Leafhopper Send Message

I’m drinking the spring 2020 iteration of this much-loved Shan Lin Xi. I’ve written notes on the 2017 and 2018 versions already and there’s not much to add, but I had to give a shoutout to how great it is.

Steeped according to my usual parameters, I get that lovely jammy cherry, orchid, cream, wheatgrass, papaya, spinach, and lettuce, plus some new-to-me notes of coconut and vanilla. That SLX balsam note comes out in later steeps, along with some honeyed florals. The creamy vanilla cushions the vegetal fade, which, as in other harvests, comes too soon for my liking.

I just chugged eight steeps of this tea in less than an hour and a half, which is kind of a record for me. In spite of its lack of longevity, this is one of my favourite oolongs and I’m raising the rating accordingly. Other teas can spend years in my cupboard, but I’ll be surprised if this one lasts more than a month.

I don’t know why I ignored this tea for five years. I love Bai Hao, so I must have just forgotten about it. I steeped 5 g of my 10 g sample in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 30, 20, 20, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of honey and stonefruit. The first steep has notes of honey, faint malt, grass, and flowers (orchids?). I get faint plums and berries in the second steep, though they’re more in the aroma than the taste. The third and fourth steeps have notes of cranberries, currants, sap, pleasant sourness, honey, flowers, nutmeg, baked bread, and grass. It kind of reminds me of a GABA oolong. The last few steeps have flavours of GABA tang, honey, dried fruit, and sap.

I really struggled to describe the taste of this tea and found it to be all over the place in terms of flavour. While it had many of the notes I associate with Bai Hao, it more closely resembled a GABA oolong to me. This could be because of its age, although I have other older teas of this type and they haven’t changed that much. I’m sending my remaining 5 g to Derk, who might be able to figure this tea out.

I received this tea as a sample in my 2019 Lochan order. As I don’t drink Assam often, it’s been sitting in my drawer, but I broke it out today in an effort to give myself some much-needed energy. I steeped 4 g of tea in a 355 ml mug at 195F for 4, 6, and 8 minutes.

The dry aroma is of autumn leaves and malt. The first steep is all about the malt, with notes of tannins, autumn leaf pile, a touch of bready sweetness, and wood. There’s a slight astringency, but not as much as in some Assams I’ve had. The malt, baked bread, and tannins become more prominent in the next two steeps.

This is a no-nonsense Assam that gets the job done. However, Lochan carries Assams, notably their Harmutty Golden Lion, that are more to my taste.

This was my second mystery oolong from the Black Friday sale. As someone who’s not a fan of roasted oolongs, I did not approach this tea with the same enthusiasm as I did the Jade Oolong. Hoping to minimize the roast, I steeped it as I would a wuyi oolong: 6 g in a 120 ml teapot at 200F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of chocolate, honey, smoke, and roast. The first steep reveals that the roast is not as pronounced as I feared. I get honey, toasted grain, roast, chicory, smoke, and faint flowers. A mineral note appears in steep two, but sadly, no chocolate. I get a muddled dark chocolate note in the next couple steeps, along with wood, more roast, and lots of honey and grain. There’s also a floral and grassy aftertaste. The next four rounds offer consistent flavours of honey, cereal, nuts, mild roast, and grass, along with a slick body. The last few steeps are full of roast and minerals.

This is a solid, comforting tea that does not display much flavour variation. To be honest, I found it a bit boring, although its profile is not one I gravitate toward. This is pretty inoffensive and does show some characteristics I associate with Wuyi oolongs, but I won’t be sad to see it go.

I got this as a mystery tea in my Black Friday What-Cha haul. It’s something I probably never would have ordered, but it fits my interest in Taiwanese oolongs. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of orange blossom, honeysuckle, and cream. The first steep has notes of butter, baked bread, lilac, orange blossom, honeysuckle, cream, lavender, faint fruit, and grass. The fruit resolves itself into cantaloupe and citrus in the second steep, and the orange blossom becomes stronger. I also get hints of corn and spinach. The grassy, vegetal, and spinach notes grow stronger in the third steep, but those citrus, orange blossom, and melon notes do as well. By the fifth steep, I get more vegetal flavours, plus minerals and umami. However, it’s still full of orange blossom, honeysuckle, lilac, and other flowers I can’t put a name to. As the session progresses, the vegetal, umami, and mineral flavours gradually take over, although the tea retains its florality for a long time.

This oolong punches well above its price point and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. It has a wide range of floral notes and the hints of melon and lavender were a pleasant surprise. While it’s not as nuanced as a high mountain oolong, it’s definitely one of the nicer low elevation teas I’ve had in a while.

I’d like to wish everyone on Steepster a belated happy new year. Let’s hope 2021 will bring better things. (After 2020, the bar is set pretty low.)

In honour of National Marzipan Day, I’m drinking this very old tea from 2016 or thereabouts. I steeped around 4 g of leaf in a 355 ml mug at 185F for 3.5, 5, and 8 minutes.

Surprisingly, the aroma of almond and amaretto is still pretty strong. The first steep has notes of almond, marzipan, cherry, and grass, though the tea is a little stale. These flavours persist in the second steep, with the green tea becoming more grassy and slightly astringent in the third.

This is a nice, if not memorable, tea that probably hasn’t been improved by sitting so long at the back of my cupboard. I enjoyed the amaretto and marzipan, but the green tea not so much. I’d give it a 65, but will hold off since it’s so old. Thanks, Mastress Alita, for the suggestion to revisit it.

