Mei Leaf

Enjoying an early afternoon session of Pernickety Pleasureseeker from Mei Leaf. I’ve tried several Mei Leaf shengs recently and so far this one is my favourite. There is an instant sherbet brightness, followed by the sweetness of maple syrup and rich Belgian waffles. There is some astringency in successive steeps, but it remains fairly soft. Also bittersweet notes of blackberry. Later steeps are increasingly mineral, but still with an underlying caramel richness. There are heady hints of orchid in the final fade.

A very enjoyable session, and such a beautiful soft gold liquor colour too. Lots to love here.

Gongfu! Trying another sheng from my recent Mei Leaf order today, since I got on so well with Jam Ambassador earlier this week.

Overall impressions are of apricot and baked apple in the early steeps, plus a hint of damp autumn leaf pile. It’s bittersweet and lightly astringent, with a cooling sensation on the tongue akin to camphor. From around the third steep a distinctive blackcurrant note emerges, adding a tart, juicy sharpness to the overall profile. Later steeps are softer and creamier, not custard per se but something perhaps akin to mousse. A light lime-like acidity is retained pretty much throughout, until the leaves are all but spent.

Another hugely enjoyable sheng. Glad I finally took the plunge again!

It’s been a long time since I last drank any sheng, at this point probably at least 8 years ago. It wasn’t for me at that time – wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I absolutely hated it – and truth be told those previous experiences have kind of made me a bit scared. Today I finally took the plunge again, carefully dipping a toe back in with a tea I’ve heard good things about – Jam Ambassador from Mei Leaf.

I used approx 5g of leaf and took it through 12 steeps in total (ranging from an initial 20s to a final steep of 1 minute). Early steeps were firmly bittersweet, with notes of orange zest, apricots, kumquat, grapefruit pith, and stewed down fruit. I found a sherbet-like acidity on the back of the tongue, and lingering notes of burnt sugar. Later steeps became sweeter and creamier, reminiscent of apricot jam with developing notes of orchid and a light minerality.

The overall vibe here was more stone fruit and tropical-leaning than I was expecting; unexpected but not unwelcome. The aroma fits the marketing more, being very jammy (overripe strawberries) with hints of green banana.

I found this to be a great reintroduction to sheng, and hopefully my journey can now continue from here with less trepidation!

Thermos brewed. Caramelised hazelnuts, roasted chestnuts, cream, and pink pepper. Thick, soft, buttery mouthfeel. Very smooth. Reminds me somehow of being at a funfair or carnival; autumn air, and the scent of sweet treats on the breeze. Later steeps are sweet and very creamy, reminiscent of vanilla yogurt. A beautiful, versatile white tea.

TTB 2026
This one’s not bad, notes of melon and wet hay. A nice change from all the black tea I drink. Glad I got to try it!

This is from an older TTB. I don’t notice the fruitiness here, but my partner thought it tasted like pineapple. The black base does taste high quality though!

Gongfu! This is a really lovely unflavoured milk oolong. The buttery creaminess is really impressive considering it’s not augmented in any way, and there are beautifully delicious subtle fruity notes also. The whole vibe is very reminiscent of tinned peaches, with an accompanying syrupy sweetness, and a deliciously contrasting underlying minerality. Hints of custard in later steeps. Fabulous stuff, glad I sampled this one,

Gongfu! I’ve been curious to try gaba oolong for a while, particularly since anxiety does from time to time have a significant impact on my workday and overall wellbeing. It’s also been a while since I drank any oolong, and whilst it hasn’t typically been my favourite tea variety over time I figured it was definitely worth another try.

Got to say, this one is quite delicious. Smooth and a touch creamy, with fruity sweetness, and flavours of apricot jam and light petrichor. There is a touch of roastiness also, but it’s by no means overpowering. Later steeps bring forward notes of wet wood and hints of honey.

I do feel calmer and more settled after this session than I did before, but one trial isn’t enough to make a genuine call on its effectiveness or otherwise for me, so this is something I’ll monitor going forward. The tea itself is highly enjoyable, though, and has definitely revived my interest in trying more oolongs.

Sip Down

Date: 2 February 2026
Notes: Grapefruit, citrus peel, hoppy IPA, almost has that deep rich Indian tea mineral bite (Ceylon or light Assam).

Flavor (100): 75
Texture (100): 65
Aroma (100): 80
Rating: 73/100

I was rearranging my tea collection while cleaning my room and found a sampler of this tea at the very bottom of one of my bags, most definitely from a past Mei Leaf order. In line with much of this vendor’s offerings, it is a pricey tea and having never tried this tea type before, I got a sampler out of curiosity.

