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I tried to refuse samples from Wymm mainly because I’m just too old to expect to age out tea this green. But they decided that makes me a challenging customer to win over. I suggested the Laohuangpian in the hope of getting some of the older and sweeter leaves, at least it might be a tea I’d consider purchasing. Plus it is one of their least expensive Sheng offerings.

Brewed up the single session sample, got about 8 decent steeps. Might have got the tea to go longer but I was already nearly a good two minutes steep time. It is huangpian so I don’t expect these leaves to have a ton of power. I was impressed at the initial bitterness which always bodes well for aging, and the grape flavor instead of apricot. To me the grape champagne is a better tasting leaf in drinkable young sheng, if not always the best ager.

I’d be happier with this cake at a $30-35 price point but it was pleasant enough. The packaging though gave me a huge blog topic to write about and for that I’m very grateful for the sample. My longer post is at http://deathbytea.blogspot.com

7 grams of this gave it up early with a heavy Bulang brew. Leaf quality is excellent for a factory cake, many buds. Supposedly this tea cake contains 10% Laobanzhang. In my observation, I would say the 90% Spring Bulang is carrying the cake flavor-wise, and the LBZ is chop, appears to be either autumn or summer or just leftover chop used as filler. I get the full flavor of the bitter Bulang with apricot tones. The leaf has a sourish smell, and the soup is cloudy which tells me the beeng is busy fermenting.

The leaf quality and flavor bring to mind white2tea’s Amerykah cakes, and other higher quality Bulang I’ve tried. Gave out around 8 steeps for me, after that I could push it and get the bitter but not much depth left.

A point of ponder for me is the current price tag. It is $129 for 400 g at Tea Urchin which puts it on par with white2tea price-wise, aside from any reassurance people might get from the testing white2tea does on their cakes. One can expect the price of this cake to go up yearly. However, I don’t think the LBZ in the cake, which is what will drive the price tag, is enough here to justify the price. For me the question is whether I want to pay $129 for Bulang. Even though this would age well, I’m more inclined to purchase a decent 7542 factory recipe with 10 years age on it at this price point, and look for an all-Bulang cake at a far lower price. I’d feel more comfortable with this cake at around $80-90 which won’t happen because of the LBZ. The truth though is this is really a Bulang cake in the end in terms of how it goes with flavor now and later on.

Overall this cake needs 15 years which is too long and a deciding factor for me. However, I’d look around if I’m in the market for a young Bulang to age, I think I can do better on the price.

This one still needs a couple more years to clear up and lose the funk. Has a nice port smell I’m not tasting in the cup, mostly getting earthy and woody flavors. I’m surprised at how similar this is to 7572, flavor-wise, but more twiggy. A little disappointing a “tribute” cake is this twiggy. But it is early days with this cake, a couple more years and it could be stunning.

I am really grateful for the generous sample, since this cake is now costing $70 from Berylleb. I think this price is 2x too much to pay at this point, but perhaps the cake is getting scarce and that is the reason for the high tag. Paying for the label? But right now I can buy white2tea’s 2014 Lao Cha Tou, same gram weight as a full cake of this tea, for half the price, and a much better cup. Still, that thought won’t stop me from drinking this up.

Received sample from a friend. The dry storage on this is excellent, the tea has lost none of its original scent and flavor. Highly floral, still rather green. Brewed up about 7 grams.

Very sweet honey aftertaste, bitter edge but not terribly astringent.

I’m drinking this 10 years into the life of the leaf and it is in the process of changing from a young tea to a teenage tea. The tea is a dark yellow. In fact the tea is slightly cloudy and I smell and taste a malty ferment. The smoky char is also changing. This tea is in flux, which a good sign. I’d be pulling out this cake come summer and let it get full-on humidity.

Bravo on these nugs, got 300 g and dunno if I have enough. I reviewed these somewhat on my blog, but now today after steeping a small amount of this tea for 3 days, 20+ steeps, I’m gonna boil the leaves. Five minutes of a boil in an enamel pan. I got a thick coffee colored brew that tasted very minerally.

Gushing on these nuggets because they taste great, and are an incredible value at $5.50 for 50 grams, 3 days of steepings plus a boil or two after that!

I’ve been (tea) Pimped!

I took photos of the boiling, I don’t know how to post links, I’m new to tweeters and Grammies but I’m cwynsdeathbytea on Instagram.

Got a sampler pack of this in a swap. The leaf looks exactly as the photo, dark roast but then some lightly roasted pieces mixed in.

Brews up a light yellow, more like a white tea. Honey flavor is dead on, intense and long sweet finish on the tongue and lips. Don’t brew this western style, it can turn bitter when oversteeped and lose all the delicacy. Instant warm feet, literally like pins of warmth throughout my feet, faster delivery than my feet could adjust to!

Not the sort of thing I would buy as I tend to prefer darker and more robust oolong if I’m going to the trouble to brew oolong. But it is a perfect accompaniment to cakes, fruits and cheeses, a superb tea for guests who don’t want to drink puerh that smells like gym socks.

I bought a tin of 2014 harvest last year and am just getting around to drinking it now.

The leaf is dark, very chopped and thin compared to Chinese leaf tea, like tea leaf flakes. I’m drinking it gong fu in a gaiwan, but with every pour my inner logic keeps saying “get out the kyusu,” because I keep losing too many bits into the cup. However, I’m lazy and a kyusu just says spring and right now the winter is holding fast. This tea definitely needs a strainer. That is the bad part.

