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Full disclosure: My sense of smell is not functioning at 100%, today.

I read a description on another tea vendor’s website, and he described the tea’s profile as smelling like cannabis. Bingo! That’s one of the unusual smells I think some raw pu’ers possess that I could never put my finger on. Not that I’m any expert in cannabis, but I have smelled it a few times in my life, and it’s a very unusual and distinct smell, and that is exactly what the wet leaves of this tea smell like. I also get some more dry grassy-hay notes, as well, and a bit of pepperiness. Wet leaf quality appears high. Whole leaves dominate.

One might note that my flavor/aroma notes are contradictions, but yet that is not a mistake. Steeped for under 15 seconds, the tea produces a pale oak liquor that is smooth and wet and sweet with no bitterness. Steeped for 1 min+, it’s bitter and astringent. I prefer this one steeped for shorter durations.

I’ll have to keep this one short. It’s probably me and my under-performing sense of smell more than the tea, today, but I am just not getting much past the 4th infusion.

A few weeks ago, I was shaking the water out of my beautiful little 70 ml (an awesome size!) xishi Jianshui clay pot from Crimson Lotus when I lost my grip on the down stroke, and I basically did what amounted to throwing my pot into our porcelain farmer sink in the kitchen with quite a bit of force. As you can imagine, it shattered into many pieces. These are wonderfully crafted pots, and I highly recommend them. I don’t recommend slamming them onto hard surfaces. :-( I immediately ordered another pot, and included with the replacement pot was a sample of 2013 Lucky Cloud shou pu’erh. Hopefully this “lucky cloud” will shade me for awhile, so I don’t ruin any more teaware. The sample provided was high quality, outer edge cake, nearly completely intact with very little loose tea leaves.

Below is the teapot:
https://crimsonlotustea.com/collections/teapots/products/jianshui-zitao-clay-teapot-xishi-style-red-70-110ml-free-shipping

Smooth and creamy is how Crimson Lotus describes this shou pu’erh, and that is an accurate description. This would make an excellent daily drinker, and I think it would appeal to many new shou pu’erh tea drinkers, and maybe some experienced ones, as well, depending on what taste profile is desired.

Dry leaf aroma was earthy, leaf pile, and subtle. It required getting the nose right on the leaves to pick up any aroma. Wet leaf smell is classic shou pu’erh — earthy, mulchy, life pile, forest floor.

I brewed this in a very small ~50 ml porcelain gaiwan. One rinse with boiling water, another quick rinse with just off the boil water, and a first steep of 10 seconds. Liquor was dark brown on the first steep. First infusion was mellow and so smooth. No bitterness. No astringency. No fishiness. No throat feeling. Very little aftertaste. Mouth remained wet. Faintly sweet.

Second infusion was for 30 seconds. Liquor now very dark brown with some slight redness. Taste remained much the same.

Third infusion was also for 30 seconds. Liquor remained the same dark, reddish brown. Taste changed to sweeter and some maltiness.

Four infusion of 40 seconds has more sweetness. I’m getting a small amount of mild mouth drying after about a minute. Astringency and perhaps some bitterness (if that’s your thing) may be able to be pulled from this shou pu’erh with long infusions. I’m on the fence on trying it, because it is so good in this mellow form. Oh what the heck, let’s go for it.

Fifth infusion. 3 mins. I’m surprised. I thought it would be more bitter and astringent, but this is the 5th infusion. It’s there. There is some astringency at first on the back of my tongue and then the front of the tongue as some time passes after each sip, but it isn’t a strong, chalky drying action. It is slight. Bitterness is so slight at this longer infusion, it’s hardly worth mentioning. The maltiness is still there.

Sixth infusion. 45 seconds. Color of liquor now a medium brown and I can see the bottom of my teacup. Sweet, mineral, no bitterness, no astringency, mild earthy note, no maltiness now in the later infusions if the steeping time is kept short.

So, I said that I think this would appeal to new shou pu’erh drinkers, and some experienced drinkers. This shou pu’erh is a very good drinking tea. It has no negative qualities. For some experienced drinkers, I think there is often the desire to find something unusual and new, layers of complexity, even if some of those layers aren’t what one would normally think of as delicious traits. This tea delivers a smooth and delicious shou pu’erh experience that remains predictably consistent across many infusions. It is tolerant of wide steeping parameters. I experienced no chi, no increase or decrease of body temperate, and had no visions, but I consider myself lucky to have started my day with the delicious Lucky Cloud.

These mini tuochas from 2007 are about 5 grams each, and work out nicely for brewing up a cup of tea for one or two people. These are ripe pu’er, and so the dry tuocha have that sticky sweet dried fruit smell like prunes or raisins or figs that I find pleasant. Wet leaves smell very much like wet leaf pile, mulch, earthy. Taste, however, is very smooth and mellow, a little wet earth taste, sweet, a bit of dried fruit, and zero fishiness. Very low on the woody tannin notes. I get no bitterness and only a little astringency, but only after quite some time has passed after sipping the tea. I get some throat dryness after about 5 minutes has passed.

