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Dry bag smelled vaguely of perfume powder/tablet. Pieces of green leaf and some small chunks that were lighter in color, perhaps lemon rind. The heated leaves smelled like lemonheads and pixie dust candy.

So disclaimer, I Gongfu-brewed this tea bag, leaving the tea inside the bag. First steep was 160F @ 5sec. The liquid was clear with just the slightest greenish-yellow tint. The taste was overwhelmingly meyer lemon, with no green tea detectable in the flavor or scent. The taste was not as tart or sour as a lemon juice, more of gently sweet powder lemonade. I added time and temp to the subsequent steeps, up to 180 at 3 mins. It gained more of a yellow colored liquid that was clear of debris on the second steep. Stronger steeps were a little more bitey like actual lemon juice, and the green tea flavor was never more than a question in the back of my head. I found myself asking “Is that even a green tea flavor down there, or is it just my brain putting it there because I expect it?” I would not call this “Green Tea With Lemon” so much as “Lemon Tea … with Green?”

The lemon flavor starts concentrated in the middle of the mouth and expands outward in a splash of taste. I’ll give this tea this: It is definitely not one of those flavored teas that loses its flavor quickly. It kept the lemon taste for 8 steeps and past the point of loss of liquid color.

There’s no bitterness, no vegetal notes. If you like lemon but don’t like green tea, you would like this just fine. You could also just slice a meyer lemon and put it in hot water, though.

I was really excited to try this smaller cake 5 cities sheng puer from 2018 – the first time I’ve had puer where I got to crack the cake myself! That said, I felt a little disappointment actually drinking this, and I’m not sure if it’s the tea or if it’s me and I just don’t really understand puer, or it’s not for me.

The cake itself was lovely looking – well compressed but not TOO compressed, and it was a satisfying experience to pry it apart. Some of the leaves were very long and some came off in small pieces, but that may be due to my inexperience in breaking open these things. The warmed dry leaves had a pleasant hay scent that was a little malty and chocolatey, and a bit like biscotti. I wish things had continued in that direction, but they didn’t. The wet leaf smelled like warm sleeping bag – kind of linen, kind of outdoor fresh.

The liquor smell wasn’t strong, just a light rainwater mineral-ness to it. The liquor color was yellow-orangeish-brown and pretty clear with some small particulate settled at the bottom even after straining. It was not luminous or beautiful to me, but it wasn’t cloudy or gross either.

Started out with a 30 second rinse, then steeped 15 seconds. The taste at first was a little toasty and a bit like squash. It traveled up into the nose and left a slight trace of spiciness on the tongue and upper palate as an afternote. Further sips showcased clay dust and sand flavors that were not harsh or unpleasant. There was a slight astringency and bitterness in the aftertaste that would later linger during a pause in drinking.

Subsequent steeps added 10sec or so to the brew time each. At times this was kind of like drinking a crumbling old brick wall, and at times it was like soft sand taste. I noticed a lot of sensations in my mouth, almost more than I wanted to notice flavors. The texture wasn’t super thick but it seemed to carry the taste in rolling waves that hit my taste buds until they slowly settled into flat astringency. The astringent aftertaste when I paused from drinking reminded me of the sort of chill you get when exiting the water when you go swimming on a cold day. I have not had maocha, but this is the kind of taste I would expect from that, not from something from 2018. Am I off base here?

Further into the experience I noticed a sort of “healthy” taste to the tea, along with the experience of the steam from the leaves encouraging deep breaths. It wasn’t medicinal in a strong sense, but it tasted like health food – I hope that makes sense. There was a very brief bit of orange flavor that came and went around steep 3. Steep 7 was 1 min 30 sec and I found myself thinking “Hmm… where’s the flavor? There isn’t much here.” but cranking the time up to 3 mins fixed that.

The leaves opened up nicely. Some were quite large, and there were some stems present. I put them into a 300ml glass pitcher after 8 steeps to Grandpa things out. The caffeine effects of this one were subtly energizing, not noticeably hitting me in any particular part of my body but refreshing me on the whole.