I don’t think I’m the only one who’s happy that 2020 is ending. Like many of you, I’ll be spending the holidays alone. I was going to get together with my family, but the widespread lockdown and rising case counts in Ontario made us change our plans at the last minute. With things feeling less than festive, I’ve decided to dip into my tiny stash of pricy, aspirational teas that I’ve been hoarding for several years. I always worry that I won’t appreciate these treasures, or conversely, that they’ll ruin me for all the good but not great tea I can afford to drink regularly. Nonetheless, I’ll be sampling some of these teas throughout the holidays.

This green Tie Guan Yin is from spring 2016. I steeped my entire 7 g sample in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma of these still green leaves is of citrus, orchid, cream, baked bread, and apple. The first steep has notes of orange, apricot, orchid, baked bread, cream, violet, lilac, honeysuckle, grass, apple, butter, and herbs (Eastkyteaguy says parsley, and I agree). The second steep adds honey and a pungent note of zucchini. The third gives me more lilac and orchid, as well as gardenia, sweet pea, custard, grapefruit, peach, melon, peas, spinach, and minerals. (That peachy aftertaste alone is enough of a reason to buy this tea!) I love how the fruit, florals, and veggies are so balanced.

In the next few steeps, the tea gets less fruity, with the florals, veggies, umami, herbs, and creamy sweetness balancing out. However, I still get those apple/melon/stonefruit notes if I look for them. I also get some pepper and metallic notes, with a lemon-like tang. There’s a pleasant sourness by steep seven. The tea keeps becoming more pungent and vegetal, but is still surprisingly balanced and enjoyable until the end of the session.

This is easily the best Tie Guan Yin I’ve had the pleasure of tasting. At $29 for 50 grams, it’s expensive but not out of reach. I’ve paid $15 per ounce for Li Shan and Bai Hao teas from Taiwan, though admittedly, I usually get only one ounce. I won’t wait another four years to buy more of this tea!

I think Derk/White Antlers may have given me a sample of this tea, but I also bought a bag of the 2018 harvest, which is what I’m drinking. I steeped 4 g of leaf in a 355 ml mug at 195F for 5 and 8 minutes.

The dry aroma is of hay, chocolate, roses, and stonefruit. The aroma from the cup was so enticing that I sipped this while it was still really hot and now have a slightly burned tongue. The dark chocolate is very prominent, followed, in order of detection, by peach, apricot, nectarine, honey, tangy dried fruit, citrus, rose, cannabis, herbs, wood, smoke, orange blossom, hay, malt, minerals, tannin, cream, and roasted almond. As it cools, the muscatel, stonefruit, and citrus notes become more apparent in the tea and in the aftertaste. I also see how people are getting cherry from this. The second steep is almost as good, featuring fewer of the fruit and chocolate notes and more of the malt/tannins/hay. I get autumn leaves and more astringency.

I was blown away by this tea as soon as I tried it, burned tongue notwithstanding. I immediately tried to find it on the website, only to learn it was out of stock. This is one of the best Nepalese teas I’ve had and one of the highlights of 2020.

Yesterday I received the small Teavivre order I placed on Black Friday. Three weeks in the mail is pretty good, especially considering that it’s the holidays on top of a pandemic. I had some trouble checking out and didn’t request any samples, but Teavivre included two free 7 g packs of this tea, which was incredibly generous. Perhaps they knew I like Taiwanese high mountain oolongs? Anyway, I couldn’t resist cutting one of them open and decided to follow their steeping instructions, brewing the entire 7 g in my 120 ml teapot in boiling water for 25, 25, 30, 40, 60, 90, 120, and 180 seconds.

The dry aroma of these large green nuggets is of orchids, honeysuckle, other flowers, and sugar cookies. The first steep has a nice silky texture and notes of orchids, honeysuckle, butter, cream, spinach, grass, and cookies. I love the lingering, sweet aftertaste. The second steep gives me that sappy note I sometimes get in high mountain oolongs, along with more cookies, some umami, and faint apple and stonefruit. The aftertaste switches from sweet to grassy. The next couple steeps are greener, with notes of spinach and kale, although the tea is still floral, slightly fruity, and sweet. This tea keeps getting greener as the session goes on, but the florals and sweetness keep it interesting.

Having associated Teavivre mainly with Chinese teas, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this Taiwanese oolong. I love its sweet florals, although perhaps due to my brewing parameters, it was greener than I generally prefer. Maybe shorter steeps will make the fruit and florals pop!

I’ve heard a lot of good things on Steepster about this tea. Thanks, Derk and/or White Antlers, for the sample, which even if WP’s shipping to Canada were more reasonable, I probably never would have tried. I haven’t gongfued a jasmine tea before, but people have done it with this version, so here goes. I steeped 5 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus five or six more long, uncounted brews.

The dry aroma of these fuzzy little curls is of heady jasmine and a touch of malt and earth from the black tea. There’s something about jasmine that makes me think of banana, which I’m weirdly tasting here, and I don’t get much of the base tea. In the second steep, the black tea shows its malty, earthy presence, which is a bit of a relief as I thought my taste buds had been completely overwhelmed by the jasmine. By steep three, the jasmine smells and tastes less perfumey, which I appreciate, and it blends beautifully with the cocoa, earth, honey, and malt of the black tea. Like other reviewers before me, I also taste grape, though that could be another association with the fruity jasmine.

By steep five, the black tea asserts itself more strongly, with notes of autumn leaf pile, malt, sweet potato, honey, cream, a touch of astringency, and florals (though of course, the jasmine helps with that). During the middle of the session, the black tea and jasmine are perfectly balanced and the tea has a smooth, silky texture. I steeped this tea several more times than I initially intended to get all the jasmine, which still worked well as the black tea became more earthy, mineral, and tannic.

I now understand why people rave about this tea. While it’s not something I’d want to have every day, it’s surprisingly well balanced and tasty.