Crimson Lotus Tea

Took a couple washes and a steeping or two to fully open up. My first sheng I’ve tried from my “Puerh Yunniverse” pack. Still new into the world of better sheng and this has been one of my favorites. Very well balanced astringency coupled with great floral, citrus, and other undetermined fruity flavors and scents. Decent Qi. Left me feeling warm and fuzzy.

I have the lose leaf form of this tea, and it turned out great! It has a broth-like body that’s full of nature like tasting notes. Very enjoyable.

Holy cocoa! For a moment this morning I almost thought I had prepared some hot cocoa and not some shou! The cocoa/dark chocolate notes in this tea are the strongest I have ever experienced. This is not a deep, dark and smooth shou like I normally like, which just goes down so smooth. Nope, this one totally grabs your attention but in a good way.

So this was a much anticipated shou for me to try, coming recommended by Crimson Lotus Tea in a reddit thread where we accidentally discovered that we enjoy shou that brews “thick and dark, a bit like motor oil”. Also a big thumbs up to CLT for helping out with some shipping issues and making it possible for me to get my hands on this tea.

So it was a quick and somewhat haphazard session this morning as I am away from home dealing with some family issues, but I am very impressed. I used approximately 7g of tea in a 150ml gaiwan. Rinsed twice and let it sit for 30 seconds. The first steep was pretty weak (about 10 seconds). Steeped about 15-20 seconds for the second, and woah, strong cocoa notes and a deep burgundy colour! A bit bitter, but a good bitter like a dark chocolate. No fermentation flavour or maybe its just well hidden, and didn’t really feel any earthiness either. I got 4 good 15-20 second steeps out of this, the 5th was a bit flat. Steeped it again for about 3 minutes but after the earlier explosion of flavour this felt pretty tame. I have a feeling that once I am back home and able to have a calmer session with shorter intial steeps, I’ll be able to get more out of it. I also want to try this western style as it feels like it would make a nice hot cocoao substitute!

I’ll reserve final judgement until I’ve had a calmer session at home but I strongly expect I’ll be ordering more of this (on top of the 500g I already got). Hmm.. it comes in a 2kg brick….

#archive

Slumbering Dragon was powerful, as much as it was bitter. I got amazing body feels from this tea, and even past the bitterness, there was still some pleasant attributes to this tea. It had a velvety-like texture that almost reminded me of white tea and black tea, and had a good underlying flavor profile.

You can read my review here…

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/2017/06/01/Slumbering-Dragon—-The-Beast-Within-You

Dry leaf is dense, but not tightly compressed. Leaf is typical shu -black, to dark brown. Dry leaf aroma is nonexistent. This tea seems to have been dry stored. Steamed aroma is sweet earth. Ditto for brewed aroma. Brews up a semi-transparent dull copper. Sort of surprising. Most shu is pitch black. I’m going to assume the brew color is due to the age of this shu.

First brew is slightly boring. It tastes like a typical, aged, mid quality shu. Which, in and of itself would be good. However, it tastes a bit too rounded for me. I think the ageing process took off any harshness, but it also took off the high notes. Flavors are as follows: A soft, slightly musty sweet earth. A hint of peach, maybe. Texturally, it’s very soft. The finish sees an increase in must. Cha qi is negligible. Second brew presents with a much darker liquor. It looks more like typical shu. Murky, dark brass. Beyond that, there’s very little development in this brew. Third brew is even darker. Murky black, with just a hint of brass. Taste remains one dimensional. The must is growing stronger, but it’s not enough to give this tea any real character.

The fourth brew does an about face. Liquor is much lighter. It’s still murky, but, color wise, it’s closer to the second brew. Taste is noticeably sweeter. The musty element is still present, but not as prevalent. There’s now a peach sweetness, that transitions into a more sweet earth profile on the finish. Fifth and sixth brew continue this trend. Seventh brew tastes stepped on. Far too watery. On the eighth brew, I added 20 seconds to the steep time. Even with that increased steep time, the strength of the tea did not improve. It’s officially steeped out. At least, with this method of brewing. I’m sure you could do some really long infusions to maybe get another few brews out of it.

