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I haven’t been logging teas much, and I’ve been missing Steepster. How is everyone? I hope all is well!

This tea really works wonders on my mood. Things have been a little wonky lately, but this gave me a nice reset and I’m feeling happy again!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love tea???? Hooray for tea!!!!!

Very interesting. This had some earthiness at the start, but I’m on steeps 4-5-6 and that’s gone. It’s has a smidge of sweetness on the finish, but just a touch. This one reminds me more of a coffee. It’s pretty bold. There are some other flavors that I can’t quite pick out, perhaps because I’m exhausted.

It’s good, fo sho!

Another yum tea from Mandala. This is smooth and yummy. It’s less sweet, but has some nice leathery and almost coffee notes.

I don’t know why I didn’t try this sooner. I did two rinses, and then it was ready to rumble. I’m on the 5th steep and still going strong!

I’m leaving a note without a rating because I need to come back to this one.

It’s a lovely cake, loosely compressed. I measured out 5 grams, put it in my teapot and took a sniff. WHAT is that scent? Pause. Sniff. PICKLES!!!

But yeah, it smells like kosher dills. Before any of you smartasses suggest that I may be preggers, I assure you that I am not. :p

I brewed it up in spite of my nervousness, and the taste… also pickley. I admit to feeling a little run down, so it’s possible that I am getting sick and my sniffer may be off. I’m not congested this AM, but I feel like something is going on here. It’s a bit of a mystery.

If I try this again and get the same scents, I am going to send a few samples off to friends to see if it’s just me…

Hey, my first Random Steepings note!

I received two samples from a friend and know little about their origin. Both are ripe pu’erhs and both were delicious. I am leaving a note more for myself.

2000 Langhe Menghai Ripe – Total yums. No fermentation flavors. Very smooth and wow… SWEET.

2000 Lancang Ripe – Very similar. If all shous turn out like this, I will be a happy girl. The sweetness is so pronounced and lovely. This tastes like a sugar cave. There’s a whisper of earthiness under all the brown sugar. Lovely.

I’m hanging out with my pups and Chairman Meow, enjoying my tea happy!

P.S. Before I hit save, I did google to see if “sugar cave” was some sort of pervy term. Because doesn’t it seem like it would be?

http://instagram.com/p/tWBFT1vkTc/
Bunny tea pet loves this shou!

I’m striking out on teas today. I got a sample in my order from puerhshop.com, and I was hoping for something nicely aged. This had an unpleasant bitterness and no really pleasant flavors to speak of. There was some earthiness. Not overwhelming, but not very good either. I’m really sad because I’ve been trying to Shou all day and I’m not getting anywhere LOL.

Maybe I should brew something I know I like and make sure my taster isn’t off!!

I didn’t make this according to directions, so I am not going to rate it right now. I did this gongfu style and it didn’t really work for me. It was very crumbly and got stuck in the teapot strainer holes, making it hard to pour. There seemed to be a lot of “dust”.

The flavor didn’t have much of the coffee or chestnut flavors that I saw other people mention. It tasted like green tea to me. I don’t care much for green tea, so I was a little bummed. I’ll try it western style maybe and see how that goes :)

I was going to make the 2008 Song of Chi Tse, but my Golden Shousy teapot isn’t done seasoning yet, so I thought I’d give one of these a try. They were given as a little tea gift from Berylleb.

This is a really interesting tea. I did two rinses, not because of flavor, but because it was hard to get the leaves to open. The wet leaves smell exactly like COFFEE.

It’s pretty amazing. I wasn’t expecting THAT! There are certainly other flavors here, but I can’t get past the coffee. It’s not just the scent. This tea tastes like coffee.

I know we are all tea lovers around here, but if you also dig coffee, then this is definitely for you!

This is an interesting one. It’s still young and has quite a bite at the end of the sip, but it’s also creamy and thick, and has a very interesting sweetness lurking about. Wasn’t expecting that!

I’m really liking this, but I think I need to pick up some older shengs. I already have quite a few young’uns around and maybe I need to expand my horizons!

One of the last samples from my swap with AllanK.

And this is another good one. The dry leaf smells a bit apricoty, but there’s also another very sweet scent. Like candy. O_O

There’s no bitterness on the first two steeps and this definitely has a slightly different character from other shengs. It’s got a medium body and is very pleasant through the whole sip. Nothing to kick you in the ass right at the end. The aftertaste lingers nicely.

I added 1/2 tsp of sugar to the sharing pitcher, as A had suggested, and there definitely are some fruity notes that come forward. I don’t think this really needed sugar, but I found that it was a nice addition.

I don’t know if I would buy this one because of the size. How do you even store something like this? Aaawww who am I kidding? It tastes good, so yeah. I probably would buy it. I would be interested to see how this ages!