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Attractive Bi Luo Chun style tightly rolled leaves. The flavor is nice, but somewhat generic for a Yunnan black with a strong maltiness, slight sweet potato, dark chocolate, fruit, and brown sugar notes. Good daily drinker.

Bought this in a small paper bag from my local shop (Ming Ming Tea, who generally has pretty good tea) about a year ago. I drank it once, thought “eww” and put it into storage until now. Here goes it’s second chance.

Brews a nice deep burgundy color. Tastes of cardboard, mineral water, and rich soil. Not bad per say, just nothing enjoyable enough to make me want to keep drinking it. I choked down two infusions and then tossed the leaves.

It’s better than I remember, but still not good.

The leaves are really big and fat with lots of golden fur. Opening the bag I get a really strong chocolaty, woody aroma. Brews a golden orange, and WOW chocolate! It’s super chocolaty, almost artificial tasting. Combined with the milky/creamy texture, this tea reminds me of chocolate milk made with Hershey’s chocolate syrup. Subsequent infusions reveal other flavors, particularly dry wood and dank red clay. Borrowing a flavor note from Denny on TeaDB, there’s something here that reminds me a bit of pencil shavings.

This tea is really rich, the mouthfeel is almost like an Irish stout. Personally I prefer teas that aren’t so thick in the mouth, but that said this is still an awesome brew. Chocolate lovers beware, this may be your new favorite!

I put a kilo of this tea in my last YS order as a white tea aging experiment. I somewhat enjoy fresh white tea, but I’ve really liked the tastes of the aged whites that I’ve had, and I thought it would be fun to watch this one transform over the years.

Flavors of dry grass and flowers, peach, and fresh herbs like basil or thyme. It has a minty cooling quality that lingers in the mouth. Somewhat malty, but certainly different than black tea type malt. Very tasty! It may prove harder than I expected to leave this one alone and let it age, though the kilo should last me quite a while.

My first impression of this tea sample was “too wet”, but after letting it acclimate for a week or two it’s a very different tea. My sample is tightly compressed and appears to be from the “beenghole” so I gave it a wash and let it open up for about five minutes.

Brews a medium orange. It has a slight mulch-y note in the beginning, but that fades with subsequent infusions. It has a very prominent butterscotch sweetness as well as notes of wet rocks, chestnut, and lightly roasted coffee. The soup has a broth-y quality and slight spiciness that reminds me of a good bowl of pho. Like Scott says this tea has a good balance of age and complexity.

I like this one quite a bit and think it will improve with further dry storage. I’ve been wanting to grow my collection of aged/semi-aged sheng and I think a cake of this and the 2006 Changtai Tian Xia Tong An will be the next additions.

Drinking a mix of samples from Gylx tea: Bang Dong and Ba Nuo. Going hard with 13g in my 120mL gaiwan. Bittersweet with notes of pine and apricot with a floral aroma. Hoping for some “cha qi” because I could definitely use it today…

This is a nice white peony, very smooth and mellow. I taste white grape skins, dry grass, and floral aroma that reminds me of dryer sheets. Not the most complex or intensely flavorful tea, but very comforting and enjoyable.

Very herbaceous, almost medicinal tasting tea. Flavors of old dried herbs, specifically basil and mint, and also has an oatmeal-like smoothness. Very slightly floral and slight honeyed sweetness. A bit of walnut astringency.

A pretty nice Shuixian with strong minerality and notes of licorice, lily, and nutmeg with a peanut-like roastyness. Very lubricating in the mouth.

Tasty and unique black with sweet notes of ripe plum and honey balanced by savory notes of soy sauce, peppercorn, and toasted grain. So far this is my favorite tea I’ve tried from Teabento.