white2tea

It had very little color or flavor the first 2 steepings. The third and forth tasted very much like an IPA beer, sweet and hoppy. I am not a fan of this particular flavor profile

Light, Airy, with notes of citrus fruit

Packs a punch. Swirling, stinging, clarifying. Sweet at first, then bitter peppery astringency with a tiny bit of smoke.

Zipped and zoomed around the apartment sliding on my socks, to give you an impression of how I felt afterward. Felt like a child in all the best ways.

Considering getting two cakes at this price, one to age, one to drink soon. Could be special if it produces an energy like that reliably.

I was grumpy about White2Tea’s Halloween minis pack selling out before I convinced myself to order it again this year so I consoled myself with a tea club membership. This tea was in my first box (November) along with a 2018 Sun Fu heicha. I’d normally stuff a pu-erh this young down into the bottom of my tea box and try to forget about it for a while but the included information sheet suggested tasting it now. This is probably the freshest/youngest pu-erh I’ve ever had a chance to try so it seemed like a good learning experience.

Teeny baby gaiwan, 2-3g leaves (my scale decided to turn off in the middle of weighing out the leaves, it was awesome), water just boiled, house freezing (okay, about 63°F), quick rinse and steeps starting at around 10sec.

I didn’t think this would be a favorite right now and it isn’t. To me it has more smell dry than the wet leaf or brewed tea does. Dry it has a nice zingy sheng smell. The most interesting steep for me wasn’t even one of the real steeps but the rinse. The rinse had a little more flavor to it than the following steeps. After that, it was just kind of a light bitterness and not much else. I could be out of practice with my gongfu. I also don’t really have any experience with old arbor raws so I’m not sure what to expect compared to other raw pu-erhs . And I tend to prefer raws that are a few years old. It’s possible I’ll absolutely love this tea after letting it age a bit but at the moment it’s pretty meh for me. I’m glad I tried it now but it’s not something I want to keep drinking in its current state. It didn’t kill my stomach so at least there’s that. I wish the growing region had been mentioned in the description for this tea…White2Tea doesn’t seem to include that information for most of their teas. I try to compare information for teas I like (or dislike) to help me choose new teas instead of just randomly picking things so I’m always a fan of more info in descriptions.

Gongfu!

I meant to have this one on the weekend but didn’t quite get around to it. Perhaps it was meant to be, because the thick brothy liquor and balance of dense sweet and more earthy elements were very comforting this afternoon. There’s a somewhat sharp element to the top notes of my first few steeps – a little fruity and a little bit like roasted chicory – but mostly elements of dark chocolate, molasses, dates and oats/granola married with decaying wood and rich rain-soaked forest floor are what the session conveys. Sweet and muddy, really. Feels like good daily drinker type shou – probably a good Grandpa Style tea candidate also. Didn’t have the greatest longevity though, as it was pretty tapped out after five steeps…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWoSnkrLxpb/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tPlEGKBN2U&ab_channel=TheOrionExperience

Grandpa Style!

I hadn’t tried Moon Waffles grandpa style prior to this and I feel like honestly I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. Part of that is that I used more tea leaf than I probably should have, so this was a strong brew. It started creamy and thick with a sort of vegetal note that with the cream made me think of something like a slightly less savory and rich Cream of Celery Soup. However very fast is got astringent from the amount of leaf, and the taste of dandelion took over in a not so enjoyable way.

Oh well, lesson learned for next time!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CgP-NpROgXL/ (The fourth pic)

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHuEpWXuBb0

Gongfu!

I was a fan of the previous production and looks like I’m a fan of this one too! The liquor is thick and coating with notes of buckwheat honey mixed with clotted cream rising to the forefront throughout the session! I also get notes of straw, gently roasted dandelion, and just a bit of golden raisin.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWeS8wrrl4T/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhmo5cOtQ_E&ab_channel=FamousExchange-Topic

I was very curious to try this one, but my experience was only partially positive.

I think this really needs to settle and age a bit, because at the moment the smoke is covering almost everything else.
I like pine smoke, and during the infusions I got different shades of it, but I just kept wondering what’s beneath.
The liquor was thick and chalky, with a good astringency and low bitterness. Heavy but somehow smooth. Felt like drinking a thick-vegetal-fruity-smoky juice. Huigan was good, and the Qi made me feel dizzy and stoned for a while, and a bit jittery afterwards.

I’ll try to push it with some more steepings and I’ll update if I find something new.

Cold Brew!

I started day one of this Vegas trip with a lunch meet up with some tea friends and a tour of the very appropriately on theme “Tea and Tulips” exhibit at the the Bellagio Conservatory. It smelled heavenly with just the freshest, sweeter florals. Also a weird mix of instrumental Disney music and what I can only describe as what I imagine would be playing at an old-timey Kentucky Derby. It was so nice to finally meet both teawithneldon (years in the making) and ana.likes.tea in person, and to see Chase and Nicole again too.