It is a Sichuan product which historically was marketed to Tibet and traditionally drank alongside the salted milk teas of the high country. Today I have decided to brew it in a gongfu style, and honestly I think this was the best choice so I could really get a feel for the more nuanced tasting profile of this tea. I was pretty impressed upon the first steep as I got an unmistakable note of salted dark chocolates along with the fermented funk of the licorice flavor of airborne anti-allergy gummies that I used to begrudgingly love as a kid. It reminds me a lot of Playground Rendez-Vous, and it’s not surprising that Don found it sufficient to release.

The only thing I hold against this tea is that it is not very long lasting. It doesn’t have the thick body of a shu puerh, and after the first few infusions it begins to get quite boring. Otherwise, it was an interesting session. Not sure if I’d order the tea again though.

knittingopera Swap Advent Calendar 2025 – Day 16
Theme: The First Noel
Song: The First Nowell by Canadian Brass

Another nice and mellow yellow tea. This is smooth and sweet with a creamy and buttery hay flavor. Touches of soft green grass and edamame add a bit of freshness as well. It’s a bit like a mashup of a silver needle and a mellow Chinese green tea. Tasty!

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=v8o39GaXtvc&si=6y_4HSBuK_1ext8z

I had a sampler of this tucked away from a Mei Leaf order back in November. I haven’t been ordering much from them lately, owing largely to the better value I’ve been getting out of the W2T orders. Nevertheless, I have so much tea that I’ll probably be putting non-club orders on hold for a while. It gives me the opportunity to clear out my drawers and try some teas that I had forgotten about.

Bliss Beholder is one of Mei Leaf’s most expensive sheng puerhs that is available right now, retailing at about 180 USD. I purchased this sampler right when it came out, and now it only seems like the tea is available in whole cakes. It is a sheng from Man Zhuan, advertised as one of the six ancient Puerh mountains dating back to the Qing dynasty.

Initial impressions off the bat were strong, steamed rocks and the fruitiness characteristic of much of the Mei Leaf sheng catalogue. However, the rest of the session was largely lacking especially at the price point. It’s a fruity sheng with an exotic nature to it; I can detect the hints of sandalwood to complement the apricot, and it is buoyed by a strong minerality, but I have had much better.

I still have two more sessions of this tea so this review may be subject to change, but as of right now it’s ‘ok’.

knittingopera Swap Advent Calendar 2025 – Day 1
Theme: A song for decorating the tree
Song: Adeste Fideles by The Three Tenors

Finally done with all (five!) of my black teas and getting around to the tea that Marjorie sent me for today. I’ve had some yellow teas in the past, but it’s been a while. The instructions recommended a temperature of 165°, which seemed silly to me, so I did 175°. It’s nice enough, definitely quite mild, but has a nice toasted grain-like flavor to it. Maybe a bit of corn as well, and some more green-tea-like beany notes. It’s a bit like a combination of a tender green tea with a mellow sobacha. Very light and refreshing, yet comforting at the same time, with a slight butteriness and hint of grassy astringency in the finish.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ncT1wolO-i0&si=EnvAAP9MJcksbclf

Of all the sheng puerhs which Mei Leaf released that I tried, perhaps they have struck the most gold on the ones to come out of Mengsong. Straight-Faced Playmate and Potion Scholar, two teas that have long been out of my collection, provided some of the most unique and enriching productions for a vendor that I feel is largely a purveyor of overrated and overpriced sheng. Honey Tripper is intended to be the sequel of the former; it comes from the same mountain (Hua Zhu Liang Zi) and is advertised as having the same honeyed flavor profile. This was enough to intrigue me to drop the big bucks on a Mei Leaf cake.

Off the nose, it does present as a heavily medicinal tea. The strength is there off the nose, and the tricombs are visually present in the liquor, but its first impression doesn’t translate to the tongue. From the scent alone I can tell they’re being authentic from the sourcing (it reminds me exactly of its antecedent). However, given that Straight-Faced Playmate was made with Spring 2011 aged material and Honey Tripper is Autumn 2022, I can taste the difference, and the slight weakness on the tongue is characteristic of Autumn sheng in my experience, but honestly it’s close enough to the former for it to be drinkable and not a dud to me. Sure it’s not in the same league as Straight-Faced Playmate, and it’s overpriced, but it’s absolutely drinkable. I’m not here to grade the price, I’m here to grade the tea, and this is a pretty good experience. Definitely deserving of daily drinker status.

More rain has come to the North Bay, and today I felt like cleaning out the annuls of my tea drawer, especially after hearing the news that my Kuura Esprit de Corps shipped. In line with my tradition of drinking dancong during rainy and overcast days, I broke out the last 2 grams of this short-lived production from Mei Leaf. Dancong cultivars generally correspond to certain flavors, and this one as the name implies, corresponds to gardenia. It seems to be a more uncommon cultivar.

