Chrysalides Send Message

I’m a sucker for heavier shu puerhs with exotic profiles, from the antique to the woody. Camphornought, like white2tea’s Lumber Slut, is said to fit the profile of the latter. Camphor is a compound found in many species of trees, such as eucalyptus, which can be found on many pastures in my part of California. While these trees are not native and should be uprooted due to their penchant for being highly flammable, I still enjoy the smell of walking in a grove of them.

Camphornought is one of the best shus that I’ve tasted from W2T yet (admittedly, it’s not that many, I still have many to try over the winter). It’s very dark, has a strong body, and brings the woody notes as advertised. Immediately off the nose I smelled the old wooden fireworks stands which used to pop up in my town before the Fourth of July before they were banned due to forest fire concerns (well-warranted). There are the marks of a conventional shu puerh, such as the lingering baked starchy sweetness, but the smell of a Pacific Northwest rainforest every time you smell the wet leaf takes the cake. I only got minis of this one, but I may have to invest in a cake… or two… or three.

The idea of a tea collaboration, in the same vein as a music collaboration, is definitely novel. To my knowledge, no other vendors have done what white2tea and Kuura have done in jointly releasing a puerh cake. This was my first exposure to Kuura, having been familiar with W2T since my foray into the tea world in 2020, but it wasn’t until 2025 that I was able to secure a cake of Heresy for myself to finally try it.

There’s a lot about this tea that one could consider ‘progressive’ in the sense it is applied to rock and metal music. From the name to the wrapper art all the way down to the subtle soundcloud playlist that is hidden behind a QR code that only becomes visible once you unwrap this cake, a lot of stuff that has never been done before is being done here. It makes for a very unique tea drinking experience, something which I’m surprised other vendors, as well as the two vendors in question here, haven’t expanded upon. One can absolutely describe tea by taste and smell, but through hearing?

The playlist is eclectic, featuring everything from lo-fi bedroom pop to country. As for the tea, it is a refreshing herbal and medicinal sheng, not fruity and bright like a certain vendor I’m all too accustomed to drinking, but something ancient and mysterious. I wouldn’t call it sacrilegious, it is actually rather quite orthodox in its approach, bringing me to the deepest fog-laden tea forest in Yunnan. The mouthfeel is smooth and coats the teeth, and the body is decently thick.

Heresy definitely brings a unique tea drinking experience, hopefully something other vendors someday catch on to – its been three years since this tea came out and I still haven’t seen anything like it since. Providing an atmosphere, an identity, which transcends just drinking the tea but rather transforming the session itself is something that could take tea drinking to the next level, but how many vendors are willing to radically commit themselves to the bit? In the end, while Heresy is an above average sheng, it is an exceptional experience, pushing the boundary of gongfu brewing into the 21st century. Dare I say it’s a postmodern tea ceremony?

Kuura is an Australian vendor that one of my friends turned me on to a while back. A month or two ago, thanks to tariff uncertainty, I decided to make a spur of the moment order just in case ordering from them became more expensive, if not impossible. They were understanding of my situation as an American, and sent the tea on express post with no additional shipping charge. Turned out my anxiety was well-founded, as Australia Post halted shipments to the USA a few days after I received the tea, which has made things very complicated for receiving tea from these guys, especially the annual tea club which I have been a part of since 2022.

The main headliners of that order was a collab production between Kuura and white2tea called ‘Heresy’ which I will sample soon. I also got two white tea cakes, but a few coins of this black tea production were included as a freebie. I’ve always liked the design of Kuura’s cakes (they take a very postmodern approach to presentation), and this one is no exception. I snapped the cake in half to fit in my Nixing pot and got started on a late September morning brew.

Not a lot to speak of in terms of smell off the wet leaf, and the first infusion was an interesting fusion of muscatel astringency, with a lot of emphasis on the tip of the tongue. This is a very grapey black tea, fitting for my being in the heart of America’s wine country, and by the third infusion it really reveals itself. I can see this being the type of tea that’s accessible to anyone, although I would not necessarily say I would utilize it as a daily drinker since I prefer heavier and more malty black teas, and it also has a very pronounced drying effect that I’m not a huge fan of. Nevertheless, a solid choice for a little throw-in tea, and I definitely left this session happy. Can’t wait to try the rest of the offerings I got (I have been keeping them in storage for the last month and a half waiting for the right moment).

The last of my green tea haul from W2T that I did earlier this April (and had to wait over a month to receive due to tariff issues). With summer coming to a close, it’s time to clear out the rest of my greens and get ready to lean into those heavy puerhs and yanchas for the winter. I saved the best for last – a high quality picking of Guizhou’s Mao Jian, dubbed mao jian king.

Right off the back, some excellent umami and edamame sweetness. Despite it being so late in the season (this is a PQM green) it still tastes fresh and has a youthful, exuberant character. You have to really focus to pick up the more vegetal notes, a quality I prefer in green tea, and something which really sets apart the Chinese greens from the much more popular (at the moment) Japanese greens which are steamed as opposed to roasted.

I recall this being an expensive tea, and the less expensive alternatives (he had a gan lu which was comparable and while still pricey, not as much so) held up to it well. Despite not being known for green teas, I feel like W2T nailed this limited release and I’m excited for its return next Spring.

