244 Tasting Notes
White2Tea Iron Arhat (铁罗汉)
4g in 100 ml Duanni pot
Filtered brita water off the boil
Dry leaves smell chocolatey and sort of inky but also some semblance of dried fruit notes
Wet leaves just smell like smoke
Infusion tastes lightly smokey with a sweet aftertaste
Some backstory. I’ve figured out by now that deeply roasted young yancha is just perhaps not for me. This note overall was pretty lame but I can’t seem to pick up the notes others get on these. I read all these beautiful descriptions of heavy roasted oolongs and yancha but whenever I try them for myself, I’m like “Man, this is some heavy smoke” and I can’t pick out much else. My parents got a Lao Cong Shui Xian that they love and my only thoughts on it were along the lines of “this is like drinking smoke, but medicinal tasting”. They no longer share their LCSX with me, haha. The best tea I can remember having is a Chinese yancha that was apparently packaged in 2006 and not opened by me until 2019 (a gift with 2 mini packs one of which I will always regret gifting away), and I suppose that with what I read about the smokey notes fading with time, made that the best thing I’ve ever tasted, except I can’t put my finger on why. Though I’ve been drinking teas all my life, I didn’t start writing detailed notes (and anyone who’s been gifted Chinese packaged teas will know why; many of them are packaged very nicely and yet provide little usable information on production and origin (let’s talk 100% legitimate info, it’s hard to escape fake marketing of which there is plenty of in tea and in general China) so it’s hard to tell apart the pyrite from the gold) really until I made my Steepster account and going bigger on my own purchases as I gained more interest in the brewing and culture. Because before, tea was a habit, not a hobby. A gram scale to standardize brews and gaiwan were the best bang for buck investments into the hobby I’ve made.
Anyway, I veered pretty far off the course, but overall I hope these reviews help some people, especially since many teas can be rather unremarkable and sellers can overhype like mad. Do the Ducklers legitimately taste the 30 notes they include on each tea? I don’t know (no hate, I love their (mostly) well-priced teaware but haven’t been blown away by any teas they offer), but I include what I do taste, and I would assume untrained palates are more like your average drinker. Yeah, drink whatever you like, and premium product for price whatever, but this is for fun, so I like the non-academic hobbyist aspect too. Hope Steepster’s able to get back to the olden days of less spam and more reviews, because when I can find reviews of teas I want to purchase, it’s nice especially as a student with a limited budget. Life’s for exploring after all. Teaforum, teachat, and r/tea are nice, but I do believe Steepster has the best setup for reviews (some things could use improvement and streamlining, but that applies to most of the world at large).
I veered off again. I’ll stop here and recommend this just for experiencing the unique and very pleasant aftertaste and now I get to claim that I’ve tried 3 of 4 big name Wuyi Yanchas hah. (da hong pao, Lao cong shui xian, and tie luo han). Maybe when I’m older and appreciate more smokey mellow things I’ll give rou gui a shot, but for now, I’ll save my money since I know I won’t like it in particular.
Flavors: Chocolate, Smoke, Sweet
Preparation
2020 nightlife mini 7g, brita water off the boil, gaiwan gongfu
Smells like floral leaves. Tastes of light honey from the first infusion. Lovely, wouldn’t hesitate to buy a full cake on my next order from W2T.
Okay unfortunately I have no more notes as I had to finish an errand and forgot the tea. I stuck the leaves in the fridge and added them to a thermos with boiling water a few days later (no i didn’t die drinking tea brewed from couple days stuck in the fridge tea, I survived and still wrote this review). The brew turned out a little bitter and slightly sour, but it was okay I suppose. I wish I had more, but I will definitely order a full cake next time from W2T! if I had pleasant thoughts on Tiltshift, I remember this on the initial steep was even more obviously sweet (because most white teas have that subtle sweetness, but this was a bit more in your face).
Flavors: Floral, Honey
Preparation
I’ll drink shou and black tea over 2 days, some sheng over 3 days, all left at my table with the lid off the pot and a bit of leaf fluffing once the top layer dries out – to no ill effect!
If I have time to gongfu, I’ll usually try to finish the steeping for the sake of continuity in notetaking, but when I forget I’ll toss leaves in the fridge or leave them in gaiwan as well (don’t do it for Yixing since I haven’t dedicated my pots to anything to begin with and I’ve probably brewed too many different things in it at this point). When I first really got into gongfu, I was reading all this stuff about making sure to use the leaves within a set timeframe of X hours, absolutely no using overnight and whatnot. For what it’s worth, if I was drinking with other people, then no, obviously I wouldn’t use “old” leaf, but if I’m drinking by myself (per usual), then I find that it doesn’t affect too much as far as I can tell (so long as you’re not starting off with bad or spent tea to begin with)
Got a small sample to try, but based on the pricing, I doubt I’d ever spring for it. Wasn’t super wowed by it? But overall, based on the price, wouldn’t really recommend it.