With only two grams instead of the usual five to play around with, I made sure to be cautious with my infusions. The smell of the wet leaf is gorgeous; super sweet and floral. I would argue it smells better than Duck Shit. The taste of the initial infusion is even better, with tons of exotic fruits such as lychee and mangosteen, reminding me as to why I saved the tea. I smelled the wet leaf again and got the distinct scent of goji berries, another favorite of mine.

My only qualm about this tea is that the flavor wears off rather quickly. Perhaps this was just due to the small amount of leaf I had on hand, but judging on the longevity of the smell on the wet leaf, it might just be the nature of the tea. That’s the only thing that holds this one back from being a 100, for it lacks the durability of the Mei Leaf Duck Shit. All in all a very lovely and feminine tea, and a cultivar that hopefully will get the recognition it deserves in time.

Probably one of the better hot weather shu puerhs I’ve had. A limited production run by Mei Leaf back in like 2021 or 2022 that sold out quickly. While its two sequels have had larger production runs, this one has been largely forgotten (especially in my cupboard). Not much to write home about besides the fact Don was smart pairing a largely mineral and smooth shu with the chen pi. He tried to replicate it with the sequel but it was a bit soupier if I recall correctly.

The first rainstorm of the year, an early and humid one in early September, spurred me to bring out my favorite rainy day tea type, the dancong oolong. While I had exhausted my stocks last winter, I still had some left over of my favorite Ya Shi, truly one of the best teas that Mei Leaf has put out. Year in and year out, this one hits hard, being a wonderful companion to the smell of petrichor and the sound of Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.

Butterscotch, toffee, and lychee dominate the taste buds with a thick sweetness on the back of the tongue. It holds up very well, with several rapid infusions in the Chaozhou teapot leading to endless bliss and introspection. It’s hard to find a tea better than this, perhaps one day I’ll find some better material from a better vendor, but then Steepster would need to change the rating domain from 0 to 200. Until then, this is probably the best tea I’ve ever drank, only challenged by Taiwanese high mountain oolong and aged sheng with tobacco notes.

Finally found my cake of this, it was hiding deep in one of my drawers that I don’t normally store tea in. There only seems to be a few sessions of it left, but perhaps I bought another cake of it and that’s hiding somewhere as well. I regret to inform everyone here, TMI warning, that this tea was used to rehydrate myself after a night of college drinking (for some reason I’ve always felt that white teas served this purpose best), so I never had the opportunity to truly get to know and have a fully lucid session with it.

The first infusion reminds me a lot of another Mei Leaf white tea cake, that being the wonderful Peony Chirps in all of its milky sweetness. It is silkier but less full of the exotic incenses and woods of the current Jade Star iteration, and the subsequent infusion does not help but give me the impressions of a mediocre Bai Mudan. Even in the Yixing, it lacks body, as well as the ability to differentiate itself from the rest of the Mei Leaf white tea lineup. Like Diogenes, with each passing steep I searched with my tastebuds for the complex character that was seemingly promised to me, but I was left in the dark as the flame of hope in my lantern fizzled out. The taste profile feels amateur, feeling more like a young tea than something aged in checks notes …. 2016 (!). That being said it’s still drinkable, but I wouldn’t say it’s enjoyable for the price point, especially with how competitive the white tea market is – don’t believe me, put this tea up against W2T’s Tiltshift (yes i know it’s a yue guang bai not a shou mei + bai mudan blend) and it gets blown out of the water.

Jade Star VII came out on the heels of the massive success of Jade Star V, which I was never able to secure a cake of. It feels like Mei Leaf rushed to name a successor as a means of capitalizing on what I’m sure is one of their bigger cash cow teas. Fortunately they seemed to have rebounded with #8, a sort of redemption.

Shou puerh is hard to get into, I get it. Not everyone enjoys drinking sweetened mulch and having their teeth irreparably stained. I beg to differ, but I can appreciate this tea type whether it is an ancient from the 1970’s or something new and more radical. Mei Leaf’s Bling Rock Kingpin, the sequel of Gem Juice Outlaw, fits squarely into the latter category. By taking the oddball purple Zi Juan cultivar, which is normally used to make black (purple-black?) tea and subjecting it to the ripening process, the London-based vendor stumbled onto something which can make the most ardent shou hater blush and swoon.

Towing the line between the floral fruity notes of a black and the earthy fermented notes of a shou, this tea impresses with a dynamic range of enjoyable and frankly addictive steeps ranging from thin and floral to soupy and sweet. It shines when its at its strongest, with a liqueur akin to that of a sweet vermouth, strong with grenadine and fig newtons. Not much else to say – this is a classic and a tea that I bought a few cakes of back in its heyday. It is now long gone, replaced with its own sequel in Amulet Majesty which I unfortunately haven’t gotten around to trying yet. If it’s even just half of what this tea offers, then it will be well worth it. A strong dessert tea which works in any season and in practically any circumstance.

