eastkyteaguy Send Message

It’s taken me awhile, but I’m finally beginning to get into some of the black teas produced in Nepal. This was my latest sipdown, and I found it to be very unique and enjoyable. For once, I was not overly tempted to compare a Nepalese tea to a Darjeeling.

I prepared this tea in the Western style. I steeped 3-4 grams of loose tea leaves in approximately 8 ounces of 194 F water for 5 minutes. I did not attempt any additional infusions.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted mild aromas of citrus, straw, flowers, and Muscatel. After infusion, I detected robust aromas of dandelion, marigold, rose, chrysanthemum, malt, straw, mandarin orange, Muscatel, and lemon zest underscored by a subtle smokiness. In the mouth, I picked up strong notes of chrysanthemum, dandelion, marigold, rose, lemon zest, mandarin orange, and Muscatel which quickly softened to reveal notes of malt, grass, straw, smoke, almond, sweet corn, pine, and wintergreen. The finish sported a unique mix of flowers, citrus, straw, sweet corn, and cooling wintergreen.

This was such a quirky tea, and may I add that the leaves were beautiful. This was definitely a quality picking. I wasn’t expecting this tea to be so robustly aromatic and flavorful, but I ended up enjoying it. I would not want to have it on a regular basis, but I would likely spring for it again if given the opportunity.

Here’s another one of the Spring 2016 teas I have desperately been trying to finish. This was one of my first purchases from Whispering Pines Tea Company and I totally forgot I still had it. At first, I was a little concerned about the tea’s age, but after opening the pouch and catching a whiff of ridiculously herbal, woody tea leaves, my concern melted away. I found this tea to be an exceptionally balanced black tea with enough depth and complexity to keep one coming back for more.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of malt, wood, roasted nuts, spice, and molasses. After the rinse, I began to catch hints of citrus, camphor, sweet potato, and leather. The first infusion produced an almost identical bouquet. In the mouth, I detected a mix of wood, nuts, leather, and malt underscored by hints of citrus, camphor, sweet potato, molasses, and spice. Subsequent infusions allowed the nut impressions to more clearly define themselves. They reminded me of a combination of roasted almond, roasted chestnut, and beechnut. The sweet potato, camphor, and molasses notes strengthened slightly, joined by notes of caramel, butter, pine, smoke, honey, minerals, and dark chocolate. The indistinct citrus impressions morphed into a clear orange presence, while the melange of spices also came into focus, resembling a mix of anise, black licorice, ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper. The later infusions were clean and smooth on the nose and in the mouth. I detected mild notes of malt, butter, leather, roasted nuts, and minerals underscored by lingering citrus, spice, pine, camphor, and honey tones.

Overall, this was an exceptionally refined Yunnan black tea. I could see what all the fuss was about and only wish that I had gotten to this one a little sooner. I guess that just means I’ll have to pick up a pouch of the 2017 harvest at some point in the near future.

I’m still working on finishing up some of the black teas from last year. I ended up buying this one specifically to compare to another unsmoked Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong that, for whatever reason, I never got around to reviewing. Overall, I found this tea to be pleasant, though I have had more consistently enjoyable Wuyi black teas.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted powerful aromas of honey, wood, and chocolate. After the rinse, I began to pick up scents of baked bread, brown sugar, malt, toast, and citrus. The first infusion introduced subtle touches of minerals, pine, and sorghum. In the mouth, I detected notes of chocolate, malt, toast, honey, and wood underscored by citrus and minerals. Subsequent infusions brought out the citrus aromas and flavors. I began to detect distinct impressions of kumquat, candied orange peel, and lemon zest. The sorghum, brown sugar, and pine also began to make themselves known. Aromas and flavors of cinnamon, caramel, clove, nutmeg, butter, juniper berry, cedar, leather, red apple, and roasted nuts also appeared at various points. The later infusions were dominated by mineral, leather, nut, malt, wood, and spice impressions underscored by traces of tart citrus, juniper berry, and pine.