One side note. This tea has a fair amount of body caffeine in it. I noticed my hands twitching a bit while typing out these notes. I’m hesitant to attribute this effect to cha qi. It doesn’t have the mental stimulation that I usually get from cha qi.

Sipdown!

This is probably the most clean sheng I’ve had so far in my journey. I shared this with a friend who is hit or miss with most puerh (he’s more of an avid black/green tea guy), but I kept chugging away as he moved on to something else.

What I like about this tea: It lasts a long while and keeps ‘progressing’ as it goes. Toward the beginning of the session, there is a slight bitterness, which dissipates after steep # 3 (I will note here that I usually brew at a lighter temp (195 F) with sheng puerh). This tea has a nice smooth, grassy, leathery, and floral note throughout; however, with each steep, one flavor trumps over the other. Strange, yes, but good. I’m really happy to have had the chance to 1. drink this; 2. finish the sample with a friend (for the most part).

This is a very nice shou with a lot of fermentation taste to it. It was however not of the extremely unpleasant type or the fishy type. There was very little bitterness and a sweet note gradually evolved until the twlfth steep had a distinct fruity character. Overall I am glad I bought this.

I steeped this twelve times in a 130ml teapot with 10.5g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 minutes. Judging by the color of the tea in the twelfth steep I would say there were at least three steeps left to this one.

This is simple and reminiscent of oolong/green tea although it doesn’t seem wrongly processed. It subtly wants me to think its a dessert, and smelling the leaves, wet and dry, is super nice. The texture is super duper creamy, while not being active at all.

Fair and simple, worth a tin to throw in at 60 cents per grams.

Sipdown

While rummaging through my tea samples from swaps, I found this hidden gem at the bottom of the stash. I threw the remaining leaf (10g) into a 200 ml gaiwan, and made a go of it.

Flavor: I started this late in the evening/early morning before bed. The first notes were cinnamon, earth, & wet rocks. Today, as I kept brewing at longer times, I noticed more of the cinnamon/earth notes throughout. Definitely a smooth, easy tea. I’d recommend it, but it seems that it has all sold out.

I’ll definitely miss this sample, but I’m happy to have tried it while I could. :)

My first teapet is one of these frogs in green. I named him Henry because he just looked like a Henry. I had originally planned on buying a larger tea pet but my tea tray is quite small and so this frog fits quite perfectly on. I’m seriously thinking about getting Henry a friend!

Starts out earthy, grassy, and slightly bitter (not unpleasantly), grows sweeter with subsequent steepings and the vegetal and almost minty top notes really come out. Clean, crisp and delicious! One of my first forays into raw puerh and I love it!

It’s been a couple of months since I drank this, and I almost forgot how much I like it. It’s the perfect amount of sweetness with a pronounced grassiness that I really like. Smooth creamy texture early on, with a bit of astringency in later steeps. Nice amount of qi too that I feel from the neck up. I accidentally brewed this grandpa style in a travel mug once and it became bitter to the point of undrinkable. Lesson learned. Today I brewed about 5-6 g of this in 250ml several times throughout the day in my Grosche gravity steeper.

Finally getting around to reviewing a sample of this tea which was graciously included with my last order from Crimson Lotus! I’m not particularly experienced with shou but interested to see how this one tasted. Unfortunately this cake is now sold out, but I hope this sample will make for a good learning experience.

The wet leaf smells earthy (of course) with a hint of maybe a spice note in there. The first steep is a light brownish red. It has a clear note to it that I like to think of as petrichor, but overall this first steep is quite light and not too distinctive. The second steep is a much darker red, thicker and more viscous, but still quite clear in taste. I generally find shou a little tough to figure out—since the tea is often so mellow, nothing particularly jumps out at me while drinking.

