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Ceylon is a region that’s been left relatively untouched by me, so uh

The leaves here smell a bit smokey and musty, it actually smells quite good, I think I’ll enjoy this one.

it’s buttery and creamy, with a light smoke, and a lot of astringency. This is genuinely the least vegetal green I think I’ve ever had, it’s maybe slightly grassy? but that’s kinda debatable;

it really isn’t very complex, though my mouth is extremely dry

I tried doing really short steeps, but the astringency is still very uncomfortable, it’s very powerful, and makes the tea very hard to enjoy. It’s nice and creamy while sipping, but after, it just dries out your mouth.

Why are these ratings so low? I don’t even like smokey teas but I genuinely enjoyed drinking this, much more than I expected to anyways.

The dry leaves smell of campfires, charcoal, smoked meat

I’ve only ever had one lapsang souchong other than this and i believe it was from davidstea (do they have one? They must, I don’t know where else I could’ve gotten it.) but I dont even know if DT properly counts because this smells much stronger. Oh wait I think it might’ve been zen tea. oh it totally was, anyways dont worry about that:

The tea itself is much sweeter than it smells, it’s a bit peppery, but it does still have all of the campfire, charcoal, smoked meat of its smell, but it tastes a bit more like barbecue sauce.

There’s quite a strong astringency near the end, and I get hints of cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, which are really easy to discern; it’s almost like the smokey notes show at the back of my mouth, but the leaf’s own sweetness settles on the tip of my tongue, creating sort of a spectrum of sweetness beginning at the front of my mouth and smokiness at the back, it’s an interesting sensation.

The smokiness is nearly gone by the fifth steep but after that point it stops steeping out, so it never really leaves,

the tea finishes sweet, with a honey-like taste and a very slight bitterness creeping in

I’ve never actually met someone who likes cinnamon hearts, I don’t know how those things are around they’re like … bleh but here this tea is in my cupboard (I didn’t buy it, people’ve got me sampler things from dt and this was in 2 of them) and it tastes exactly like cinnamon hearts which I think is just a terrible idea. The spice is not right :l

EDIT: Wait, sorry, this has a green tea base? W.. okay then I didn’t even notice. I don’t see any green leaves, all of them are black so I just assumed they had a black base.. Not that it matters, the cinnamon heartiness is way too over-powering anyways

I’ve had this sample for a while, well not that long like a month or two but esgreen keeps sending me these white samples I’ve gotten like 3 or 4 different white peonys, and they’re really not my favourite but I’ve gotten around to review this one

This one has a bit of a noticeable sourness, accompanies by a subtle grassy earthiness, and a lot of floral and fruitiness

The second steep smells a lot like sweat.. Uh but I’m just going to try not to smell because it doesn’t taste much like that; it’s still sour and floral and a bit bitter

Okay well apparently the sweat is gone now, the third steep is very fruity and floral , with notes of hay and grass, it’s really not sour anymore too, that’s quite nice, it’s too floral for me but I know people who would be loving this, it tasted a lot like upton tea’s Ya Bao I drank a couple days ago but now it’s very distinctly a bai mu dan,

It’s really quite thick as well, there’s almost a wheat-like element, and I’m getting very faint cocoa notes which is nice, but it feels a bit like it’s causing me heartburn (even though I’m not experiencing heartburn at the moment, I don’t really low what I’m talking about, that’s just how I’m feeling) oh maybe it’s because of its kind of acidic taste..

Actually if that acidity wasn’t there I’d be loving this, these mid-late steep

As the session fades, the tea comes to a perfumey, floral, grassy, earthy, sweet, hay tasting thing, with astringency and light acidity, the later steeps are actually quite nice, which is a lot for someone who doesn’t like white peony as a whole. I’d honestly recommend throwing away the first 2 steeps, the sourness and the sweat were not very appealing

For my 50th review(yay! Halfway to my goal :D), we’ll be doing a 25 year old Wenshan Baozhong, this is my second time drinking this one, and it’s a very unexpected tea;

The dry leaf smells exactly like a rainforest! Which is really cool, I’ve never experienced this before in a tea

The tea begins very reminiscent of the rainforest, but earthier and with cocoa notes which get stronger during the first few steeps, minerals,

It’s very sweet and actually quite creamy, the rainforestyness fades quite a bit in the middle, and astringency comes in pretty strongly, there’s a hint of sourness, also some vanilla, still a bit of chocolate and a lot of earthy, woody, rainforest.

