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Thanks to Daylon for sending me this tea! I have a couple of Wang’s competition teas in my museum archives, but this sample is the first one I’ve tried. Like Daylon, I was tempted to get this tea instead of the Competition Shan Cha I eventually bought, but I worried the roast would be too heavy. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml pot using boiling water for 50, 40, 55, 70, 90, 120, 150, 180, and 240 seconds, plus some uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of charcoal, chestnuts, orchids, other flowers, and grass. The first steep has notes of chestnuts, grain, charcoal, orchids, honey, and grass. I get hints of peach in the second steep, along with a little more charcoal and some florals. Sadly, the peach disappears after this steep, and the tea is buttery, nutty, and roasty with lots of florals to balance it out. By steep six, I start getting the minerals and pine that Daylon mentioned, and the roast is becoming more pronounced. Later steeps have a saline quality, lots of chestnuts and roast, and a surprisingly floral and grassy aftertaste.

While this is definitely a roasted tea, it’s nicely balanced with the chestnuts and florals. The tea is pleasant to drink and the flavours evolve in an interesting way. I wish there was more fruit, and while the thick body and florality remind me of Lishan, I’m not sure I would have guessed the terroir if it wasn’t on the label. I don’t think I could finish 75 g, but I will enjoy the rest of this sample.

After the great pre-Qinming Teavivre Bi Luo Chun I enjoyed earlier this year, I wanted to try something a bit more moderately priced. This Bi Luo Chun seemed like a good option to get me over the free shipping threshold. I steeped 4 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot using 185F water for 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds. These parameters don’t match the ones given by the vendor because I have issues with bitterness when steeping greens for a longer time. I also bowl steeped 3 g of leaf in 250 ml of water at 185F, starting at 2.5 minutes and refilling as necessary.

These fuzzy little curls are very pretty! The dry aroma is of beans, asparagus, butter, and florals. The first steep has notes of beans, asparagus, butter, grass, florals, and nuts, and the body is thick and fuzzy. It has a strange honey/asparagus aftertaste. The next steep has more spring flowers and something I’ll call pear, but also more asparagus and bitter veggies. The next couple steeps have a good balance of beans, asparagus, nuts, kale, and grass, with some nice florality. The final steeps are more grassy and vegetal, but bitterness is still kept at a minimum.

Bowl steeped, the tea seems more beany and nutty, with the asparagus, florals, and grass emerging in later steeps. The tea becomes grassy and mineral near the end of the session, though the bitterness never gets out of hand.

This is a nice Bi Luo Chun that I didn’t find as compelling as the one from Teavivre. Maybe that one was higher quality, or maybe it seemed better because I drank it when it was fresh. Either way, this is a floral, refreshing BLC that never got too bitter and was pleasant to drink in this warm weather.

I’ve been on a bit of a yellow tea kick lately. It’s usually less astringent than green tea, and hopefully keeps better for longer. Mo Gan Huang Ya is new to me, as I’ve previously only tried yellow teas from Huo Shan. I followed the vendor’s instructions and steeped 5 g of leaf in 120 ml of water at 185F for 30, 45, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120, 150, 180, and 240 seconds. I also bowl steeped about 3 g of tea in 250 ml of 185F water starting at 3 minutes, then refilling the vessel as necessary.

The dry aroma is of nuts, hay, grass, and florals. The first steep has notes of hazelnuts, corn, butter, and grass. The second steep is a bit astringent, suggesting that I shouldn’t have extended the steeping time so long. Hazelnuts, grass, and tannins are the main flavours. The next couple steeps have a thicker body and lots of hazelnuts, butter, grass, and spring flowers, though also some astringency. Further rounds lean toward kale and grass and are quite a bit more astringent.

Grampa steeped, this tea starts off with buttery hazelnuts, grass, hay, and kale. The middle steeps are nutty, buttery, and grassy, with some corn and melon notes. The final steeps have notes of lettuce, kale, and minerals, but never get overly bitter.

This is a nice yellow tea whose differences from Huo Shan Huang Ya are quite subtle. As usual with green and yellow teas, grandpa steeping produces better, less astringent results at the expense of some complexity.

