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I was a bit wary of this tea due to the youth and the fact it’s a factory production, so I went a bit light on parameters, using 6g leaf and 200 degree water in my 100mL gaiwan. I was ready to be assaulted by bitterness, but was pleasantly surprised. I definitely got some heavy bitterness in steeps 3-5, and steep 3 did make me shudder a little bit. However, I expected much worse. The flavors were mostly vegetal, though the first two also had a definite spicy note, like pepper. It was reminiscent of peas or maybe asparagus or something like that. Not particularly interesting, as that was the main flavor throughout, though it did acquire a bit of a floral aspect in the last couple steeps.

The leaves were quite chopped up. I actually had to go and clean my strainer mid-session, because it got all gummed up with leaf. Thus, the tea got going pretty quickly, and died off a bit sooner than more whole-leaf puerh might.

I am pleased with this purchase, and might pick up a couple more to hang on to, because I found it enjoyable now, so I’m rather certain I will at least in the near future as well.

I really enjoyed this tea. Lots of fruity flavors in the early-mid steeps. Possibly peach, though at times I thought it might have been like pear too. Fruitiness is accompanied by a creamy texture and sweet vanilla-like finish. After the fruit flavors fade, a sort of mineral flavor takes over for them. This flavor is extremely smooth, and if one uses their imagination, almost comes across as a more muted fruit flavor. I really liked this tea, but do have a bit of trouble coming up with descriptions for the flavors. The roast on this tea was apparent in the aroma, but I did not pick up on it at all in the flavor of the tea. I think it more added to the great overall sweetness of this tea. I previously tried with water at 190 degrees, but felt like I wasn’t getting nearly all this tea had to offer. Doing this session at 205 degrees confirmed this suspicion, and I will try with boiled water next time.

Pretty impressed with this raw puerh. Dry leaves had a minty smell to me. When I brewed the tea, they smelled more smoky and herbal. I didn’t get much of any smoke in the flavor of the tea. It was sweet throughout a session which lasted over 10 steeps. I got notes of honey and what could have been either tobacco or leather (maybe both). I also detected a bit of grassy or hay taste during a couple of mid-steeps. Body was not particularly strong but was slick in the mouth. Bitterness was almost nonexistent, except for in a mouth-drying feeling from steeps 3-5 or so. Possible the body would be more robust if I pushed this tea more, but that might also increase the bitterness. Pleased with this purchase. Great price to quality ratio in my opinion. Leaves are rather large and not too chopped up or anything.

My first Dragonwell, and I think it’s probably my favorite green tea I’ve tried yet. Really love the crisp flavors from this, quite refreshing. Sharp grassy notes, almost resinous, dominate the early steeps. Crispness remains but drops off to some degree in later steeps. Also get a lot of nice, nutty sweetness tempered by a bit of astringency. Body had some almost creamy aspects to it, but was not extremely thick. Very refreshing tea. If there’s a green tea that I would enjoy enough to want to order a lot of, right now it’d be Dragonwell for sure.

Had to make a second review of this tea, because using 190 degree water instead of 205 made a huge difference. The lower temp, combined with my being sure to keep the steep times down, almost totally eliminated the issues of mouth-drying I got from my last session and made this a purely sweet experience. Got rich malt and chocolate notes, along with caramel. It was like a dessert. Body wasn’t particularly thick, but there was some almost creamy mouth feel going along with the sweet flavors. Glad I got two 10g samples of this, as I’m looking forward to drinking this a couple more times!

First tea I’ve tried from Zen Tea. Not too shabby. Nice cocoa and malty flavors, lasted around 7 steeps. Seemed to die quickly, but might just be because I’ve mostly been drinking puerh/oolong lately. Had a pretty noticeable mouth drying effect but didn’t taste bitter to me. Mouthfeel was relatively silky, not particularly thick or anything either. I did like how the rolled leaves looked, and after they unfurled they appeared to be mostly whole leaves, many still attached to branches. I haven’t seen this processing with a black tea before, only with rolled oolongs.

Pleasant Dong Ding oolong. Took a bit longer to get started than I’m used to with Taiwanese oolongs, but that may have just been my bad. Started with some soft and sweet vegetal flavors, which also took on floral aspects after a few steeps. Some creaminess to the mouth feel but not all that much. Last few long steeps were pretty savory. Almost like steamed peas with sweet-ish floral aftertaste. Pretty good and inexpensive Taiwanese oolong. $17/75g I believe.

Got this tea as a sample from LiquidProust. Brewed the whole 8.7g in my 100mL gaiwan. First couple steeps were pleasantly sweet a slightly grassy or vegetal flavor. Then some bitterness kicked in, and lasted about 3-4 steeps. Flavor became more like hay or straw and it still retained a sweetness in the aftertaste. Also got a few kind of spicy notes, perhaps like pepper. The remaining steeps tasted of sweet hay, like the last few but sans bitterness. The flavor dropped suddenly off a cliff after around 11 steeps, but I was able to coax another couple straw-like steeps out of this one, though they were significantly mouth-drying. Despite the fact I used over 8g of this one, the body was not particularly thick.

Since I used more tea than I normally use, I kept steep time down for a while before increasing slowly: 10s rinse, 10s, 12s, 15s, 15s, 20s, 25s, 30s, 35s, 40s, 45s – All had strong flavor with a nice yellowish (just a slight orange tint) liquor. 50s – Flavor dropped off, tea was noticeably lighter in color. 60s, 90s, 2m, 4m, 10m. Last 3 steeps were pretty much squeezing some bitter (but not altogether unpleasant) flavor out of these leaves.

This is quite an interesting tea. I personally haven’t had any quite like it before. The leaves are really cool looking with green in the middle and a substantial amount of reddish oxidation on the edges. Liquor is the color one would expect from such a leaf – a bit of an amber color between the pale yellow of green oolongs and the reddish color of black tea – looks a bit like apple juice. Incidentally, apple is the main aroma I get from the wet leaves.

This tea has some fun flavors to it as well. Early steeps are crisp and fruity, the main taste I get is apples as well, though with some soft maltiness underneath. Later in the session, as the crisp higher notes fade, the tea is more malty with some slight vegetal notes and deep fruity flavor. I think I got some berry flavor (cherries or blackberries), but I’m not sure what fruit this exactly tastes like. Can get decently astringent if pressed or brewed at higher temps. Pretty unique tea and the first one I’ve ever tasted from Africa. Cool offering from What-Cha. Fun to drink.

I didn’t get a whole lot of smokiness from this tea. Maybe a bit, but it wasn’t anywhere near overwhelming. Mostly I got sometimes sweet woody flavors during my session with this one. The body was not particularly strong, but that was alright. Very little bitterness but a bit of mouth-drying once I got to some longer steeps, nothing too unpleasant. Beautiful large and vibrant green leaves after steeping. The dry leaves look correspondingly burly. I’ve been consistently impressed by almost all the Vietnamese teas I’ve had from What-Cha and this one isn’t an exception.