Average teas are average teas, and it seems like Mei Leaf has more than enough of them to go around in the sheng category these days. This isn’t a problem on its own – I don’t expect every vendor to only stock incredible teas, and it’s not as if Mei Leaf only pumps out mediocre puerh cakes. However, as of late it feels like most of their shengs are indeed painfully average. Making matters worse is the 120 USD price tag for what should be otherwise classified as a daily drinker. Hasn’t stopped me from burning through half of the cake in like a month, but I always remind myself that I could have gotten a tea of similar quality from a competitor for like a third of the price.

What else is there to say about the tasting notes? It’s a run of the mill sheng puerh. My mom always says these teas smell like apricots to her so that’s the tasting note I’ll go for with this one. Really hope Don hunts down that tribe that made the Potion Scholar tea; that was unironically one of the top three sheng puerhs that I’ve ever drank, if not THE best. I know the sourcing capability is there, but I definitely feel like the company is oversaturating their own selection, and sooner or later it’s going to hurt their reputation.

In terms of presentation, Hot Glove might be Mei Leaf’s finest hour. Seriously, I would hang the art design on the wrapper up on my wall if I could. But in all seriousness, the cover evokes a mystique, a sort of tea modernity which normally I would scoff at. Sure enough, it’s a unique blend, something pushing the boundaries – a rock oolong/rose petal blend.

Yancha is my favorite tea type, and my erudition in it, largely in thanks to the Old Ways Tea clubs (very underrated vendor, check them out), gives me the confidence to push the boundaries of my criticism for teas like this. I was a little disappointed looking at the description to see Bai Rui Xiang, which is its own distinct cultivar, marketed as a ‘Rou Gui’. I figure this was done to increase the market appeal of the tea, as rou gui is probably the trendiest cultivar coming out of Wuyishan these days. Nevertheless, I bought this knowing full well the difference, and mostly out of intrigue. Surely enough it was the last cake of this tea on their website, so unless there is a repeat run (not out of the question with Mei Leaf these days), this experimental bland will be confined to the annuls of history.

Hot Glove immediately makes an impression, not just from the wrapper but also the appearance of the cake, with hues of red and purple. A friend requested I sample this tea with him just based on the outlandish appearance of the cake alone. It brews light, and right off the bat the mineral notes hit the tongue with a hint of rose in the background. The yancha is providing all of the minerality with very little florality, something which would otherwise consign this tea to failure was it not for the rose. After the initial steep, minerality gives way for a tart, floral blackberry sweetness as the roses are worn out. But that’s it – the tea quickly goes flat and one is left with slightly mineral water. All in all, I’ve tasted much better yancha, and while it’s a very novel idea, it comes off as quite gimmicky like the smoked W2T puerh releases of late. Call me a purist all you want, but Hot Glove is one of the reasons why one shouldn’t judge a tea by its cover…. I mean wrapper.

Souchong Liquor is Mei Leaf’s most reliable daily drinker tea, affordable especially by Mei Leaf standards and available on an annual basis without any negligible change in flavor profile over the years. It is an unsmoked lapsang suchong, or small leaf black tea from Fujian, an area known for being the cradle of hongcha in China.

The most characteristic note of this tea is malt chocolate, which seems to be a general theme among other reviewers. It’s a very tough one to miss – it reminds me of the ovaltine I used to drink (and eat powdered, yes) as a kid and it is worth the price of admission. Call it one-dimensional, this tea is at the price point where it can be a one-trick pony. Excellent for drinking in any season, I would not go so far as to say it’s a strictly winter morning tea because of its thinner body, but it’s one that I’ll break out in the morning even on a hot day.

The 10th edition of Mei Leaf’s annual Young Gushu series, which features loose leaf sheng with a focus on adolescent exuberance, not limited to a particular mountain. These teas tend to have a kick, with medicinal notes given prominence over the fruity notes of most of the Mei Leaf shengs.

2025’s Young Gushu is a Lincang product, with easily recognizable medicinal, steamed bamboo, and custard notes. Like all shengs with this taste profile, it should work great as a dim sum tea. The chaqi is strong, keeping up the tradition, but it is not nearly as epic as those of the 2020-21 YG’s, which still stand as the most psychoactive teas I’ve ever drank. Lincang is a wonderful and distinct puerh growing region, and this tea is a strong representative for that region. Does it stand out among the ever-growing roster of young gushu offerings by Mei Leaf? Probably not, but I don’t think you will find yourself disappointed with a session of this stuff on a hot Californian summer day, right after spending the afternoon in the smoldering heat of the valley that Jack London once called his home.