I prepared this in purple clay with 2 quick rinses of boiling water, and by then with a little shake, the tuoacha had fully fallen apart in the bottom of the pot. Subsequent infusions were kept fast at 8-10 seconds and then increasing in duration from there. Liquor was always dark and rich even with the short infusions, as expected with a ripe. This is a good drinking, mellow shou pu’er. I feel very relaxed after the 6th infusion, and where I will stop.

I think this is an excellent tea for brewing up a half gallon and keeping in the fridge to serve cold. It’s really a nice tasting mellow oolong with that classic Wuyi Mountain mineral note aftertaste that originally got me into higher end teas. I brew this with slightly cooled off-the-boil water western style. I steep 5 tea bags for 5 mins in about 1/2 quart of water and then pour the hot tea liquor into a stream of cold tap water (we have excellent cold well water) to fill a 2 qt serving pitcher. I usually have mine sweetened with a bit of lemon at the time of each serving. The tea pairs well with just about anything, and is probably as good as you’re going to get with a bagged tea for an every day general purpose beverage. I paid $7 for 100 tea bags. Hard to beat it. I’ve seen some highly negative reviews for this tea, so maybe I got lucky and got a good batch, but my box of tea tastes nothing like the negative reviews. In fact, it is so good, I would love to have some friends over to blind taste test it, and I would bet money that they would rate it higher than some loose leaf.

Dry leaf smell is that of dried fruits, chewing tobacco, molasses. Very pleasant.

Hot steaming wet leaf smell has a strange aroma note of cabbage or maybe even kimchi. Cool wet leaf smells more typical sheng, but there is still a bit of that fermented cabbage, but it definitely fades into the background. I don’t get much if any floral notes. There is an underlying very faint scent of cloves that is nice.

I’m doing short steeps of 8-15 secs for the first few infusions. It’s sweet when it first hits the mouth, but for no more than a second before bitterness comes on strong, and a bit sour, too. Mouth drying — lips stick to the front teeth drying. Chalky astringency. Woody, tannin notes are strong. Long lasting thick mouthfeel and aftertaste.

Chou Shi is a special dehydrated version of Duck Shit Dan Cong. It is a greener tea than regular Duck Shit, and in my opinion, it benefits from being steeped more like a green oolong with shorter steeps and a lower water temp. This new processing produces a tea that reminds me a lot of the Anxi Hairy Crab oolong I had yesterday, but it has more body. There are notes of butter and milk and a malty-bready element to it.

The dry leaves present nicely with their dark nori green leaves and bright chartreuse stems. It is a beautiful contrast. The liquor color is pale oak. The dry leaf has notes of milk and raisins. This is not a heavily floral tea. It is sweet but well-balanced. No bitterness. No astringency. Creamy wet mouth feel. If you are opposed to vegetal notes, and you keep the steep time short, this tea will yield a sweet and savory tea with very little vegetal taste. If you like tie guan yin and Anxi hairy crab, you’ll like this. As I was drinking this, I detected no duck shit, but a wild turkey made an appearance and walked through my backyard. :-) (I know)

I started my day with monkey picked tie guan yin. As I was raking out the tea leaves from my small 70 ml clay pot from Crimson Lotus, I lost my grip, and the clay pot fell into our porcelain farmer style sink. It shattered into many tiny pieces on one side. Bummer.
So, I’m finishing the day with Anxi Mao Xie oolong. I really don’t know why this tea isn’t more highly rated. In a lot of ways, I like this more than tie guan yin. It’s a fabulous tea for introducing to new tea drinkers, especially American tea drinkers. It is very sweet. It actually tastes like it has been sweetened. It’s very delicate and mild. It’s very slightly vegetal, but leans more green and isn’t spinachy or asparagus flavored. It also lingers sweet in the mouth. I would just add that I consider it a great bargain at its current price.

My second time with this tea. This time I cold brewed it in a 1 qt mason jar overnight (roughly 8 hours). No fancy infuser needed. Just add 8 grams of leaves to about a 3/4 full mason jar. It’s a beautiful presentation. Unlike in hot water, the leaves retain their flat-pressed shape in the cold water for hours, and a gentle swirl of the jar creates a beautiful display. Even overnight, the leaves are still stretched out and not wilted into a pile at the bottom of the jar.

The liquor is very pale green with no cloudiness. It is in the 90’s, today, so I sweetened this and added lemon for a cool refreshing drink. I will try it again without the lemon to get a true idea of the flavor profile, but with the lemon it has a definite peachy, apricot flavor with almost no vegetal note. The cold brewing seems to push the vegetal notes present in hot brewing toward the apricot, dried fruit flavor.

Dry leaves smell rich and sticky sweet like dried fruits such as prunes, figs, and raisins. Wet leaf smell is that of hay and and earthy scents. This raw puerh had a relaxing effect on me. It can be mild, sweet and earthy with hay scent and taste and no bitterness and astringent qualities, or it can be pushed in longer steeps to produce a strong bitter tea with a tingling mouth feel, a spiciness that is not so much a flavor note as a feeling.

This isn’t a bad shou, but it doesn’t have any qualities to make it stand out. Smell of dry leaves is nice like leather, good cherry pipe tobacco, dried dark fruit like prunes or raisins. The sweetness really comes through in the liquor, but none of that fruitiness comes through for me. It has the typical fermented, earthy, woodsy, leather taste of shou. It’s very mild. I detected no bitterness, no astringency, and no sourness.