Various Artists

I roasted a couple sessions’ worth of Teavivre’s Taiwan Monkey Picked Tieguanyin a little further a few days ago, just because. Here’s session #1; #2 will be in a couple months to compare after it’s rested a bit.

In the first few infusions, the nuttiness of this tea is definitely intensified by the roasting, but it also changed from a more generic roasty, nutty flavor to a specific almond note. There’s something almost Dancong-like in this that I can’t identify. While the tea wasn’t spicy at all before, there’s now a hint of spice in the finish. It’s not strong enough to tell what it is. There’s also a mild sweet potato note. The creamy mouthfeel doesn’t seem to have changed.

It seems to lose flavor sooner, which is the opposite of what i expected. Brewing for at least a minute produces a cup of creamy sweetness with little flavor except roast by the fifth infusion. Hopefully as the new roast settles this will improve.

I got an ounce of some generically named “Darjeeling” (so probably a blend of estates and flushes) at a coffee shop yesterday and I’ve been drinking it all day trying to figure out how to get more flavor out of it. It’s very mild and I think it’s getting stale, but the flavor it does have I’d describe as fruity, woody, and mildly spicy (I’ve been noticing this in a lot of tea lately). It has a pretty typical Darjeeling character. There’s nothing unusual in body, astringency, etc. It probably would have been pretty good a year ago, but now it’s a bit bland.

For some reason, I got an ounce of an Assam from the Mangalam Estate a few months ago at a tea shop. I rarely drink Assam because I generally prefer to make Chinese black tea in my gaiwan. I finished the Keemun I got at the same time a while ago (I really need more Keemun), while I still have enough left for a few cups of this.

This is different from what I think of as the typical Assam. I brewed it quite strongly, but it lacks the tannic bite I expect from Assam, despite being a broken grade. Instead, the texture reminds me of a smooth, full-bodied Ceylon, like something from the Kenilworth Estate. It has notes of caramel, sweet potatoes, malt, and cinnamon, and finishes with enough different spices that adding milk and sugar would probably taste like masala chai. I’ve never had such a spicy unflavored tea. It’s not just the slight peppery sharpness at the back of your throat that so many other teas have. This tea literally tastes like I added spices while I was brewing it, like I started making masala chai and then quit halfway through. This works much better than it seems like it should, and I actually really enjoy it. The spiciness lingers for a few minutes after the last sip.

I call it Mango Shortcake.

One part Harney & Son’s Mango black tea, one part The Tea Table’s Bourbon Sunday Blend. It smells like sweet vanilla cake and preserves. So fruity and yet so creamy. I had it hot, but I can’t wait to try it iced. I wonder if I could blend something like this on Adagio.. hmm…

[Some zheng shan xiao zhong I received from a friend]

Starts of very light with strong smell of longan fruit and fermented apricots. The fruitiness is definitely present in the second infusion’s taste, which is also more crisp and medium to full bodied. There is some coffee bitterness and in the smell I noticed nettle, strangely enough. Third infusion has more sweetness, akin to sweet potatoes. Starting from fourth, but especially in fifth infusion, astringency appers fully, changing the mouthfeel again.

I feel like this is a fairly unusual black tea, it reminded me of the “Longan Nectar” oolong by Taiwan Sourcing, but it is more sweet and not quite as fruity as that one.

Last night I drank a sample I got from Liquid Proust, labelled only with “1998 dry-stored xiaguan”:

1 rinse, smells like smoke and forest

5 mississippis: smells overwhelmingly smoky, tastes like smoke and the way tobacco ash smells and light bitterness, what the heck is this stuff oh hey the aftertaste gets cool fast. I like this and don’t understand why.

10s: More distinctly charcoal smell and initial taste. I just found myself singing “what the f***… is this s**t? I don’t understand / but I think I might be happy!” I feel the charcoal down my throat. It’s lingering for ages, coolness in the throat and light charcoal breath on the exhale.

15s: Mostly same, except I think there’s something else trying to peek out from behind the charcoal, I just can’t figure out exactly what it is. Some sort of dark fruit, maybe?