The third steep becomes dark black-red and feels a little bit more viscous. The flavor itself hasn’t felt like it’s grown on me too much. As far as my untrained tongue can detect, this is shou, and unfortunately I can’t really pick too much else up. Maybe if anyone has tips for what to look out for :)

This shou starts dark – lots of rain on hot pavement, earth, dirt, and hot crust, but also plenty of sweetness. I get around 10 infusions, and the last infusions are quite sweet and creamy. There is no bitterness, weird young shou funk, or dryness. A few more years would likely smooth this one out even more.

I found it best leafed hard, 1g 10ml.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2015-thats-no-moon-shou-puer-crimson-lotus-tea/

May the 4th be with you

I brewed this in my gravity steeper (which is so great for work sessions). I started with a 30 second rinse, then added 200ml of boiling water slowly directly onto the ball. It opened up beautifully after a longer initial steep of about 45 seconds. The lovely heady sweetness is what struck me first when I smelled the wet leaves and tasted the smooth liquor. Like ripe peaches and dried figs and cherries. Delicious. The taste became more bitter and astringent in later steepings, but still enjoyable.

Update 4/8/2017: I followed my own advice and decreased first five steeps each to 3 seconds. That helped a lot and the tea was much more approachable. This session went a dozen steeps, and although the later steeps were obviously weaker in flavors, they had a delicious creamy texture that made it worth it to keep steeping.

Original review:

My first sheng ever. Before this for puerh I had only tried a couple shu, and one of them was a realy bad marine backwater fest. So, I had no idea what to expect with this sheng.

I read of people talking about all these flavors and fruits in sheng, and I was skeptical that I would pick them out. So, the highlight of this sheng experience was how readily the apricot stood out for me, upfront and as a wonderful lingering aftertaste.

A second session made me realize that the apricot is actually for me closer to a dried fruit from the Andes in Peru called aguaymanto (Peruvian ground cherry, dried). There is a tartness. Also discerned a floral character, jasmine, and maybe honey.

But, I also learned with this tea that I was over-steeping it. With 5 grams/75 ml and initial steep of 20s/10s/7s….I was mistakingly trying to extract a more intense fruit flavor that way, but I instead was confronted with a smoky bitter burnt and too-astringent experience.

So I backed off, increased the leaf:water ratio and less time steeping, that mellowed things out. My bad, but I learned.

Really enjoyed that dried fruit enduring aftertaste.

My second sheng. Highlights for me: apricot appearing in second steep and lingered 10, 15 minutes, longer? (However, I notice other reviews do not mention apricot, so I would at least reconsider things next time). Aroma of horse stable first few steeps. But, already steep 4 was a casual affair for my amateur palate. It was a good experience, part of the educational sample package, but I prefer the other sheng in that package: 2005 “Top of the Clouds,” and I hope to find others, too. I learned that astringency adds dimension and I can open myself to appreciating it along with the flavors.

Steep 1
Aroma: wet hay, horse stable, sweet grass.
Taste: no smokiness, some astringency but not overpowering. Green tea, aftertaste of dried fruit, apricot? Smacking tongue. Pineapple?

Steep 2
Aroma: Even more horse stable.
Taste: gripping astringency, fruit moves forward, enjoyable. Enter apricot. Last 5, 10 minutes or more.

Steep 3 and beyond: gradually fades, steep 4 is already what I call a more casual drinking experience since I am not yet able to distinguish a lot at this point. Maxed out at steep 8 (8 grams/120 ml, one rinse).

I really enjoy the aroma: exquisite deep mushroom, rotting wood, mineral, humid moss. With each steep I put my hand over my cup and then took in the aroma, the highlight of this tea, along with its grounding qi.

Also the texture at its best: oily, almost syrupy, smooths out into velvet.

Flavors transform from:
1. Initial smoky and burnt, strong edge
2. Wet moss and leaves
3. Musty and moldy leather boots in the Amazon jungle: “hongeado” in Spanish.