The good is the taste is very unique. The tea brews up golden brown rather than red, and has something of a maple syrup, burnt oak and ginger taste profile. Recently I’ve also been drinking a black tea beeng cake from Yunnan Sourcing which tastes more like Tetley or ordinary black tea, but this Charleston tea has nothing of that usual black tea taste I’m familiar with. It doesn’t have the thickness, but lasts a good six flash steeps or more.

It is, however, kind of like a bag of snacks I keep eating long past what I really need or want. After I get my six or seven steeps, I dump the leaves and start again fresh. I can go three sessions a night on this stuff compared to one or two of the Chinese counterpart. A good tea for lightweights or newbies, an interesting taste profile for the regular tea drunk who usually drinks a whiskey sheng and is now making do with Pabst. Crumple the can, throw it in the bucket and grab another and whoops, I guess that twelve pack is history.

The tin is cool and I plan to keep it. This tea is sold out from last year and you have a couple months window maybe to get one. Bought mine right from the company website. I have the green also left to taste.

Edit: this tea is really growing on me over the past couple of weeks. Drinking it frequently. The caffeine level and qi in the middle of my back is awesome, I’m loving the mental clarity. Raised the rating by 5 points.

I actually have the 2014 spring, there seems to be multiple entries for this tea on Steepster and I don’t want to add another one just to change the year. I’m guessing this tea is probably fairly consistent per harvest, and you can get spring, summer or autumn pickings of Laoshan green.

Probably should have started drinking this earlier but I lost my enthusiasm somewhat when shipment of this tea was delayed by two months, and getting this spring harvest required a pre-order. I can’t fault Verdant for delays in their tea shipment from China, but I do fault not updating customers until we complained individually. Enough of us complained individually that Verdant started doing weekly updates. By the time I got the tea I was just glad it was all over and I didn’t need to keep track of it any longer.

I opened this today after receiving a gift of a Zojirushi water boiler from a tea friend who had it and was using another system to boil water. What a great gift! I feel like I have a Kwik Trip next to the bed now. I’m still experimenting with the settings, and it will take time for the system to lose the off taste that most electric kettle systems have when fairly new. I’m thinking of adding one of my pieces of charcoal bamboo which would be sooo awesome if it works out to improve my water even more!

Anyway, the Laoshan green has a beautiful slightly rolled leaf. I used a heaping tbsp of tea in my 140 ml gaiwan. I’m not getting any of the oat cereal flavor the description mentions. To me it smells and tastes rather like sencha or gyokuro, like a raw spinach. I’m brewing a little hot at 208 F but I’ve learned to do that with spinachy teas or else they are just gaggingly sweet. I like it a bit bitter, more of a tea taste as opposed to wet salad.

My rating here reflects the quality of the leaf. I think these types of greens are a matter of acquired taste and not for people new to tea. What is to be appreciated are the early spring nutrients, fresh green flavor etc. The leaf quality is exquisite, since it is first flush it resembles other first flush pickings with delicate, small and fragrant leaves. My personal taste leans toward strongly fermented tea or highly oxidized blacks lately. This is after nearly 15 years of drinking a pot of green tea every day for health reasons. Wish I had this tea back then, but I’m glad now that I can get this tea and fermented teas even more to my taste.

I had some physical issues with drinking this tea but didn’t go into too much detail on my blog because it’s a little gross. But I feel better talking about it on Steepster because people examine the physical effects of tea and sickness more directly and without any fanfare. Another issue is this tea has been so much discussed in the past on blogs and forums, and I am feeling like past discussions deserve a new look because I’m not convinced the tea is the same today as it was 5-10 years ago.

I brewed this up super strong, 8 grams per 125 ml yielding a thick brew, a bit orange from my Yixing pot. My inner tea drunk swang like a monkey over 8 steeps. The tea was not steeped out yet when I quit, and I kept the leaf for several days before throwing it out. If I could’ve steeped it out, I would have. This tea packed quite a punch of bitter with that undertone of floral I like so well in the black tea versions of this same leaf (light roast and regular roast. The brick has everything we would want in an age-er.

Yet the writing about this brick from 2005-8 indicate a sweet, gentle brew and people who own those years today say the brick turned flat and tasteless. That it is a drink-now kind of tea. Is this really the same tea? The one I tasted is a kick in the gut, not a kind and gentle brew by any stretch. I was flash brewing gong fu too. We’ve read about how recent droughts have concentrated tea leaves. Do you guys think this tea has changed at all, is the leaf stronger now? Or am I just a lightweight? Or will other people who drink Bulang raw or young Xiaguan use these as a comparison point for wild purple?

I paid for my tea drunk with a complete bowel clean out the next day. Before I blame the tea entirely, two other factors must be noted, one is bowel cramping from menopausal menstruation, another is I took naproxen (an NSAID) for back pain. Have any of you had issues with NSAID use and raw sheng puerh? Otherwise, I normally drink more highly aged tea and better quality tea leaf than this which won’t affect my gut, so maybe it is the tea.

I paid $30 for a tong of bricks and this 2013 edition is now sold out. Without the physical issues, I have to say I love this leaf. Seems like people either love it or it is a meh. But I might tuck these away for my son someday and stick to the black tea version if the raw really causes me distress. Too bad for me, it is one tasty cup.

Oh crud, I did what several other reviewers did here and oversteeped this one. It’s deceivingly strong compared to the color. I am used to getting a dark brew with high fired oolong teas, this one has a strong flavor when the soup color is just a light sienna. I got 4 strong steeps from this but long brewed just about all. Probably could have squeezed out 8 steeps from the sample had I not overdone the brew times. Pretty tasty stuff, the leaves are yellow green once the roast steeps out.