As the session goes on, it actually seems to be getting darker and earthier, it’s very rich and decadent, a bit of grape comes in after a while. The flavour lasts for very long time, strong and dark for well, I’ve done over 1.5L and it’s still going great, but I’m about to run out the door so there’s no time for more just yet, I’ll continue the session tonight :) lovely tea

I definitely now need to try a fresh Wenshan Baozhong, I’ve never had one, at least just to compare

I’ve always wanted to try a Ya Bao :D These fuzzy pinecone-looking leaves are so cute and exciting :)

The dry leaves smell very different from anything I could have expected; the first thing that came to mind was sriracha, now I like sriracha as much as the next guy, but I don’t tend to put it in my tea, well anyways, at least I know this’ll be interesting.

Whoa, what the hell?

This has such a thick mouthfeel, with this.. honestly very pleasant sourness, that leaves a dryness in the mouth, lime, metals, lemongrass, it… tastes fuzzy? Apricot, grass, flowers, earth, rocks, acidic, vanilla, sweet

this is thicker than any white or pu’er I’ve ever had before, also I don’t think Upton’s flavour profile is very accurate

This is better than I was expecting honestly. I feel like I just need to be in a very specific mood to reach for this one again, but only time will tell.

I actually quite enjoyed this despite its heavy bitterness, it’s a bit more complex than the Bi Luo Chuns I’ve had before:

It starts out lightly vegetal with notes of melon, a little bit roasty and a smooth mouthfeel in the first steep, no bitterness as the leaves are unfurling, which only took one steep so

After that, it became bitter and reminiscent of smoked meat, but not overly prominently, there was also a lot of melon, cabbage, spinach, and a bit roasty,

Later, in the middle of the session I was getting somewhat tropical notes of mango, and also some orange as the bitterness was steeped out and was replaced with very noticable astringency

The session faded into a very astringent, very plain tasting vegetal green, with still the slightest bitterness.

I really just appreciate the mango notes I found in there, it was very unexpected, which is always fun; the middle steeps made me think much higher about it than I would have after the beginning, it was very strong and smokey to start with.

Nothing overly special here for me, it has the nice sweetness of a bai hao yin zhen, with a nice floral finish,mild astringency, but there’s a lot of earthy and almost woody notes, and these for me made it slightly imperfect, my friend really liked this one though, so I wound up giving her the rest of my sample, thus the lack of real depth in this review.

I’m really not in a good mood (I don’t know why, it’s frustrating) and instead of getting a tea that’s going to be comforting for me I decided to review a standard grade Formosa oolong, and honestly just from smelling the dry leaves I’m pretty sure I’m not going to enjoy this one, also the leaves look much nicer in the picture than in person, they’re much more broken up and aren’t as dark as shown, in fact a few of my leaves are green, but anyways

It’s very woody, and mildly roasty and nutty with this sort of dark decadence about it, its rich and actually quite nice, except for this slight .. oddly acidic aftertaste which in all honestly is very unpleasant, so I’d have to recommend just not stopping your sipping, like ever because then you’ll just be sad and that’s no good, there’s also kind of a very concentrated sort of astringency that’s just sorta setting up camp in the back of my mouth, also not very excited about that, really though in all honestly it isn’t that bad, it’s mildly complex, it just doesn’t excite me at all, and i’m not typically big on darker oolongs personally, but I could see people liking this

meh

I kinda think by the end of all my Upton samples ill be responsible for creating just like half their database, but anyways its been a while since I had a Japanese green and I don’t think I’ve ever had one this good,

It’s very different from the Chinese teas I’ve grown accustomed to, more of the characteristic minerals I’ve heard much about, and vegetal but more importantly its very very sweet, and a little fruity, peach and orange

Theres a hint of metallics, and its quite roasty, but perhaps the best part is the mouthfeel: its thick and silky, with no astringency, its very comforting

The vegetal sweetness sort of fades around the fifth or sixth steep gongfu(90ml gaiwan) and unfortunately it gives way seemingly only to the metallic and mineral flavours, which is a bit uncomfortable but it isnt really bad, i still drank many steeps happily