I am left with questions on this one. Will this improve with age? Is it weird that I had a completely different experience than the tasting notes in the listing? Will I have a better experience with other shengs, or is this pretty much what I can expect?

I made 5g of this tea (I used ½ of the orange and split that half of the peel into 4 pieces) all steeps at 140 ml in a porcelain gaiwan. This came wrapped in coarse paper, and was a little green orange from Xin Hui just larger than a golf ball filled with shu pu er tea. The leaves were a bit on the small side, but a good size to be stuffed inside an orange. In the warm gaiwan, it smelled very orangey and a little of cooked fish/squid, but not overpowering.

Did a 30 second rinse and then steeped in boiling water for 30 sec, gradually increasing the steep time for subsequent infusions. The liquor initially was a deep peachy pinkish-orange color. The taste was sort of pit barbecue, and the mouthfeel was smoky and earthy. The aroma was more fishy than the taste, and the steeped peel in the gaiwan had a candylike citrus sweet and tart aroma that was very like Sweettarts candy. On further steeps, the sweetness was present in the scent but not really in the flavor. There was a bit of funkiness to it but it didn’t remind me of something aged so much as maybe the funkiness of a riverbank? The fishiness wasn’t really ocean-fishy so much as river-fishy, and it wasn’t unpleasant, just there. By steep 3 the orange peel scent and pu er scent have melded together nicely. Longer steeps gave a dark chestnut brown color while lighter steeps gave more of a peach color. Some steeps were more orange-forward and green citrus, while some had more of the pu er funk. My mom said it tasted like sweet clay. There was something almost animal in it to me too, maybe like wet fur?

The caffeine effect made itself known gradually. I could feel it more in my chest rather than as a rush to my head. After 7 steeps I put this in just enough water to cover it and stored it in the fridge overnight. The cold liquor captured a lot of flavor. It had a bit of a sour taste that held my interest and I liked that very much. I got 7 more gongfu brews out of it the next day before it started to lose color and flavor. They tasted similar to the previous day, but a little more brothy – like fish broth with an unsweet peach note. The texture would kinda catch on my upper palette, and it had just a small dry aftertaste.

After all that I put it in a 300 ml glass pitcher at 203F (95C) and left it for a couple of hours. I got a couple of such infusions before it started to lose flavor, but I got the leaves to dance beautifully on tiny bubbles in the glass, so that’s another win for the visual appeal of this tea :P

I went back and forth on this tea. At points I found myself feeling “I could drink more of this.” and other points of thinking “This is fun for the gimmick, but I’m not going to buy another one.” I think the orange did a lot of the heavy lifting of making this taste good. The pu er tea wasn’t bad, it just didn’t really grab me either. All in all, I’d call this “Not bad.”

This is my third time drinking this tea. My former 2 experiences I would just classify mostly as “Not good” but I wanted to dig deeper, and I have a whole 4oz bag of this that I paid $20 for, so why not!

Dry leaves are small and broken with pieces anywhere from 0.5cm to complete powder. They are mostly deep brown and redish-brown with a few that are golden yellow. There’s no uniformity in the appearance of leaf shape. The heated leaves had a peppery, black licorice scent. When washed, the leaves smelled astringent. For a while I couldn’t place what the other smell was, but I figured it out – this tea smells just like a can of Spaghetti-Os! Kind of a cheap tomato soup that at the best of times is like En-Cor Frozen Dinner Chicken Parmesan and at the worst of times is kind of artificial.

Brewed this initially at 203F (95C) @ 10 seconds after a single rinse. The liquor was very deep brownish-red, cloudy, and didn’t catch the light. The liquor smell was like black walnuts or over-toasted walnuts. The whole ensemble reminded me comfortingly of my childhood dinners when my parents were in a hurry to take me to ballet class. There were some pleasant tomatoey notes to the flavor, but just as much unpleasant astringency, ashes, and tannins when brewed at this temp. The mouthfeel is powdery and sour.

I brought the brewing temp down to 180F(82C) for steep 2 @ 10 sec. It was an improvement, but still somewhat unpleasant. The flavors definitely lingered quite a long time on the tongue, but not as a good thing. More like the flavors of a burned ghost haunting my mouth. It’s still astringent and toasty and Spaghetti-O-y. Has taken on a bit of a very sour lemon taste too, and something in there like oak resin. The caffeine has started hitting me in the face at this point. There’s still particulate in the liquor even after straining.