20s/25s: I feel like I’m drinking the fire out [under the open grill at my parents’ beach house] once it’s down to smoldering coals and [my grandmother, who passed away a few years ago] is just sitting there watching the corn husks blacken into the night.

30s: A trace of something lively is coming in. I don’t think it’s bitterness? More of a texture thing maybe, a very mild astringency. This is not a sneepy tea despite its age – this is an alert tea. Not manic, just alert. Wish I’d tried it in a morning instead, but 20 years old felt so safe for late at night!

35s/40s: Smelling something.. sweet?… peeking out. Wat. Maybe straw? But not quite. God I’m so confused. The smoke has receded a bit.

45: A bit simpler. Back to tobacco maybe. Bet I could push it much further, but I gotta get to bed and it’s already been a lovely journey, full of charcoal and happiness. I really wish I could buy more of this, but it’s basically a mystery sample.

So, I will preface this by saying I have very little experience at all with pu-erh. I’ve mostly just had pu-erh as the base in flavored blends, but have only had a few generic undated shous from various vendors that I only ever steeped western style. I’ve never really dabbled in pu-erh, certainly not the way the real pu-heads do. I have no knowledge of what is considered good, or expensive, or rare, and what isn’t. That’s why I signed up for Liquid Proust’s really awesome pu-erh sampler program this year. I really don’t need any more tea right now, but it is the one tea (followed by whites) that I just haven’t really tried much of and have any opinions on. So thank you so much to Liquid Proust (and the group of volunteers that helped break up cakes and package up the tea)!

This is the first sampler from that lot I’m trying. None of the samplers had any detailed information about the names/places the tea came from (I think that may have been intentional?) so I’m just going to log all of these under the Random Steepings rather than guess on anything and log something under the wrong pu-erh/vendor record. But hey, if someone actually knows for a fact on one of these (LP or co. wants to come forth and identify one) feel free and I’ll gladly move the review to the proper place!)

This one was simply labeled as “Cheap.” Yup. Just that. No year, no sheng/shou differentiation, but I guess whoever got this didn’t pay much for it! Fair enough. I never judge a tea by it’s price anyway. Taste is what’s important!

So, being new to gong fu, and pu-erh, I ended up having to do this one twice. I typically always use the OCTea app website for my tea-to-water ratio measurements, but White2Tea suggested much higher ratios for brewing pu-erh, and everyone loves White2Tea, right?! So they couldn’t be wrong! So I decided to go with their measurements, aaaaaaaaaaaand… yup. Overleafed. SIGH. Why do I always end up with overleafed, bitter, deadly-astringent gong fu on my first try? So frusterating…

So my first go used 3 grams of tea in my 50ml baby gaiwan. I went through 6 steeps before I ditched that session and started over, so what I ended up with was the following:

2.5g / 50ml / 212F / Rinse|5s|10s|15s|20s|30s|40s|45s|50s|60s|65s

The tea aroma was that of wetlands and char and smoke. When I had overleafed, the first steep was pretty much unpalatable for me; it was so heavy in a tobacco smoke flavor, with an extremely bitter sharp vegetal astringency left on my tongue following the sip, that even that tiny cup of tea was daunting. When I restarted the session with less leaf, the smoky note had been tamed back, and more of the wet earth flavor was present, and the tea only carried a mild astringency. By the third steep the aroma started to smell a little spicier, reminding me of the lingering scent of incense in the air, especially with the subtle smokiness present, and I noticed a slight spice note in the finish. By the fourth steep the tea was starting to mellow out for me, the smokiness started to taste less like that awful tobacco note that I hate and more camp fire or BBQ-like, the wet earth flavor started to become more of a rainy petrichor note, and the astrigency following the sip was noticably fading. The smoke and astrigency continued to fade while the wet earth/petrichor continued to build in subsequent steeps. Around the seventh steep I started to taste vegetal notes like cucumber, celery, and watercress.

It took later steeps to push flavors out of this that I personally preferred; the reason why I knew I needed to ditch my first attempt is it just kept getting worse and worse (it was getting ashy, tart, and sour, rather than improving at all). I felt a bit sluggish/tea full by the time the tea picked up for me, and didn’t really want to keep up with the session by the time I was starting to finally like where things were headed. I can also see myself not really looking forward to having to get through the unpleasant smoky early steeps in the future to get to more mellow vegetal/petrichor flavored steeps later. So all in all, I don’t think the mysterious “Cheap” pu-erh is my cuppa.