Despite the rating I have assigned, this tea came closer to being a knockout than it would appear. I loved the mix of aromas and flavors, but I felt the need to downgrade it heavily for two reasons. First, this tea peaked super quickly and faded just as quickly. Second, I found the mouthfeel of the tea liquor to be persistently sharp and thin, even for a Wuyi black tea. There was just no body whatsoever. All in all, I found this tea to be enjoyable, though there were definitely some negatives to it.

I finally managed to finish the last of a 50 gram pouch of this tea a couple days ago and have been putting off writing a review ever since. I don’t know what has come over me, but the past couple of days has seen my motivation and focus slip in all areas of my life. I think a lot of that may have to do with me growing increasingly frustrated and restless in my current career and feeling jittery about the upcoming career change I have planned, but who knows? All I know is that I need to get myself back on track. I’m going to carve out some personal time this weekend and hopefully go into the workweek with my head back on my shoulders. With all of that out of the way, this was the tea I drank during the bulk of my current bout of listlessness. It kind of fit my overall mood and state of mind, but all in all, it was just a predictable, filling gunpowder green tea.

I prepared this tea Western style. I started off by steeping 1 teaspoon of loose tea leaves in approximately 8 ounces of 175 F water for 2 minutes. Afterwards, I conducted a 3 minute infusion and stopped there. I think the next time I decide to drink a gunpowder green tea, I may gongfu it. I have yet to try that on this type of tea.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea pellets did not emit much of an aroma. I got a little bit of lemon and roasted vegetables, but that was about it. After infusion, I detected more pronounced scents of grilled lemon, grass, hay, asparagus, seaweed, garden peas, roasted Brussels sprouts, and pine. In the mouth, I picked up mostly roasted Brussels sprouts, pine, asparagus (I seem to be picking this aroma and flavor up a lot in the green teas I have been drinking over the past couple of months), seaweed, peas, hay, damp grass, and grilled lemon. I could also pick out a few other vegetal notes, perhaps something along the lines of bok choy and/or napa cabbage. There was a hint of smoke too. The second infusion was a little more robust both on the nose and in the mouth. The smokiness strengthened and I began to definitely pick out something along the lines of napa cabbage and bok choy. There were also subtle notes of cauliflower and broccoli, as well as a touch of minerals. Otherwise, all of the other aromas and flavors from the initial infusion were there in varying amounts.

This really was not a terrible tea, but I found that much like everything else in my life, it could not sustain my interest for any length of time. I do like gunpowder teas, but I often tend to find them boring, so I suppose that should not have been surprising. I feel like I got a lot out of it, but lately I have been tending to push my nose and palate more with regard to green teas than just about any other type of tea. Overall, I cannot say that this was bad, but I also cannot claim that it impressed me. It failed to offer any surprises or challenge me in any way. How much one likes this tea will probably depend on how one feels about gunpowder green teas in general.

Here’s yet another sample sipdown. I way overloaded on caffeine the last couple of days, but could not go without my daily sipping session, so I did something I don’t do often-I broke out a white tea. It totally hit the spot too.

I brewed this tea gongfu. After a 10 second rinse, I steeped the entire 6 gram dragon ball in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions was as follows: 12 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dragon ball emitted aromas of hay, honey, eucalyptus, and apricot. After the rinse, I began to pick up on grass, nectar, wood, toast, and camphor. The first infusion introduced hints of butter, pine, cucumber, and malt. In the mouth, I mostly picked up on notes of butter, malt, cucumber, damp grass, hay, pine, eucalyptus, wood, and honey underscored by touches of apricot, camphor, and nectar. Subsequent infusions saw the camphor, apricot, and nectar intensify in the mouth. I also began to detect impressions of almond, wheat toast, puff pastry, cedar, dates, oats, cream, minerals, golden raisin, cinnamon, vanilla, and clove. The later infusions were smooth, displaying pronounced buttery, creamy qualities with hints of minerals, hay, pine, eucalyptus, spices, toast, and apricot in places.

I normally don’t go for white teas, but I have had a soft spot for Yue Guang Bai for a little over a year now. This one was excellent. It was deep, complex, mellow, long-lasting, and well-balanced.