I like new-to-me fruity black teas, so buying this was a no brainer. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot using 195F water for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, 180, and 240 seconds. I also used the vendor’s parameters of 6 g in 120 ml at 195F for 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of plum, raisin, earth, malt, lavender, and florals. The first steep has notes of raisins, plums, forest floor, malt, honey, pine, lavender, florals, and wood. There are some tannins, though maybe that’s because I accidentally poured more slowly than usual. The next steep has a fruity flavour I can’t pin down that’s something like lychee. Steeps three and four have more honey, plum, malt, and earth and are quite sweet. Honey, earth, and malt predominate in subsequent steeps, and they have a sweet honey aftertaste that can get cloying.

With longer steeping times, the tea becomes more balanced but a little less fruity, with more pronounced violet florals and tannins. I actually like this method better, though later steeps can turn earthy, tannic, and brassy.

This is a nice daily drinker, and I finished the pouch without really trying. I appreciate the fruitiness and lack of bitterness.

Taiwanese green Tie Guan Yins are few and far between, possibly because they’re hard to grow. Given my love of Anxi Tie Guan Yin and gaoshan and my wonderful experience with What-Cha’s Lishan Tie Guan Yin, I couldn’t resist buying this tea. At $13 for 25 g, the price was also fair for Taiwanese green TGY, which I’ve seen go for $30 for 25 g. In one session, I followed the vendor’s instructions and steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot using boiling water for 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210, and 240 seconds, plus 5, 6, and 7 minute steeps. I also used my regular parameters of 6 g in 120 ml with 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 180, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of orchids, violets, honeysuckle, grass, cream, green apple, and candied apricot. The first steep has a nice, thick body and notes of orchid, gardenia, honeysuckle, violet, cream, coriander, green apple, and grass. I can taste the slightly sour, grassy TGY alongside all the SLX florals. The tea continues to be creamy, grassy, and floral in the next steep, with violets and apricots being more apparent. Like the What-Cha Tie Guan Yin, there’s an ethereal quality to this tea. The next couple steeps are a bit more fruity, highlighting apricot, green apple, peach, and a little cream corn. The grassiness starts to intensify in steeps five and six, though there’s still plenty of florals, cream, and fruit. The end of the session is predictably grassy and vegetal, though the florals hold on for a while.

Using my regular steeping parameters, I get a slightly thinner-bodied tea with many of the same flavours, though I detect pineapple, lavender, and something herbaceous in early infusions. The green apple, apricot, pineapple, and even peach are quite noticeable, maybe even more so than in longer steeps.

This tea ticks all the boxes for me. It isn’t quite as special as the What-Cha version, but I would definitely repurchase it. There’s a 15% off sale happening right now until the end of the month that I’m resisting because my tea museum has expanded beyond all reasonable proportions and is threatening to get its own post code. However, my willpower has been very low this year, so we’ll see!

Derk, I found more of this tea! I steeped 4 g of leaf in 355 ml of water at 190F for 4, 5, and 7 minutes.

The dry aroma is of cut grass, narcissus, chili leaf, and faint citrus and muscatel. The first steep has notes of grass, chili leaf, pine, spinach, florals, and faint muscatel. Subsequent steeps are greener, emphasizing spinach, grass, and asparagus.

The vendor said this tea was good until spring 2024, but I think it has already faded. Sorry for giving you a dead tea!

I bought this tea based on its description, which promised orchids, berries, and citrus. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the part where it said it was charcoal roasted… I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of citrus, honey, coriander, orchids, herbs, and roast. The first steep has notes of citrus, honey, roast, almonds, butter, wood, orchids, coriander, cloves, and herbs. The next steep has more citrus and clove and is quite pleasant, and there’s even a hint of berries. Steeps three and four are pleasantly citrusy and floral, with warming herbaceous and spicy undertones, though the tea is getting a bit drying. There’s a lingering honey aftertaste. The next couple steeps have citrus, orchids, and cantaloupe, with a nice fruity aroma at the bottom of the empty cup. Roast, minerals, and nuts start to take over as the session goes on, although the citrus, florals, and spices stick around for a while. The tea also develops that typical dancong bite/astringency in the final steeps.

