and unfold to look like small needles of milk chocolate or fine leather.

Tasting: The first thing in noticed when drinking this tea was the powerful throat sensation. Definitely the strongest I’ve experienced. A typical Yunnan gold flavor with hints of sugar cane, spice, and I wouldn’t have thought of it, but as the description mentions, whiskey :)

It held out well for two steeps in my 12oz pot, and made a slightly weaker but still quite nice third steeping.

Reminds me of: Fancy hotels? Not sure why, its just the image this tea brings up for me :)

No notes yet.

Got this as a sample from Mandala with a teapot I ordered

This is pretty darn good! Similar to dragonwell, which usually isn’t my favorite, but I really enjoyed this tea. It has a nice nutty taste, more like macadamia than chestnut, which lingers for quite a while and gives a strong, pleasant tingling at the back of the throat. Its smoother than a dragonwell, kind of like a light oxidation oolong.

The leaves are nicely pressed and unbroken, and open up fully when brewing. This is a very light colored green tea, almost looks like a white or yellow.

The pot I ordered is very cute and has a nice pour, however the lid doesn’t seem to fit quite right, which is a little disappointing. It looks like the body of the pot was slightly warped during production, leaving the hole that the lid sits on slightly oval shaped, so it wont quite fit. Its a nice small pot though, and the lid trouble wont keep me from using it.

No notes yet.

Thank you, Nuvola teas, for this amazing sample!

Dry leaves: Opening the package I was hit with a very fresh, grassy smell, a lot like a good sencha, but with hints of fir. The rolled leaves have a lustrous, dark jade color and vary in size from gunpowder to larger than your pinky tip.

Brewing: The brew first turned to a mellow, light jade-green color and began to develop a slight golden hue as it approached readiness.

Wet leaves: While brewing, the leaves underwent the largest expansion I’ve seen! Each tight pellet turned to a large leaf or set of leaves on a broad, golden stem.

Tasting: The first steeping tasted very fresh; full and grassy but still remarkably smooth. Hints of fur, morning dew, and a slight whiff of wildflowers. It also had a subtly milky flavor and texture reminiscent of a milk oolong, and a very slight but pleasant resin-like astringency.

The second steep took on a more golden color and developed a natural honeysuckle sweetness. It was not as “fresh” of a taste as the first steeping, but more of a milky smoothness and was equally, if not more, enjoyable. It held out well for third and forth steepings, which developed subtle fruit noted of grapefruit and lychee.

Summary: A very relaxing oolong with a very smooth and fresh palate, similar in many ways to a milk oolong, but with high mountain tastes. I don’t think I could have possibly enjoyed it more. :)

Reminds me of: An early spring morning in the mountains of North Carolina (or perhaps the mountains of Taiwan, had I ever been there) :)

This pu’erh had very deep, chocolaty flavors with hints of mushroom and a rich, velvety mouthfeel. Reminiscent of a deep, mellow red wine.

Overall I think this was my favorite :)

This pu’erh was bolder in flavor and darker in color than the other samples. It also had considerably more of that pu’erh sweetness to it, and despite being bold it was still mellow. It had strong wood notes of cedar and oak, and also had a distinct “wild mushroom” flavor to it.

Overall I think seemed to be the finest and highest quality of the pu’erhs Mr. Mopar sent me

Deep burgundy color. The flavor is smooth and earthy with a medium body and has slight cedar, cocoa, and coffee flavors upfront, and ends with lighter citrus and hay notes, followed by a run-on sentence. :)

So begins the first of my backlogged mini-tasting notes on the great pu’erh samples sent to me by mrmopar. Thanks SO MUCH! I now know that the loose-leaf pu’erh I had bought really tasted like moldy mulch and just had a slight hint of good pu-erh flavor. These samples have got me hooked! :)

One thing I noticed when drinking a lot of pu’erhs this week is that it seemed to put a huge boost on my metabolism, which really took me by surprise, as its the most noticeable change I’ve experienced from drinking tea. Got that fiery feeling in my gut like after a long jog or yoga class.

Anyway, here’s my tasting notes:

This pu’erh had a slightly milder flavor than the others. The main flavor hints that I picked up in this one were walnut and oak. The earthy flavors dissipated slightly to reveal more black tea-like flavors in the later steepings. Overall I think this was the smoothest/mildest of the pu’erhs I tried. Reminded me slightly of a light-medium roast coffee.

Wow! This is good. Real good.

Dry leaves: Smells of fresh cut hay and slightly floral. The leaves are small, dark green, and curled tightly. They have a bit of the white “peach fuzz” of young bud teas.

Brewing: Brews to a mellow grey-gold color typical of whites and young-leaf greens. The leaves expand quite a bit, almost tripling in volume, but maintain a slight curl.

Taste: Very mellow flavor with no bitterness at all. This is a very multifaceted tea, and in addition to the “green” flavors it has the dried fruit and mineral qualities of Ti Guan Yin, and the lightness and natural sweetness of a white monkey. There is also just a slight bit of smokiness reminiscent of gunpowder.

Reminds me of: K-Pop! Wait, no… Maybe that’s just my roommate blasting “Gangnam Style” on repeat…

Reminds me of: Well, all I can seem to think of for this one is that it reminds me of really good green tea! I guess that will have to do. :)

Cons: Gets pretty weak by the third steeping

Thank you, Zen Teas, for the wonderful samples :)