I finished this one last night, which was a terrible decision. I had way too much tea yesterday and ended up not falling asleep until around 3:00 A.M. as a result. I didn’t get up this morning until somewhere around 10:00 A.M. I may have put myself through hell, but at least the teas I drank yesterday were good. This one was no exception, and for me, that’s saying something because I’m still not totally sold on Nilgiri teas.

I prepared this tea in the Western style. I steeped approximately 3 grams of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 194 F water for 5 minutes. I did not attempt any additional infusions.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted a fairly powerful bouquet that presented a blend of honey, flowers, grass, and fruit. After infusion, I detected pronounced scents of honey, violet, grass, rose, and mango. In the mouth, I detected honey and flowers up front. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what kind of floral impressions I was getting. At the time, I pegged it as a mixture of chrysanthemum, rose, tea flower, and violet. With the exception of the violet, I’m still not confident that my description would strike anyone else as being remotely accurate. Just beneath the honey and floral notes, I detected impressions of grass, straw, malt, herbs, mango, and nectarine underscored by a touch of smoke. The finish was sweet with a nice mix of floral, fruity, and honeyed tones.

This was an interesting and satisfying black tea. I was pretty much firing in all directions simultaneously when I attempted to log this, so I have no idea if my description of this tea even approaches adequacy, but I can confirm that it was a nice drinking experience. Again, I’m still not the hugest fan of Nilgiris, but I thought this one was quite good. I imagine that those who have more interest in teas of this type would get considerably more out of it than someone like me.

This was another tea I forgot I had. While going through one of my tea totes last night, I stumbled upon it and thought to myself, “I should probably try this soon.” I then put it aside with the intention of breaking it out within the next couple of days. Curiosity got the better of me, however, and I decided I just had to have it this morning. I found it to be an interesting, mellow oolong with a good deal of complexity and the expected young sheng brininess.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. Just out of curiosity, I measured the dragon ball prior to starting the session. I had expected it to weigh approximately 6 grams, but my scale showed right around 8. Not wanting to chance it in a smaller gaiwan, I broke out an unused 5 oz. easy gaiwan I had been meaning to try out sooner. After a 10 second rinse, I steeped the entire dragon ball in 5 ounces of 194 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry dragon ball emitted interesting, somewhat funky aromas of stone fruits, smoke, wood, grass, camphor, and brine. The rinse brought out more fruitiness (I began to catch distinct impressions of longan and lychee) as well as honey and more intense smoke, grass, wood, and brine scents. The first infusion introduced hints of pine, wild mushroom, and apricot. In the mouth, I mostly detected a touch of fruitiness coupled with an odd blend of mushroom, honey, smoke, grass, camphor, and brine. Clearly, I didn’t infuse this long enough, but whatever. Subsequent infusions allowed the fruit notes to separate and develop. I definitely got longan, lychee, and apricot. Soon, I also began to pick up tart cherry, lemon, and Asian pear notes, maybe even a touch of something like jackfruit. I also got more intense wood, grass, honey, brine, and smoke. The pine showed up on the palate too. Impressions of earth, minerals, hay, spruce, malt, dried flowers, and birch also joined the party. The later infusions were dominated by minerals, malt, wood, mushroom, and camphor, though I could still detect hints of honey, dried flowers, grass, and stone fruits with just a touch of belatedly emerging caramel.

This was a complex, challenging, quirky tea, but it wasn’t particularly intense. It was very forgiving and even-tempered throughout the session, lacking the peaks and valleys I tend to get from the vast majority of the other teas I brew gongfu. I found it to be a tea worth trying, though I doubt I would be in any rush to return to it.

I think everyone who has been reading my reviews realizes that I have been going to great lengths to finish the green teas I have bought over the past year. This was one of my later acquisitions and I recently bumped it up in the rotation since I tend to like Yunnan Mao Feng green teas. I seem to recall buying this because the price was ridiculously low for an organic tea. That should have tipped me off to the possibility that this may not have been the highest quality organic green tea, but I could not resist. I learned a lesson from that. This was the most boring Mao Feng I have ever had by a long shot.