I am definitely glad I started here though, since it allowed me to experiment with leaf amounts in the baby gaiwan and find my sweet spot with a pu-erh I’m not very impressed with rather than potentially waste leaf from a sampler that might be freaking amazing. I’m on a big learning curve here!

I have no idea the company/source of this pure lavender, other than it came from Greece; it was gifted to me by Meowster in their cupboard destash and since I’m a huge lavender fan (I’ll drink it plain, add it to other teas, and infuse it in cocoas and lemonades) I was happy to see the purple flower buds and give them a home. Thanks so much, Meowster!

Since my head feels like butt I’m in the mood for some lavender milk tea. It has taken me some time to come up with a recipe I like so I don’t end up with a bitter cup, but this is my preferences: a measly half gram of buds (a little goes a long way with pure lavender!) and since I use a pretty standard coffee mug that holds about 370ml of liquid, I steep in 300ml boiling water. I fill my coffee cup about 1/4 of the way full with coconut milk and heat that up for a minute in the microwave, then when my lavender buds have steeped for five minutes, I add the tea to my warm milk. I add just a tiny dollap of Farmer’s Market honey, since it has a naturally floral-sweet flavor that compliments the lavender nicely.

I really love how the flavor of coconut mixes with lavender… I find the warm lavender coconut milk really relaxing. It has that nice minty/floral taste with the sweet creamy coconut base, and has no nasty floral bitterness prepared this way. It’s just warm, relaxing, soothing. Mmm.

I’ve been down with another lengthy migraine, so I haven’t had the energy to do tea journal the last few days… and the nausea has kinda kept me from even drinking much tea, too. But last Thursday night I received a late birthday package from my best friend who was in Japan during my b-day, that had a gorgeous teacup with Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service on it from the Ghibli Musuem, and a bunch of Japanese teas (mostly sakura-flavored teas, as I specifically mentioned I like those and they are hard to come by, and they are in season over there right now, as well as a few other things). One of the stranger things included was an instant plum tea packet that was found at the New Otani Hotel (I believe the Osaka location). My friend’s traveling companion said it was thick and soup-like, so he told me I might want to use it for ramen broth (he knows I use tea as a broth substitute since I can’t use the flavor packets since MSG is a migraine trigger for me). I decided to do something a little different, and dissolved it into the water I was using to make my Minute Rice that night.

Since I only had one packet and I was making a double-serving of rice (which uses two cups of water), I was expecting it to be a little “weak”, but was hoping that the rice might take on a slight plum flavor as it soaked up the water. Ehhh… the experiment didn’t quite work out that way. The rice did have a noticeable taste to it, but it was a very salty flavor! Every now and again I thought that perhaps there was a hint of something slightly sweet or fruity to the taste, but it was extremely subtle; over all, it just tasted very salty. It certainly wasn’t anything to complain about, as it was more interesting than plain white rice, as soy sauce (fermented soy) is another migraine trigger (sigh, but I miss it dearly!), so at least the instant tea powder gave my rice some much needed added flavor. But I certainly wish it had taken on some plum notes like I had hoped. Maybe if I’d had more of the instant tea packets it would’ve worked? Who knows!

Last spring around April Fool’s Day I found a glass mason jar filled with an unidentfied tea leaf in the back of my cupboards that I decided I would finally try to identify. I knew an old coworker had given the tea to me, but it was around when I’d first started working at the library — and that was in 2004 — and she’s been gone from the staff for some time, so it was going to be up to my nose, eyes, and finally tongue to identify this stuff.

I could tell from a visual assessment that the leaf was black tea leaf, and there were small chunks of something in the leaf that looked like dried apple, but a sniff test of the jar produced a strong cinnamon scent. I searched online for some images of “cinnamon black tea” and sure enough found some pictures that were dead ringers for what I had. I was more used to seeing cinnamon in stick form rather than the somewhat spongey cubes I had in this blend. But there was no denying it — I had Cinnamon Black tea, and some very old Cinnamon Black tea at that.