Reducing the brewing time to 5sec and the temperatures to 175F(80C) helped a lot. When I brew this again, I will treat it like a green tea rather than a black tea when it comes to water temperature and brew in the 170-175F range. Further steeps this way produced a more brothy, more tomato soup kind of flavor that lost the unpleasant harshness of the higher temperature steeps. The liquor color changed to a lighter (but still not light) golden-brown, and was still very turbid.

Usually I take the leaves after my gongfu brewing session and grandpa brew them until they lose flavor, but in this case these leaves are just too small and fragmented to be useful for that. The steeped leaves took on a sort of partacle-board appearance and texture, still smelling of Spaghetti-O’s.

To say something nice about this tea, it does remind me of my childhood. To put it not so nicely, it reminds me of poverty XD

It has a strong caffeine after-effect that I can feel in my head.

These leaves came packaged in a 50g quantity in a clear plastic bag inside a metal tin. A twist-tie was included for better reseal. I measured out 5g of whole leaves and 1g to crush, following a method I saw from Mei Leaf on Youtube. There were some crushed leaves at the bottom of the bag, but since I planned to crush some for brewing this anyway, that was not bad for me. The leaves were rolled in small balls that were not super tight, as it should be for this tea. The heated dry leaves smelled of fresh cut grass earthy like clay-heavy soil or developed compost.

I brewed in a porcelain gaiwan. My first steep was 203F (95C) @ 10 sec, no rinse. The majority of my steeps were 203F @ 10-15 sec, with a couple of variations to try things out.

Wet leaf aroma was spinach with a slight iron tang and a peppery finish. The leaves unfurled beautifully and very quickly, taking up much more space in the gaiwan and filling it to the brim on subsequent steeps. The steeped leaves differed somewhat in color between deep green and a more washed out yellowish-green. The leaves had some cracks and holes that may have been insect bites, which is a good thing if as it creates a defensive reaction in the plant that produces sweetness – but I am still a beginner and don’t fully know what I’m looking for here.

Liquor was a luminescent pale yellow-green that was very clear of debris despite the crushed leaves. It remains clear and bright through all steeps. The scents from the liquor were light at first: fresh rain, wild grasses, and hay. The first tastes were sweet wheat and barley. The mouthfeel was warming and had a bit of peppery bite as an aftertaste and sensation on the tongue.

Subsequent steeps maintained the peppery aftertaste but took on a more brothy quality that faded to strongly floral. Leaf aroma became peppery and meadowy, then a very strong lilac. Steeping 2 onward inspired a sense of comfort and delight for me, like sitting on a warm rock in a spring garden under the midday sun even though I was drinking this at my normal kitchen table in the evening. The taste started to sweeten like nectar at steeping 3, which was 195F (90C) @ 30 sec (this is the seller recommended brew temp). The later steeps were very lilac-forward in scent and taste with little surprises here and there like a hint of roasted chestnut, iron tang, a cashew sweetness, or a mouthfeel like daisy petals. My 8th and last gongfu steep (I could have kept going) was at just under boiling (210F, 99C) and brought out a pleasant dryness – not too dry, but drier than before. The floral notes softened and there was something close to lemongrass that emerged, more mellow than tart.

The strong lilac flavor of the tea lingered on my tongue for a full 15 minutes after my last sip.

After the gongfu brewing session concluded, I tossed the leaves in a 300ml open top glass pitcher to finish them up Grandpa Style with 154F (68C) water. After 30 minutes of brew time, I was surprised by how much scent and flavor was still coming through – it was still very lilac, though flatter and not as complex as before. If someone had served me this drink from the already depleted leaves before I had ever tasted this tea, I would have no idea it wasn’t something fresh! The liquor color darkened to a honey gold. I got two more of the same Grandpa style brews out of it without much flavor/scent reduction at all, so I stuck them in the fridge in 300ml of completely cold water overnight with the result of a grassy, meadowy drink that is pale-clear-green in color.