Probably one of the better hot weather shu puerhs I’ve had. A limited production run by Mei Leaf back in like 2021 or 2022 that sold out quickly. While its two sequels have had larger production runs, this one has been largely forgotten (especially in my cupboard). Not much to write home about besides the fact Don was smart pairing a largely mineral and smooth shu with the chen pi. He tried to replicate it with the sequel but it was a bit soupier if I recall correctly.

I won’t lie, not too enthralled with the idea of smoked shu puerh. I’ve drank smoked lapsangs before and the smokiness dominates the tea in a way that makes it very one-dimensional and uninteresting. W2T has been making a lot of these smoked shu pressings lately so I assume they’re pretty popular with customers. Not willing to commit to a full cake of the stuff, I ordered a couple mini samples of the 2021 pressing of Smokeshou, one of the first experimental releases of this new tea style.

From the dry leaf, I figured the smokiness wouldn’t be too insane, but upon a rinse the smoke came out like a Northern California wildfire, ready to destroy my tastebuds. I tried really hard to smell the puerh but couldn’t come up with anything – oh brother. The first infusion was all smoke, not good, but the second infusion gave me a little window into the appeal of this tea. There was a little bit of puerh behind the smoke, enough to differentiate it from a lapsang. This is truly a winter tea, and I feel like I’m committing sacrilege by drinking it during the Californian indian summer hellscape. I could totally see myself sipping away at this on a freezing day, listening to some depressing slowcore or shoegaze while dreaming for warmer months. I wanted to hate this tea so bad, but in the end it left a favorable impression on me. Not something I’d drink everyday, but it definitely has its time and place.

Another miscellaneous Old Ways tea club tea that survived in my cupboard. This was part of an edition of the club that I vaguely remember from earlier this year which had both a small and medium roast production of the same DHP. As I’m not a big fan of the lighter yancha cultivars, I far preferred the medium, so I’m surprised this packet eluded my thirst.

All in all, strictly run of the mill yancha. It’s not fruity like the higher quality DHPs, focusing rather on the spicy and charcoal minerality characteristic of a rou gui or a shui xian. It deserves a little bit of a higher rating than a generic yancha because the flavor held out for longer than I expected. Otherwise not too much to write home about; have had many better DHPs…

The first rainstorm of the year, an early and humid one in early September, spurred me to bring out my favorite rainy day tea type, the dancong oolong. While I had exhausted my stocks last winter, I still had some left over of my favorite Ya Shi, truly one of the best teas that Mei Leaf has put out. Year in and year out, this one hits hard, being a wonderful companion to the smell of petrichor and the sound of Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.

Butterscotch, toffee, and lychee dominate the taste buds with a thick sweetness on the back of the tongue. It holds up very well, with several rapid infusions in the Chaozhou teapot leading to endless bliss and introspection. It’s hard to find a tea better than this, perhaps one day I’ll find some better material from a better vendor, but then Steepster would need to change the rating domain from 0 to 200. Until then, this is probably the best tea I’ve ever drank, only challenged by Taiwanese high mountain oolong and aged sheng with tobacco notes.

A late-night session after a very hot summer day. This tea is from a past Old Ways Tea club of which I don’t remember, and unfortunately I tossed the information sheet so I’m going into this one blind. Shui Jin Gui, or ‘golden turtle’, is one of the higher-end yancha cultivars and I really have never had many opportunities to taste it, similar to Tielouhan.

Off the rinse, the smell is intensely charcoal with emerging scents of dark berries after the leaves cooled down., while the color is not as dark as I expected it to be. I put it aside to save for later. The first infusion is surprisingly abrasive, with a lot of on the nose tart and citrusy notes, with a hint of hot wax. Not a lot to write home about, and not a lot I could get my finger on in terms of tasting notes. The smell of the wet leaves was now entirely mineral, which definitely did not do anything to assuage my fears that this was gonna be a dud.

Second infusion was better, this tea performs best when you aren’t trying to think about its tasting notes. And in reality, that’s pretty much the theme of the entire session. I don’t know if it was just me not being on my game, or if this tea truly is that much of a conundrum, but I am not exactly going to show any sorrow for this one departing my collection.

Autumn and winter are fast approaching, and apart from a few sporadic heat waves, the summer here in California has been uncharacteristically cool. With that in mind, I found it time to splurge on some W2T material – I don’t buy from this vendor as much as the average loose leaf tea enthusiast in the West, mainly because of some bad past experiences with shipping. I won the shipping lottery this time however and received my tea in a little under two weeks (the last shipment took almost two months due to tariff uncertainty).

One of the many shu puerhs I ordered is Pretty Girls, a 2021 production which is marketed as a sweet and velvety tea. It doesn’t break the bank, and was one I got just to cast a wide net of the types of shu this vendor has to offer.

The taste notes of this tea lean largely on the side of baked, yeasty, and starchy notes. It does not explode in your mouth nor is the soup thick, but it is rather smooth. The color of the liquor at its peak is moderately dark, with some light passing through. All in all, the taste matches the pricing; it’s a decent tea that will give you the more accessible characteristics of a shu, at the expense of a truly memorable session.