I stuck with a Western-style preparation for this tea. I simply could not motivate myself to gongfu it. For one thing, most of the leaves were broken, so I figured it would make a mess. Also, it just was not that interesting. I started off by steeping a teaspoon of loose leaf material in approximately 8 ounces of 175 F water for 2 minutes. I then conducted a second infusion at 3 minutes and stopped there.

Prior to infusion, the dry leaf material emitted mildly smoky, grassy aromas with a hint of nuttiness. After infusion, I picked up aromas of hay, smoke, grass, and pine with touches of chestnut and citrus. In the mouth, I mostly picked up fairly weak notes of malt, hay, grass, lemon, chestnut, pine, smoke, and minerals. The second infusion produced a slightly stronger nose with greater citrus, smoke, and pine presences and a touch of indistinct floral quality. The mouth followed suit with stronger chestnut, pine, smoke, malt, and lemon notes to complement a growing minerality and lingering touches of hay and grass. I got a little bit of floral character, but could not place it and quickly gave up trying. I also picked up hints of asparagus and seaweed.

This was a disappointment. I cannot do much more than reiterate that I found this tea to be boring. Actually, I will go a step further and call it unengaging as well. I definitely would not recommend this to anyone looking for a good example of a Yunnan Mao Feng.

This was my afternoon tea today. I have been working on finishing up a few of the samples I have lying around and I was in the mood for a Darjeeling. It came down to either this or the Rohini Golden Buds, but I ended up selecting this one. I tend to be a fan of the teas produced by the Gopaldhara Estate and had heard some good things about this one. I found it to be a very pleasant, slightly quirky first flush Darjeeling with a pronounced fruity character.

I prepared this tea in the Western style. I steeped about 3-4 grams of loose tea leaves in approximately 8 ounces of 194 F water for 5 minutes. I did not attempt any additional infusions.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted pleasantly fruity, malty, grassy aromas. After infusion, I detected clearer aromas of honey, peach, straw, grass, Muscatel, flowers, and melon. There were also subtle touches of wood, lemon zest, and smoke. In the mouth, I picked up a delicate mixture of honey, almond, straw, grass, cucumber, wood, smoke, lemon zest, tangerine, honeydew melon, white peach, malt, and Muscatel balanced by subtle minerals and fleeting impressions of dandelion, chrysanthemum, marigold, and violet. The finish was fruity and malty, offering lingering malt, Muscatel, melon, peach, and citrus notes with just a touch of floral character.

Yeah, this one was excellent. What-Cha normally does a great job sourcing Darjeelings, especially first flush Darjeelings. I kind of wish I had a little more of this to play around with, but I don’t. I may have to pick up some more soon. If you are a fan of first flush Darjeelings, give this one a shot. I doubt you will be disappointed.

I polished off a sample pouch of this tea to start my day. I think I’m going to spend much of the rest of this day cleaning house and catching up on reviews. I have a couple of others that I need to post. Anyway, this was kind of a standard Kenyan black tea in the sense that it was a strong, malty Assamica. It definitely did the trick as a breakfast tea.

I prepared this tea in the Western style. I steeped somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-4 grams of loose tea leaves in approximately 8 ounces of 203 F water for 5 minutes. I did not attempt any additional infusions.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted mildly malty, woody aromas. After infusion, I caught hints of camphor and anise to go along with caramel, cocoa, molasses, leather, malt, nuts, and wood. In the mouth, the tea was strongly herbal and nutty up front. Along with a somewhat menthol note of camphor and a hint of anise, I immediately detected notes of black walnut, beechnut, and roasted chestnut. The tea then opened up, allowing notes of cream, malt, butter, leather, brown toast, orange, and dark wood to appear. I could detect impressions of cocoa powder, coffee bean, and molasses lurking in the background. The finish was malty, nutty, creamy, and somewhat sweet with a returning hit of camphor and a belatedly emerging leafiness.

For kind of a standard issue African Assam-type black tea, this was very nice. It wasn’t quite as syrupy or as heavy as some of the other African black teas I have tried. I could see it taking additives well, though it does not need them to shine. I would have no difficulty recommending this tea to anyone looking for a respectable breakfast tea to get them going in the morning.