I can feel a gentle caffeine effect after consuming more than a litre of this, so it is there even though it does not come on strong.

I’m really excited about this tea! I think it just beat out Lapsang as my new favorite. If you like floral tastes and don’t mind pepper, you’ll probably like this a lot. If you can’t stand lilac, give this a pass as that’s the most prevalent taste and smell throughout brewing. I like this more than the Silver Needle from the same company, but this was $10 cheaper.

This tea comes in a 50g quantity, packaged in a clear plastic bag inside a rectangular tin (though you can order it without the tin if you specify that for 10% off the listed price)

Brewed this in a porcelain gaiwan at various lengths of time and a range of temps. I did not use a strainer. The buds were decently uniform in color and texture, though some were a bit smaller in size. I didn’t see broken pieces in the dry leaves. The leaves are fuzzy, which is normal for this tea. The aroma of the warmed leaves is grassy and nutty, somewhere between English Walnut and almond.

My first steep was 175F (80C) @ 30 sec. The color was a only a slight tint of pale yellow, perhaps due to the lower temp. The aroma of the liquid started off as a very slight fresh grain scent. The taste started out like millet with a floral aftertaste that lingered a little while. The first steeping was pretty clear of hairs and reflected the light to some degree. The mouthfeel was kind of fuzzy, and the flavor tasted like millet/wheat. The wet leaves smelled of a slight maple sweetness and grass.

The next 2 steeps (180F (82C) @ 40 seconds & 190F (88C) @ 20 seconds) had more buttery/clean fatty/pastry flavors and sweeter smells. A baklava-like scent and a little hint of asparagus flavor. Flavors lingered longer on the tongue as steeps progressed. The empty fairness cup took on a pancake syrup sweet buttery scent, then mellowed to honey.

Later steepings (190F) took on vegetal qualities like spinach (slightly iron), string bean, pole bean, briefly pomelo citrus. The liquor became cloudier with small pieces breaking from the leaves, and holds a lot of bubbles. Finish became brighter and sharper. The leaves hold their maple sweetness, though it is softer.

I finish the leaves by adding them to a 300ml glass at 140F (60C) and brewing them grandpa style for 45 mins. The liquor has become brownish-yellow and the flavor is wheaty with some bitterness and a very dry mouthfeel.

I like this! It’s pleasant and unchallenging – the Castelvetrano Olive of Teas, a surefire crowd pleaser, though perhaps short of a real favorite for me. I look forward to trying aged white tea to compare – and anticipate that it might appeal to me even more than this.

This was for sale at an Asian grocery in town at the price of $8.99 for an 80z (226g) tube of tea. I was hoping this might be an exciting deal, since I am pretty new to tea and this is my first Pu Er, but alas – I got what I paid for.

The color was a deep brownish red. I would describe the strongest note that was present through all my steepings as mushroom – something reminiscent of a portobello scent and flavor. One of the other reviewers mentioned cardboard, and that is kind of close to a secondary flavor I experienced, except for me it was more like wet newspaper. I did not experience the floral or citrusy flavors some of the other reviewers did.

The texture is pleasant and smooth on the tongue. Drinking this outside under my ornamental plum I felt wistful, though if I had been drinking this in a different environment, like indoors in a featureless room, I would have probably experienced sadness instead.

The caffeine was certainly strong. I could feel the rush to my head about an hour after drinking.

I rinsed this twice and did taste the rinse, though I am not holding the taste of that against this tea. The rinse was definitely necessary – it had a twinge of urine smell that was gone by the time of the steeping to drink. Around steeping #5 it started to mellow and round out a bit and kind of softened into something less interesting but more pleasant. There wasn’t really anything in the smell that wasn’t present in the taste and vice/versa.

When cold, this tea takes on a mineral rainwater sort of flavor, and is somewhat refreshing.

I’m planning to keep it and drink the rest, but it’s not my favorite. I can get a better value for the price buying cheap but tasty Bancha from my local co-op, so I won’t be buying this again. Part of me wants to try mixing this tea with mushroom broth and try consuming it like soup.