2016 Hai Lang Hao Lao Ban Zhang Gu Shu
Ancient Arbor Raw pu er
2016 老班章古树生普洱茶
5.8 g, 140 mL, Brita filtered water, 180f (figured out by now that this was probably too low)
Dry leaves standard sheng smell
Wet leaves have a sharp smokey/earthy note that reminds me of shu
Initial taste is a lightly bitter green that later gives a refreshing and slightly sweet mouthfeel
I suppose the lightly bitter and cooling sweet must be a standard sheng note that keeps reminding me of mint
The aftertaste sits in your mouth for quite a while and is pleasant. Other than that, I’m not sure I’m convinced on spending the money for a full cake of this.
Later infusions, wet leaves have a woody sweet note
Flavors: Bitter, Mint, Sweet, Wood
Preparation
Got this as a sample to try, but don’t think I’d purchase a full cake? Not super into shengs right now (both due to cost and experiences).
4.7g, 140 mL, gongfu, brita water, temps of 180-190f (which I thought was right for shengs oops but apparently ~200f is better?)
Dry leaves no special notes that I can tell of
Infusion has a slightly vegetal smell
Wet leaves smell like wet leaves of white tea
Taste is similar to a less sweet white tea mixed with green tea (astringent?) notes
Nice slightly lingering aftertaste, not particularly sweet initially, but pleasantly refreshing, that involves into something subtly sweet and a bit minty even
Longer infusions now
Wet leaves smell of mint
Tastes more like a green tea now, with infusions having a more drying mouth feel but similarly pleasant
Flavors: Green, Mint, Sweet
Preparation
140 mL, 7g, gongfu, brita filter water off the boil
Couldn’t smell anything particular in the dry leaves/mini cake.
Tasted like a specific TCM the whole way through (神曲: Chinese medicated leaven) that comes in little bricks that you boil. Given that I had to take this often when I was having stomach issues when I was younger, it doesn’t necessarily elicit any pleasant connections for me lol. No other observations, but definitely not something I’d order again.
Update: used the leaves for compost and was surprised to smell a strong passion fruit note three days later. Had it mixed with leftover W2T tiltshift leaves. This mini certainly tasted nothing like that, so not sure what that’s from but I thought the smell was interesting and pleasant. :)
Flavors: Bitter, Medicinal
Preparation
2nd white tea I’ve tried. Pleasantly clean and mellow, slightly sweet. I’m not well versed enough to identify particular notes, which all seem to be pretty subtle, other than something honeydew melon-like. Gongfu, Brita filtered water, around 190f (crab’s eye!). Ended up prying the ball apart a couple steeps in because I was getting a little inpatient lol.
Update: did a few more steepings with this today. Got some vegetal notes like a green tea, but more floral in nature, along with some light honey notes. Quite lovely, and so I’m upping my rating. Wouldn’t hesitate to order this again in the future. I was using water almost right off the boil with gongfu steepings and it never got bitter, so much less maintenance than a green. Curious how this would hold up to grandpa style brews, since any greens I’ve tried grandpa have all gotten bitter, but I’m out of this for now.
Flavors: Floral, Honey, Melon, Vegetal
Preparation
Gongfu, filtered Brita water off the boil. Several shu puers later, I’ve figured out that I probably just don’t like Shu Pu ers, and it’s not an issue with the teas themselves (now to brew through the remainder of my W2T stash…). I don’t like earthy flavors, which draw medicinal associations for me, so I can never relate to the pretty descriptions. Not really sweet for me. Thicker mouthfeel typical of shus. Will try a grandpa brew tomorrow with the other half of the biscuit I ordered and update.
Update: Grandpa brew was not much different… if possible, perhaps even more bland than gongfu, which I didn’t expect. Not something I’d likely purchase again.
Flavors: Mushrooms, Wood
Preparation
Laoshan Black Tea
He family spring 2020
Laoshan, Shandong, China
崂山红茶
5g, 130 mL, brita filtered water, water off the boil
Dry leaves: chocolate, raisin
10s first steep: brewed leaves smell a little burnt. Taste: a sweet floral, very pleasant, but also deep, reminds me of coffee without the acidity.
20s second steep: similar brewed leaves. Taste: aftertaste reminds me of Chinese dried jujube dates. No other thoughts.
No more notes, except sweet potatoes at some point. Online reviewers overall seem obsessed with LB, so I had really high expectations going in, and that probably dimmed my experience a bit. I’ve been spoiled by my aunt’s mystery pack that she sent me a while back, and that had something basically exactly like this with different packaging, so I’ve already had it or an eerily similar one in the past. It’s not a bad tea per se, just perhaps not for me. Didn’t bother with more exact notes, because everything that can be said has already been said.
Flavors: Chocolate, Dates, Floral, Raisins, Sweet Potatoes
Preparation
Ordered a sample from Beantown. Ordered because it was caffeine free, and not too bad, but I’m not sure what Rooibos is supposed to taste like in general. I was planning to find a non-caffeinated tea for before bed, but the cinnamon makes it a little too spicy for a bedtime drink.
Flavors: Cinnamon, Spicy
I appreciate your wanderings.
Thanks for reading!
Good review.
Thank you for reading!