485 Tasting Notes
Received a sample of this one from a teafriend in a swap! I failed to take particularly detailed notes, but the tea displayed nutty, coco flavors and sweetness, with very light fruity flavors in some steeps. It was a nice tea, but not my favorite aged oolong I’ve had. Nice stuff and a sample I definitely appreciate – always cool to have a birth-year tea.
Flavors: Cocoa, Nutty, Roasted, Sweet
Preparation
From the Pubertea group buy organized by Liquid Proust. Wow…this tea was incredible – perhaps nearing my favorite that I’ve yet tried. I spent probably close to five minutes smelling the leaf between dry and rinsed. Lots of nice sweet and earthy aroma; dark vanilla, sweet, cinnamon, nutmeg. There is a slight aroma of storage. More than anything else, the scent reminded me of a slightly dank bourbon.
The tea started off quite sweet, with some woody notes, a bit of that bourbon/oaky vanilla flavor, and some deep and thick texture. The sweetness lingered my mouth for a good while as well. The tea was thick and mouth-coating from the get-go. As I started to steep it out more, the flavor got deeper and earthier. The color of the tea liquor was very dark for a sheng as well.
As the session progressed, I found some more spicy woody notes taking the fore, as the intense vanilla sweetness moved more into the background – sort of reminded me most of cedarwood. There is also a slight bitter backbone still remaining in this tea. The tea has a throat-tightening feel and I started to feel some relaxing qi in my upper body.
I agree with LP that this tea had very impressive longevity – I didn’t get 30 steeps off of it, but did get quite a few more than normal. Vanilla still lingers a little bit in the finish in the late steeps. I threw the leaf in a thermos with hot water for a few hours afterwards and it gave me a nice and thick infusion. I probably could have done the same thing overnight for even more tea.
I’m going to use the second half of my sample in my Jianshui teapot and see how it does. This is the first tea of this price range that I actually could see myself picking up a cake of to have as a special occasion sort of drink. I’d have to check what the price actually is of course, but maybe a self-Christmas present….
Flavors: Cedar, Cinnamon, Earth, Nutmeg, Oak, Sweet, Thick, Vanilla, Wood
Preparation
I believe I pulled this sample out of the Pu TTB last time I had it. The leaves didn’t have a particularly strong aroma either wet or dry – sweet, slightly floral. Green still for sure.
This was an easy drinking one, and not particularly complex, but I found myself impressed with the obvious quality and cleanliness of the tea, as I have been with just about everything I’ve had from TU. The flavor was soft and sweet, mostly floral in character, with some less sweet herbal notes coming in towards the middle of the session. The texture was nicely thick as well. Basically just a good and easy sheng to drink.
Flavors: Floral, Sweet, Thick
Preparation
I got a sample of this one in the Chawang Group buy I participated in earlier this year. I found this to be a pretty powerful tea. Flavors I noted were floral and slightly piney; this tea absolutely possesses a good amount of astringency and bitterness (more bitter than astringent though). This can be mitigated by brewing with a very light hand (or likely by using cooler water, though I did all my sessions at a boil).
The tea’s texture was quite thick in my mouth and as it went down my throat. I perceived a slight bit of energy, at points during the session, but only when I was really focused on it. This one seems like it would take well to aging. From what I’ve heard, Chawang selects more for teas which will be good with age rather than ones which are good young. While this one is tasty at this age, I think it would benefit from aging for sure.
Flavors: Astringent, Bitter, Floral, Pine, Thick
Preparation
I’ve recently been rediscovering an appreciation for shou, which I’ve put on the back-burner since I started getting really into sheng shortly into my tea journey. It seems to be coinciding with my coming around to more dankly stored aged sheng. This is a sample I bought around Black Friday or so I believe. I smelled a bit of fermentation on the dry leaf, but I didn’t get much of any in the flavor, though that is likely aided by the fact that I generally double-rinse shou.