Very calming, grounding, contemplative, steady.

Didn’t see this as an everyday tea. A tea to get excited about drinking on a cold autumn day, rainy, cloudy, thinking deep thoughts, reflecting, reading poetry, musing.

Flattened out at 7 steeps and maxed out at 10 steeps (using 5 grams in 75 ml).

Overall not so enjoyable. I wanted to like it, but in the third steep (after two initial rinses), I found myself not even wanting to continue drinking it. What happened?

Admittedly, this was only the fourth shu I have ever tasted (so what follows is my amateur tasting). My first one was a $10 cake from a Chinatown grocery store: marine and musty. My third was a 2007 “Huang Zhi” (from Crimson Lotus) and especially the intense mushroomy aroma and oily texture blew me away (I wish they had more in stock). The present shu, however, although it had some mushroomy aroma that I liked (and wood aroma that I didn’t like so much) actually turned me off by the third steep due to an overpowering earth taste. Not the interesting earthy taste I can appreciate, but rather just more like dirt, if that makes any sense. Long wet earth/dirt aftertaste in second steep. Then, the third steep suddenly bottomed out with an odd tatse, much weaker body. In the 4th steep, the earth taste was gone already, but there was nothing notable I could discern, and it became a casual drinking cup rather than something to study and inspire. By the 7th and 8th steeps it had mellowed and smoothed out, the earthiness receded and was replaced by mustiness and wet cavern. Did not get to 10 steeps.

There are positive traits: that mushroomy aroma at first, some mineral taste, a noticeable thickness, fullness, and somewhat creamy. And especially, it had a grounding effect and left me in contemplation and calm, steady focussed work. That was great.

Very much enjoyed this tea and would buy more. I am new to tea tasting and to puerh, and this is my fifth shu. My first one was from a grocery store in Chinatown, $10 for a cake. I had no idea. That one, even after rinsing , it had some marine flavors, then settled into mustiness. I thought I liked that mustiness. But since then I have sought out better shus. I shudder to think of that first cake now.

This 2012 Buland Gushu is the best shu in my limited experience. So clean, mellow. This is not a forest floor, earthy, wet leaves, or wet cavern, musty cathedral shou. Not at all.

This shu is cocao (powder) foregrounded, with a slight grip of bitterness that dark chocolate lovers appreciate. The cocao persists over the steepings. Mocha.

Eventually a fruity character opens up. I discerned prunes but then decided it was more like dates (Middle Eastern). Vanilla extract or amaretto. Maybe caramel. Pound cake. A sweet aftertaste on the palate, and after swirling around, a creaminess that seems even buttery on the tongue going down.

Hints of all of this continue even into later steepings, so this shu did not completely flatten out and collapse into one dimensionality even into the 10th steep, although of course it was much thinner.

The aroma also was nice: marshmallow? Amaretto? Sweet almond. Maybe some moss, but again, this is not a wet forest shu.

I drank this late at night, and it did keep me up and made me quite alert, unlike a couple other shus that have quickly immersed me into contemplation.

[Update: second session>into steep 5 and man this stuff has caffeine, I gotta slow this session down].

[Udate2: gradually kept steeping, but seriously feeling the caffeine, too much, going to my head and behind my eyes. Next time I will reduce to 5 grams and steep maybe every half hour. Unfortunately, due to this buzz rush, I won’t be able to have this as my all-day companion, and so I may eventually lower the rating to the low 90s. The effect on my body is a pretty important consideration for me.]

I really appreciate the longevity of this tea! Just 5g took me from morning to afternoon (around 8 steeps at 200ml each). It’s so smooth, tasty and buttery, without any bitterness at all in any of the steeps. This is the first Sheng I ever tried with some age behind it, and would likely reach for this over a ripe puerh (though I tend to favor young shengs and oolongs overall).
Very nice sessionable tea.