818 Tasting Notes

I’ve totally been remiss at posting notes. Sorry all! I enjoyed this tea for the second time today while baking cookies. It’s roasty and creamy, and gets slightly sweeter in later infusions. It kind of reminded me of the dong ding I had from Tea Ave, but not fruity really. It tasted yummy with the cookies and I got several steps out of it. My gaiwan was bursting with the leaves as they unfurled. Thanks to boychik for convincing me to pick this up. It’s very cozy.

boychik

cookies +tea=yum

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Enjoyed a session with this tea this morning. The notes are right on…smooth raisin sweetness and some malt. Really quite delicious! I just wanted to keep inhaling the scent of the wet leaves. Another winner from What-Cha!

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This tea deserves the hype. It’s delicious! It reminds me a lot of Butiki’s White Rhino. The leaves are fuzzy green and gold, and medium in length. I ignored the western steeping instructions and gongfu-brewed it, but only at 190 degrees, because it’s a white tea. It has a touch of malt, but I mostly taste the caramel and sweet potato sweet notes. It’s also a little floral with the slightest hint of vegetal in the background. The texture is super silky. Very nice!

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I like the shape of the leaf of this tea, medium length and wiry. Unfortunately, I’m not a fan of the flavor. It tastes tangy sweet, like there’s some sourness, kind of like a green apple. Oh, well, can’t like them all! Better for my wallet anyway. ;)

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I’m finally getting to try the large amount of samples I ordered after having no tastebuds from a cold for almost two weeks. So happy to have them back!

So, I was curious to try a tea from Vietnam as I don’t think I’ve had one before. The leaf is small to medium in size, dark brown with a few gold leaves scattered about. It brews up nice and dark. The flavor reminds me of red wine or dried fruit with some chocolate. Very nice! I was also able to get several steeps. Overall, I quite enjoyed it. Looking forward to trying more of these teas from What-Cha!

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drank Zhen Qu by Butiki Teas
818 tasting notes

I’m so glad I picked up a bunch of this before Butiki closed up shop. It’s become my daily drinker at the office, since I can’t really do gong fu, so I make a nice big western mug of this instead. The milk chocolate notes bring me back over and over. Yesterday, I wanted chai and only had a little left of El Dorado Chai by Whispering Pines, so I mixed it with this tea and it was scrumptious! It’s going to be sad when I’m out of this, but it will likely happen in the near future. :(

ashmanra

I ran out of mine from A Southern Season. I need to go back there!

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Thanks to boychik for this sample! Without your generosity, I would not have known to pick this one up, and now I happily have an ounce all to myself. This tea is awesome. It steeps up with a pretty orange color. It’s roasty and incredibly juicy! The flavor notes are complex, with toasted coconut, peach, and citrus. It’s incredibly aromatic and has a lasting aftertaste. Yum!

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I finally have a cake of this in my cupboard! Yes! I enjoyed the loose leaf and was waiting to get one of these and finally the timing was perfect. This Shou is so yummy! Absolutely no funk, but thick and inky, and so creamy! This is definitely a Shou that could be a “go-to” Shou for me. I had it the other night and I wasn’t even in the mood for Shou and it was awesome. Oh, and did I mention how adorable the wrapper and cloth bag are? Love it!

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Thanks to boychik for this sample! I came home absolutely exhausted from work and this tea really helped me wind down. It says in the description that it can help with headaches, and I had one, but not anymore! Miracle tea, haha! I think it’s a solid DHP. Nice and roasty, sweet, and pretty durable, lasting for a good number of steeps. I would definitely consider picking some of this up in my next order. Yay for good tea and awesome tea friends!

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Thanks to Grill for this sample!

Right from the beginning, this tea has a spicy and slightly smoky aroma. It also tastes spicy and smoky, but not overpowering. It’s a very savory brew, and thick and oily. I love the oily ones! It reminds me a lot of the Xianshu LinChang cake I have from puerh.sk, but the smoke is much less pronounced. It really caused me to sweat, so serious Qi. Overall, I wouldn’t mind drinking it again, but I like the puerh.sk one better.

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Profile

Bio

Another profile facelift! My tastes have changed a lot from when I first discovered loose leaf tea.

I can trace my tea journey back to October 2012, when I discovered DavidsTea. Before that, I had the occasional cup and enjoyed high tea at An Afternoon to Remember, which has since closed.

I went through a period of wanting to try all the teas, and was really into flavored teas, especially dessert blacks, but my tastes have substantially changed over time.

I still enjoy the occasional flavored black or rooibos, but I’m more into unflavored black teas right now and recently, puerh. Chinese black teas are amazing…with their notes of chocolate or sweet potato, who needs a flavored tea? I had a much steeper learning curve when it came to puerh. I used to dump out cups of puerh for tasting like leather. Now, I am really enjoying them. I think it took finding good quality puerh and steeping them gong fu style to really enjoy them.

I also, on occasion, enjoy a good oolong, white, or green tea.

Favorite tea companies right now include: Mandala, Teavivre, Butiki, Golden Moon, Lupicia, and DavidsTea (for teaware mostly).

Just a note: I don’t rate my teas numerically because my iPad doesn’t like the scroll bar. Maybe someday that will change…hint hint, steepster! ;)

P.S. My profile picture is of one of my 2 cats, Holly, who is a little princess but very photogenic, and she loves boxes, including those that bring me tea! :)

Location

San Francisco Bay Area

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