As Derk mentioned in a previous review, this is a nice, welcoming, inoffensive dancong that isn’t particularly memorable. It’s more roasty than I expected, though that could be because I didn’t read the description properly.

This spring, I caved in to the hype for pre-Qingming tea and picked up this premium Bi Luo Chun as one of the more “affordable” options. It was a good decision, and I finished most of the package in April and May while it was at its freshest. Then, predictably, I forgot about it, so here we are in August. I steeped 4 g of tea in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 185F for 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds. I also bowl steeped 3 g of tea in around 250 ml of water at 185F starting at 5 minutes, refilling the cup as needed.

The dry aroma is of chestnuts, green beans, orchids and other flowers, pear, and pineapple. The first steep has notes of chestnuts, green beans, butter, asparagus, minerals, pear, grass, and other florals. Because of all the trichomes on the tiny snails, the tea feels soft and a little fuzzy. The next couple steeps have hints of pineapple and apricot, plus those nutty and beany notes. Broccoli and lettuce appear in the final few steeps, and the tea loses its fruitiness. However, even near the end of the session, it doesn’t get bitter.

Bowl steeped, the tea is smooth and has no bitterness or astringency, with notes of green beans, butter, chestnuts, grass, minerals, and pear in the first few rounds. Pineapple, asparagus, and spinach come out around the middle of the session, though the tea remains buttery and smooth. The tea has good longevity and fades into grass, beans, and faint florals.

Although this tea has faded a bit from being open so long, I still think it’s very good. It’s more fruity than most of the green teas I’ve had and it’s almost impossible to make it bitter. The price is a bit high, but I think you get what you pay for with this tea. I look forward to seeing what Daylon has to say.

This is one of the last 150 g bags of oolong I got from Bok last year. I also recently ordered a bunch of 2023 oolongs, and I’m already behind in drinking them! This Dayuling was the most expensive of the 2022 oolongs, though it was a lot more affordable than DYL from other vendors. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of pineapple, cookies, honeysuckle, orchid, and citrus. The first steep has notes of orchid, sweet pea, honeysuckle, cookies, and grass. The next steep adds pineapple, butter, and minerals. Steeps three and four have lovely pineapple, orange, and sometimes even peach notes along with the buttery florals. This tea remains very soft, and it’s sometimes a challenge to pick out individual flavours. Spinach and more minerality emerge in the next couple steeps, and the tea is a little drying. Subsequent steeps are primarily floral, returning to orchid, honeysuckle, and sweet pea with some grass, minerals, and spinach.

I enjoyed this tea enough to drink it almost every day for a month, but I thought the DYL from Wang was more unique. The fruity flavours are nice, but they dissipate quickly. They also tend to pop more in clay than in porcelain and when I lengthen my steep times a bit. It probably didn’t help that this tea is more than a year old, so it might have been better if I’d gotten around to it earlier.

I had a nice Huo Shan Huang Ya from Teavivre last year, and thought it would be fun to try the same tea from another vendor for comparison. Both teas were around $18 for 50 g, meaning that the quality should be similar. Since Yunnan Craft didn’t provide brewing instructions, I used the ones from Teavivre, steeping 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 185F for 50, 60, 70, 90, 120, 150, 180, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted rounds.

The dry aroma is of hazelnuts, green beans, snow peas, and butter. The first steep has notes of candied hazelnuts, green beans, snow peas, grass, butter, and something fruity that’s close to melon. Asparagus appears in steep two and the tea has a starchy quality. I get corn and cornhusk in the next couple steeps, with apricot sneaking through in the aftertaste. Subsequent steeps have notes of spinach, beans, grass, apricots, and minerals.

This is a lovely yellow tea that’s perfect for spring. I think the one from Teavivre had more nutty, buttery flavours while this one is greener, though it’s hard to remember much about a tea I drank a year ago. Both are less aggressively vegetal than most green teas—a definite plus in my books!