They say that a tea “never goes bad,” but when I decided to have a sipdown of this the other day, I discovered just how wrong I was in that belief. Bleeeh… I remember thinking this was pretty good when I tried it a year ago! Could one more year make that much difference, or has my palate just become that much more sensitive after a year of avid tea-drinking? Because this was nasty, nasty tea. It tasted old and flavorless. The base was weak and devoid of any elements of a nice black tea, with a pallid wash of cinnamon sadly trying (and failing miserably) to hide that fact.

Like milk that has gone rancid, it was time to let this leaf go.

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/tea14/

Went to a Japanese’s tea ceremony today. It was a great experience. Learned a lot. The type of tea was a matcha green tea. The tea itself was quite bitter. But the experience was very nice.

Had some tea from the local Asian fusion place today. I’m not sure exactly what kind of tea it was. Tasted like an oolong. Pretty nice flavor notes nutty, sweet, a little bit of a creamy note, smooth. May have even been a “milk” oolong.

Chai tea from Curry Kebob!

Made my own chai. East Frisian from Harney and Sons as the base. Fresh ginger, black pepper corns, cloves, green caradomom pods, star anise, and cinnamon. Yum!

A review of tea. As presented to me by L. Proust, Esq.

The lineup:

a 2012 Haiwan amuse-bouche
2004 BYH Manzhuan
1980s some sheng, rather wet stored
2004 Tejipin palate cleanser
2017 CLT LBZ upside the head
2006 Wistaria Silver Medal Banzhang, 18g in a vessel that wasn’t rated for 18 (but it was mighty fine regardless)
1965 Jing Gu brick for afters
Cigars and brandy…. ahh, who am I kidding? More tea! Lp’s favorite Kunlu and a very fine oolong I can’t recall anything about because at this point they were picking my brain matter off the floorboards a la Pulp Fiction.

Review:

It was quite tremendous. I would recommend it. In fact, I did. See upper right.

Amounts are approximated and may bear little resemblance to fact.

Drinking a Gushu Hong Cha #2 from the same vendor in Minsk that I got the georgian hongcha from. I think this is sourced from TeaSide but I am not sure, so I’ll log it here. Supposed to be from trees 100-200 years old. Wish I had bought more than just a 20g sample!

Leaves are long and twisty, gold and black.
2.5g in 300ml for 3.5 minutes.
Strong but not bitter or astringent. Reminds of Taiwan Wild Boar (strong but not bitter) but more complex with a fuller body and better mouthfeel. Really enjoyed it, good for starting the day. Some malt and wood. Sweet after taste.

Makes me wonder if I need to give Indian Assams another chance but you know, I already have 25+ hongcha ordered that I need to try.

Second steep was meant to be 5 minutes but I oversteeped. Still good and not astringent.

Georgian hongcha from 2017. Picked this up in Minsk, Belarus. Not much detail known beyond that. I tend to look up teahouses and vendors when I travel and I found a pretty nice place in Minsk that did gong fu cha and had a pretty solid selection of teas.

The vendor was rather reluctant to sell me this as he had “much better teas” and told me that while the leaf material itself was solid, it was not hand processed. Had to explain how I’ve had some other really good Georgian teas (via whatcha) and I was curious to compare them.

Brewed this up western style, 2.5g in 300ml for 3minutes. As I sat down with a cup of this I got preoccupied and my first sip had me a bit confused as to what I was drinking. Very soft and smooth, almost creamy in the mouth. Rather monodimensional and not as interesting as say the Phoenix Georgian hongcha from what-cha, but a pretty nice and easy cup with no astringency at all.

I have another georgian tea on hand that I haven’t tried yet, via thetea.pl’s tea club. Will be interesting to see if that also fits the pattern of really smooth and easy drinkers.

This probably doesn’t count but I just wanted to yell into the void that I put some lemon vodka in a bottle of “Pom” brand pomegranate honey green tea and it’s doooope

Tried the 2016 Yibang Mao Cha from chawangshop today. This tea was in very limited supply and is now sold out. It was quite expensive at $1 per gram. I got a 12g sample. It was an outstanding tea. Very complex; fruity, bitter, wild tasting. It gave me hot flashes, which is very unusual. Took me by surprise. Does that happen for anyone else?