Plus, I even managed to sneak in a little bit of tea with a late afternoon hotel room cold brew. Pu’erh is not something I cold brew very often, and I’d actually brought this mini with me for some hotel room gongfu, but the cold brew was surprisingly good albeit strong. Very earthy, but clean and sweet with notes of brown sugar and red fruits as well.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4rRTKVONy_/?img_index=1

The tea mini is the fourth one in the carousel.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0tFPIy3mUE

Gongfu!

Taking full advantage of the sunny skies with an outdoor shou session! This tea has settled pretty nicely into a thick and full bodied tea with rich, starchy notes of oat milk, cooking cream, potting soil, and forest undergrowth with a finish that’s both lightly camphorous and densely sweet – like a hint of brown sugar!!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CsmaA43O2Bg/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLIHQ7_LX_A

Grandpa style!

Dug into my shou samples to brew this throughout the afternoon. It’s as tasty as it is pretty, and it’s a veerrryyy gorgeous looking tea! Surprisingly bright for a shou with a syrupy mouthfeel and a lovely mix of roasted carob, cherry, and wet potting soil notes; definitely the cherry that’s making it so particularly dynamic and lively though!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CivKUJjOQRe/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY5CAz6S9kE

Gongfu!

Had this session with some fresh and tangy red currants while I work through a backlog of emails from my vacation these past two weeks! The currant is perhaps a little too intense in flavour and I’m losing some of the subtleties and flavour nuances of the shou but overall the thick oily liquor and unabashed woody notes are at least not drowning underneath the intensity of the fruit. I decided to finish the session with the currants only nibbled on in between the steeps, and there’s some sweetness coming through the shou now that was getting lost before. I’m as of yet undecided on how I feel about the tea overall, though this session was nice…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWWdaYQLWwS/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ki_WCnZwcY

Fruity and juicy. Fell asleep in between steepings, that would be the work of the COVID booster I got yesterday. I think there was good energy here but it got kind of muddled with my light fever. But the sitting nap was nice! Tranquil if a bit disorienting.

Pronounced huigan, sweet-bitter-astringent, later sour and saliva-inducing. It all lingers seemingly forever in my mouth.

Listening to Mt. Ambient Vs Spasm by Soichi Terada.

August w2t club, ~90g cake. Loving the back-and-forth between the white flavors and the dark smoke. Bitterness is welcomed in later steepings and melds the two together. My mind was fooled into thinking that I was having a smoky aged sheng during gaps in the session. Great focusing energy.

Curious how it’d be if the smoke were dialed back just a little bit.

Gongfu!

Quick early morning session from the morning after one of the nights I slept at my place while my mom was/is visiting – AKA a breakfast tea session! I was inspired by Theoolongdrunk to pair this white tea with some fresh figs. He was definitely onto something though and the delicate sweet dewy notes of the fruit paired wonderfully with the the thick and creamy liquor of the white tea which had delightful notes of clotted cream, cucumber pulp, fresh hay, and tobacco. So smooth with a perfect kiss of sweetness and an overall deeply fresh feel to the session!

This tea is now sold out so it’s a moot point, but this type of creamy cucumber profile is my favourite in white teas and if it weren’t sold out I might be tempted to cake this tea…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWGta2Jli3S/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibKDBXpye3g&ab_channel=MisoExtra-Topic

initial dry leaf smell very sweet and floral, almost perfume like. 212f, 100 mL gaiwan, 6.2g.

did not rinse. wet leaf is lightly smoky and bittersweet smell.

7s: carrot-like perfumed floral sweetness; sweet aftertaste in back of mouth and upper throat that shifts to a slightly vegetal note

7s: light floral black tea/hongcha edge creeping in. slight steamed vegetal taste and aftertaste

8s: slight bitter upfront, in the vein of unpleasant cucumber bitterness, ringed by a floral and slight vegetal that leaves tongue dry. cucumber aftertaste that I’ve never encountered before. transitions into light sweetness

8s: this definitely has to be the most aromatic tea I’ve ever smelled. If the smell were a perfume, I’d buy it. Anyway, on taste: a floral pea-like taste, akin to the floral of the LP bubblegum yesheng I’ve tried before, but fuller and more honeyed. This fades and transitions to a black tea/hongcha-tinged floral taste. drying on tongue. I suspect my shorter steeps are keeping potential bitterness at bay, and I don’t mind putting in the work to keep it this way.

8s: almost mint hint plus floral vegetal notes and a cucumber pulp taste. tastes like sweet pea shower gel smells like in a way. sweetened cucumber like aftertaste

8s: almost bitter but not quite with a taste in the black tea/hongcha vein. somewhat drying

8s: back to honeyed cucumber florals. slight subtle vegetal aftertaste

8s: similar, but lighter

8s: a sort of bland steamed vegetable like taste, some high floral note as well

12s: similar

20s: similar. now is probably the right time to admit that this session’s notes were taken over the course of a week. This tea isn’t explicitly offensive in any way, but it is so boring and lacks anything truly dynamic; all shifts happen within a limited range. Which is perhaps not an issue, but at this price point, there’s so many more interesting options to go for over this one. I started and finished 3 other teas in this same duration.