I have heard some tea-friends mentioning that this tea tastes like almost nothing, or that they found it difficult to illicit strong flavor from it using more conventional parameters. I would certainly agree with that. I used about 8g:100mL in my sessions, which is pretty standard for what I do with shou. The flavor was lighter than I would expect with those parameters, but I think that’s kind of just how this tea is. For me, this one is much more about texture than flavor. It had a thickness which did remind me a bit of cream. The flavor was pleasant and unintrusive – a light chocolatey sweetness with a bit of a deeper earthy flavor just slightly present. It was good, but didn’t ever really take precedence over the thick and creamy texture.
Another teafriend told me that this one does well with super-high brewing parameters, that it comes out like brownies. I can definitely see that considering the chocolatey notes I got here and the creamy texture.
Flavors: Chocolate, Creamy, Earth, Sweet, Thick
Preparation
Found this old “Dark Matter” sample the other day and figured I’d brew it up. The leaves had a bit of a honey, roasty aroma. Pretty sweet smelling.
The tea was thick and a bit floral, with a pretty nice honey note throughout the session. As I progressed, the tea started to taste just a bit rough/sour, likely due to the roasting. It would probably be better with a year or two more rest. Also might have helped to brew with slightly cooler water.
This tea was alright, but I’d definitely go for a good roasted TW oolong over this. Or maybe Red Buffalo if you’re set on something a little different.
Flavors: Floral, Honey, Roasted
Preparation
Another pretty good Shui Xian Pillow from Hello Teatime. I think I can probably skip these green ones if i ever order from them again, though I wouldn’t mind having a few. They remind me of a mix between Tieguanyin and Taiwanese Gaoshan. This one had a notably sticky floral flavor to it. It did get a touch bitter at times, likely because I used the whole ~8.5g square in a 100mL gaiwan with boiled water, but I enjoyed it even when it did become bitter.
Flavors: Floral, Narcissus, Sweet, Thick
Preparation
I got a small amount of this tea from a teafriend with whom I swapped. The leaves are spindly and pretty long. Perhaps in part due to their age, I didn’t pick up much aroma from the dried leaves.
The tea was vegetal in flavor for the most part, reminding me most of sugar snap peas. Despite the fact it was definitely not a fresh green, the finish was crisp and refreshing, trending towards grassy as the session progressed. This tea did not get astringent or bitter when oversteeped.
I was pretty impressed with how this tea was, considering it’s a 3.5 year old green tea.
Flavors: Grass, Vegetal
Preparation
I received a free sample of this one with my last FLT order. Unfortunately, I wasn’t too impressed by it. I did two sessions. In the first one, the flavor had a bit of an unpleasant sour characteristic to it, though that was likely not helped by the fact that I overleafed it a bit. I kept steep times down, so I wouldn’t have expected it to impact the flavor to that level, but it definitely could have been user error.
On the second session, I got more of what i would expect from a DHP. It was smooth and mineral-y, with a slight bit of fruit distantly detectable in the aftertaste. On this session, though, the flavor was very light – even when I steeped it rather hard – and the tea did not have very impressive longevity.
Certainly possible I just didn’t brew this well, as I’ve come to expect pretty good teas from FLT, but this one was not a particularly good one for me.
Flavors: Mineral, Roasted
Preparation
One of a number of samples I got of more affordable (i.e. not $600/cake) HLH sheng. The dry leaf on this one had a nice and pretty classically Yiwu-smelling profile. After a rinse, it was more savory, with some soft sweetness underneath.
The tea had a good balance of astringency and sweetness, with mostly softer vegetal flavors on the front of the sip, followed by a nice and sweet huigan which fills the mouth. The liquor was thick and comforting. This was an easy tea to drink, though interesting enough not to be boring. I noticed some good throat-feeling from this tea, especially in the mid steeps when it was really opened up and giving its all.
The combination of the thick texture and the vegetal notes I was getting occasionally reminded me of potato – like plain mashed potato, oddly enough. A good one to try, but not much of a standout. Texture was its strongest quality with pleasant flavor to go alongside it.
Flavors: Floral, Potato, Sweet, Thick, Vegetal