This is a rather unusual tea, its a tea from Kenya. I got this at the world tea expo and Ive been really curious to try it.

I started this by brewing it in a glass teapot at 205, 2.5 grams in a 160 ml of water. I got a very clear dark liquor, bit darker than the Ceylon tea. Its also slightly sweeter and lacking the citrus flavor. Its more like dark wood or dark chocolate. There is also a hint of creamy flavor as well. The aroma wasnt quite as powerful though.

I actually like this.. there is a bit of astrigency and bitterness, but its not overpowering at all.

Recomended

Adorned in red by mandala tea.

Another sampling of the shou bag in the puerh plus box. I brewed up 5 grams of this in 80 ml of water. Quick rinse given and then brewed with about 208 water, just short of boiling. I find it works a little better than bringing it all the way up to boil for shou tea.

This tea is smooth, sweet and chocolaty with a hint of vanilla, its not nearly as strong as the one packed in the orange. Just a hint of it at the end, its also got a stronger chocolate flavor.

This is a perfect after dinner tea..

Recomended

I’ve been taking and studying for finals for the past few weeks, and though it didn’t go as I expected in the end it was alright. But, sadly at my school even if you have a 90% in all of your classes, if even one assignment is not 90% you will not get the credit. So, I will have to remediate my finals during the 3 days that make up “summer school”. In the end I don’t mind that much, for, I know that this semester was the first semester where I was proud of my work, and proud of what I have accomplished, even if that wasn’t enough.

Enough of my complaints let me talk about the tea! I ate a huge meal before fasting at a time called suhoor. After this meal I was absolutely stuffed, but I thought that having a cup of puer would definitely aid my stomach in the ordeal that it is going to face. This tea session was my most brief, and I think I am going to take the leaves and dry them with a paper town to save for the end of the day. I only had around 30 minutes to drink, as it was 4:00 and the start of the fast was 4:30.

In this time with myself sitting in the dark, this tea gave me so much more than it did when I first tried it. When I first tried it, I was so excited as I just received a box full of puerh, and was eager to taste what I have been hearing about for weeks. At first I only tasted pine apple, and nothing else. But, since then I think I have grown into puerh as this time I got so much more. I got apple, stone fruits, a black tea bitterness, it was absolutely wonderful. This tea is very enjoyable, but I wish it wasn’t so much of a mystery! It was very smooth aswell, with a nice cooling aftertaste. As I have found with many raws there is a bitterness at first that lasts for the first 2 or 3 steepings. However, this tea’s bitterness was more than tolerable, and it was actually something that I enjoyed in the tea. Just when the session was getting nice my alarm went off, and it was time to fast.

Ramadan Mubarak to anyone else who is observing the fast. Please, if you have any questions about Ramadan, feel free to ask!

This tea was labeled 2013 Mystery Raw from Yunnan Sourcing.

I did a wash and brewed up the first infusion. It tasted very very fruity, with tropical fruits being the main taste. But, the main fruit that stood out was pine-apple. It tasted very much like pineapple with a peach and mango blend hiding behind it. It was a very nice tea, I enjoyed it very much.

It lasted about 6-7 infusions, with the fruity taste going behind and a grassy taste going in front, but the weird thing is, is that these two tastes sort of switched. One infusion I would taste a very fruity taste, but for 2 infusions that died down and I tasted a fruity hay. But then the pine apple returned until the session was over.

Today I also realized what being tea drunk is. I am super tea drunk it seems, as I am ridiculously calm, and really struggling to write this tasting note. I also feel really really up lifted with sort of a light feeling in the head and arms.

Overall, a very nice first puer, and I am excited for tomorrow to try a sheng!

7572 from the Here’s Hoping TTB. Don’t know what year.

This is probably one of the most boring tasting notes I’ll ever have, but all I wrote down for this tea is that it tastes like shou. This being the classic, defining recipe that it is, however, I suppose that isn’t too surprising. Kept a very consistent and predictable flavor profile throughout the entire session.