30s: same, but slight drying on tongue

45s: very mild

1 min: more black tea like, slightly drying in upper throat

unknown min.: bitter with a rounded floral aspect. moving to the thermos, don’t really want to drink more of this

concluding thoughts: very slight warming. There’s no doubt this is pretty good material, but dang I really did not enjoy this as a tea. Anything that approaches hongcha/black tea notes I tend to immediately find slightly repulsive and I can’t really explain why, it just is that way. If these notes seem good to you otherwise, I’m sure plenty of people would enjoy this one. I will say that I agree with shah8’s take on wild teas (yesheng), as the ones I’ve tried now all seem to follow a similar profile that isn’t too dynamic or interesting to me, and I’ll probably avoid these in the future. This one I ordered a while back before I’d concluded that wild teas were probably not for me, and well, shipping times from China just is what it is. These experiences are why I don’t sign up for monthly club subscriptions no matter how tempting. I like novelty, but I also feel less disappointed that it’s something I chose of my own volition to purchase instead of someone else deciding for me. Funny how things work.

Sipdown (1616)!

Finished this one off grandpa style over the course of two days in office. It took a long time for the thick savory smoke notes to fade out with this method of steeping and even longer for the sweet, dense earthy shou to stop producing good tea. Just such an intense and complex tea overall. The combination of that heavy layer of smoke with such a forest soil and sweet petrichor rich shou is just magical and it brought me to fond childhood memories of deep summer rainfalls and end of summer break camping.

But not too mad about this sipdown because I have a full cake of it to enjoy still!

Gongfu!

Anyone who knows my deep love of Lapsang Souchong, and smoked tea in general, will understand how there was never a universe in which I didn’t order this unique smoked shou puerh and it’s smoked sheng counterpart. I’m thrilled that it lives up to my expectations! There’s a fruity sweetness to the undertones of this tea that reminds me of black cherry jam, but mostly the flavour is a dance between thick campfire smoke and petrichor and wet decaying wood. I described it to someone as “walking up to a summer campsite and smelling the smoke in the distance mixed with the freshness of the surrounding forest” and that’s not a bad description, but I think it’s more like that late summer bonfire right after you’ve doused the fire: that sweet smoky steam that fills the air over the newly soaked fire logs and soil. Fucking exquisite, either way!

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CV2y6c9Ak1-/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kCmdrd0DXQ&ab_channel=SANHOLO

5g / 90ml Hongni “Fang Xia” from Essence of tea

Dry leaves:
camphor, peat, sweet hay

Wet leaves:
baked pears, ash, smoke, medicinal herbs. The aroma is sweet and pleasant, with nothing offensive. as the leaves cool down I get a delicious acidic fermented red fruits aroma.

1) 30 sec steeping
the liquor colour is dark red, medium thick, very sweet and round. I get some florals, complex sugars, some spiciness, a medicinal feeling. As they cool down I get a strawberry jam aroma from the leaves.
The Qi hits almost instantly, as my heartbeat goes louder and some type of pressure is building in my scalp.

2)
the aroma gets a more “aged” element (I think of the colour Purple), while the soup stays similar to steep one but a bit more dry and pungent. Huigan is present but not so intense, with a tingling feeling at the top of the throat.
My mental activity is slowing down, my head feels heavy. I feel some kind of uplifting energy/nervousness.

3)
So far the most delicious steep. Sweetness and astringency are well integrated, giving a sense of fullness and satisfaction as it spreads across the mouth. The soup carries various layers of flavours already described in the previous steeps, plus a more accentuated cooling element.

4)
Dryness and pungency are bulding up, together with that cooling element that goes between camphor and menthol. The aroma gets more herbal with spices like anice and other stuff I can’t name.

5) – one minute steeping
Aroma gets more herbal and almost alcoholic.
soup is smoother, with less substance. Time to push the steeping time.

6) – two minutes steeping
the soup is pleasant and smooth, with a much thinner body.

7) – five minutes steeping
Actually the tea is still kicking, with more sugarcane and cherry sweetness.

8) – ten minutes steeping
More simple but still rich and satisfying.

Final thoughts:
This tea is famous for having a strong energy. I felt it for sure, but I wouldn’t say it’s so different from many other puerh I tried. I’m a beginner, so I may be not sensitive to subtle differences, but I wasn’t blown away by the Qi. I feel something in between alertness and sluggishness.
Apart from that, the tea is delicious. Very friendly, durable and elegant in his own way, without storage notes. Just… the price is not so friendly.