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Similarly, yesterday when feeling a little on the chilly side, I cracked open my jar of this absolutely wonderful oolong. It’s just so comforting with its sweet, smoky flavour, and its effortlessly smooth body.

I don’t know what I’ll do when I run out of this tea, but I still have enough for a while so maybe I’ll just continue to drink it nice and sparingly… :p

Hi Steepster friends; it’s been a while… Though it’s always a slightly naff excuse, I’m gonna blame University and lots of studies :p

I decided to treat myself today and return to an old fave. Though I’ve probably not stored it in the best way for aging, etc. etc., keeping this lovely batch of Gui Fei that I bought ages ago in an air-tight jar seems to have done well in keeping it ‘good’. It’s still absolutely delicious, with slightly toasty, apple flavours. Just what I needed on this cold, Wintery morning.

I reopened my bag of this oolong today, as I was really craving a vegetal, green oolong whilst I was revising anatomy. Though this didn’t turn out to be the vegetal tea (I think, really, I’d confused it with a Tieguanyin or Li/Ali Shan jade oolong) I’d confused it with, it was still really delicious.

Anyway, this tea was lovely! Refreshing and floral, with definite fruity notes. I’m only four or five steeps in, so this’ll deffo go on for a good bit longer, but it hasn’t let me down yet! I’m on to steeps of around 45 seconds, so I’m guessing I’ll get another three, maybe four infusions.

(Incidentally, I think I’ll use more leaf next time. The first steep, post-rinse, was surprisingly mild. No steep since then has been overly strong, either.)

I received a sample of this, quite some time ago, from Gabriele at NanNuoShan, and I finally got around to drinking it! Though I’m sad that I waited this long, so the sample was probably a little old, the tea was still rather delicious!

Across the 6 or 7 (I think :S ) steeps that I did, this tea was consistently lovely – a thick-ish smooth texture, with delicious honey notes throughout. I think there were floral notes near the beginning and some more spiced notes (kinda woody and sweet spiced) near the end.

Mmm… So in honour of the looming (and extremely exciting) Aged Oolong group buy, I thought I’d treat myself to a session with this exceptional aged tea!

I know it’s not quite as aged as some of the ones that we’ll be getting, but 10 years still gives this tea a real depth and complexity of flavour – in particular, the woodiness, the spiced-notes, and the lovely, deep, dark flavour! Perfect on such a chilly autumn day :-)

(Incidentally, it didn’t occur to me at the time, but I spotted someone else has tagged “coffee” as a flavour note for this tea; it really does kinda remind me of a “fancy latte” (you know, the really delicious, non-bitter ones that you can get from “artisan” coffee houses??). Delicious :D )

(Also also, I brewed this up in my lovely little Acorn teapot from Verdant – it’s so pretty, and some of the crackles are finally starting to develop a bit of darker colour. Lovely! :D )

Chipped away at my wonderful cake of this tea recently, too! In the other Yixing Pot that I own (the one that I bought way back, from NanNuoShan), I brewed up a fairly generous chunk and treated myself to a full day of this exceptional puerh. It had an incredible rich, orange-red colour (I always thought that people who claimed sheng went red were exaggerating a little, but this one really did!) and a powerful, aromatic flavour that just seemed to last forever.

I don’t remember too much about the flavours, and so forth, but I know it had a rich, smooth texture and a somewhat creamy undertone, which I still find rather surprising!

Nonetheless, this is a really delicious, special sheng puerh that I’m super glad to have bought a full cake of whilst I could.

So, it’s been a while (again…!). My course has been quite busy, but on my few afternoons/days off, I’ve been treating myself to some tea therapy. This oolong was a recent treat, brewed up in the lovely Yixing pot that I bought over the Summer from Verdant!

Thankfully, it didn’t disappoint AT all. The tea was lovely, with a minerally, cinnamon and fruit flavour at the beginning, with some really delicious vanilla notes later. I used near-boiling water and did loads of short steeps – the tea was still flavoursome after a good 10-or-so steeps!

Definitely glad I gave this a try, and all the more glad that I chose to dedicate that beautiful Yixing pot to darker oolongs, such as this!

SIPDOWN T_T

At least, I’ve finished all of my bags (heh) of this wonderful tea. Every time I’ve brewed it up, it’s been a pure delight. So floral, buttery, fragrant… Simply divine. It’s got to be up there forever as one of my all-time favourite teas! Plus, it was one of the first teas I tried from Verdant, and I’ve never looked back!

I had a proper, really lovely, slow start day with this shu puerh! With this being my first day off in a good few weeks (work has been mega-busy), I really wanted to treat myself and this lovely tea seemed like just the thing!

I broke off quite a generous chunk – probably a good 8-10g, tbh. But after the rinse, I was pretty convinced I was on the right track – it just gave off the most fabulously deep aroma! After leaving it to rest for a good 10 minutes, I came back and drank my way through a good for infusions – the second, third, and fourth were particularly excellent. Lovely deep notes of raisins, treacle, brown-sugar and caramel, with a surprisingly warming back-of-throat feel. It had a pretty delicious, almost creamy texture too.

I really wanna cold brew this, so I’m gonna see if I have a good vessel for it and give it a try tonight. The leaves still have a lovely smell, and I know I’d have still got a good three-six more normal infusions, so hopefully it’ll yield a really delicious result… :D