Dark Matter 2016 (group buy) Live 3-6-16
So pumped about this. Can’t wait to see where these teas lead me. Especially excited about the Hei Cha and Tian Jian.
Since Scott over at Yunnan Sourcing is having a conveniently timed sale on “Purple Tea, Liu Bao, Liu An, Tian Jian and other Hei Cha.” ( 12% off ) … I figured I better try some of his first ;)
I went this afternoon with the 2015 Go Ji Shan Ben Se Wu. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, or how to steep it, but I thought I’d start out similar to my usual shou puerh parameters. I had about 6.5 g in the sample, so put it my 100ml dark pot. Just off Boiling water, rinse, and go….
At first I thought I was doing something wrong, the soup was clear and light, nothing like most ripe puerh I’ve had. That’s when I realized I had to completely throw any comparisons / expectation out the window. I also upped my steeps to about 20-30 seconds right away. Indeed, like the description on YS says, reminds of a Oolong …. though different …. I got a bit of fermentation / fishy taste on the first 1-2, but that quickly went away and it settled into a nice mineral, sweet, clean taste. Thick and changing in the mouth. Very interesting – I’m excited to try some others!
Props to Scott, I would’ve done the same thing in his shoes! A win/win for the consumer and business. I can’t wait to try the teas.
I will have this one later today. It smells completely different than other heichas from the package! Their main note reminds me of ripe puer, but 2015 is more oolongy.
These tian jian teas changes quite a bit from steep to steep. The 2015 is actually quite interesting. I’ll be reviewing it eventually when I figure out the words to describe it because it is its own thing.
Did anyone open “pickles” yet? I’m talking about Yunomi’s Awa bancha of course.
What do you think of it??
Pickles actually wasn’t scary. I think LP really dislikes resin notes..I enjoyed this and it reminded me of how much I like Whispering Pines Moonlight Sonata and how LP disliked that one. The scent is much more sour than the actual liquor. Doesn’t taste like umeboshi at all.. but does have a slight sour tinge to it.. Could be how I brewed it too.. will have to do a real review
Day off!
I already had both Life in a teacup teas and Vietnamese oolong. And it’s only 2pm :) I might need to stop soon!
More concerned about getting some sleep tonight… Maybe I’ll switch to silver buds, I’ve heard white tea is low caffeine :D
White tea is not necessarily low in caffeine. Any tea high in buds will be higher in caffeine. The buds have the most caffeine. Something like a houjicha will generally have less caffeine because of the roasting process and they often use stems in it which have less caffeine.
Allan, I meant it as a joke :) All teas will have caffeine in them unless it was removed artificially.
As for the houjicha, I’ve heard about its low caffeine content in a context of this tea being full of sticks. The same is said about kukicha for that same reason. But I didn’t know about the roasting part.
Does this mean that roasted oolongs will have less caffeine too?
elena-z: I’m no expert, and I believe there are, as always, a lot of variables, but I have heard many people talk about roasting reducing the amount of caffeine. Some say they’ll switch to roasted oolongs in the evening. Maybe someone here can shed the light on the science behind that? Or perhaps it’s just another in a long line of tea myths?
I’ve herd of roasting reducing caffeine, but always as some sort of hearsay, so my suspicion is that it’s just a myth. I would love it if someone could point to some science behind it; I’ve looked and came up dry.
I’ve read a study for coffee that found coffee maintains something in the high 90% of its caffeine (97% I think) after dark roasting vs raw. The process is very different for coffee vs tea, but I think the heat breakdown of the caffeine molecule matters most and coffee is roasted pretty hot and dark without much loss. Tea has a different composition of caffeine-related stimulants to coffee though, so I guess it could be a different story if you care about how awake it will make you feel.
That’s interesting Drake, is there any chance you have a link to the study offhand?
It is very difficult to draw general conclusions re the amount of caffeine. My favorite source is the book Tea: History, Terroirs, Varieties. They devote several pages to caffeine, and a full table of laboratory test results of various teas. There are three Senchas on the list; they have 12, 14, and 48 mg per 500 ml pot. 12 mg tied for least caffeinated, while the 48 mg was near the top. There were similar results for oolongs, ranging from 12 mg to 49 mg. The most caffeinated was a 60% roast, but you can’t draw many conclusions from that since it appears to be the only roasted oolong that they tested.
a bad pasty – This is the one I was thinking of, and it actually found coffee beans had a 5.4% loss of caffeine under “severe roasting” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2487024/). You still would have to consider if/how roasting affects the caffeine dissolve rate, and the other normal things like caffeine concentration by leaf/bud/twig.
I had Red Buffalo earlier today, wow, this one is really nice. It’s like if Dong Ding and Dan Cong had a baby :) Very sweet and full of honey. And who knew they grow tea in Vietnam! Did they replace old opium plantations with tea or something?
It is of course sold out now, but it reminded me of this guy:
http://steepster.com/teas/rishi-tea/69516-ruby-oolong
which is from Thailand, but it is the same cultivar.
I’m excited about this one…there’s a lot of good chatter on /r/tea regarding it! Sounds great…
Had the Red Buffalo this morning. My first Vietnamese tea too. Yes! This is really nice. Sweet, tasty. Lots of honey. And not to worry, What Cha will probably restock it, it’s a big seller on there I think….
Seeing that people are learning, enjoying themselves, making new friends, looking into vendors, trying a new type of tea, comparing taste notes… and on, is all I need to know that not only should I continue doing these but that I am successful with what I’m doing.
Thank you everyone for being active with this group buy, I really enjoy reading through what is going on.
Tried the 2012 Wild Tian Jian from YS today. Very interesting tea and exactly the type of thing I was hoping to come across from this group buy. Got some brown sugar in the taste and aroma. There was a slight hint of funkiness that only approached unpleasantness when I pushed it a little far steep-wise at one point, but generally contributed an interesting backbone to the tea.
This was a fascinating tea that reminded me a little of the Sandakphu Ruby Half-Ripe from What Cha in character. I can definitely see myself picking up some of this at some point as an add-on to a YS order, but I’ll have to see what happens with the rest of the Dark Matter teas before I commit to that.
With all the slurping going around I just cannot wait until my packet arrives. And now I am drooling…
Ah, but think how incredible it will be to smell and taste again! I hate colds but that first day, when you have finally turned the corner, it is pure bliss to have your senses back.
My package of little wonders arrived here in Germany today. I will have the most enjoyable next couple of weeks experiencing new flavours and aromas. Thanks LP and everyone!
Last call for donations to acquire some odds n ends from this group buy. I’ll be packaging the rest as random give aways at the Midwest Tea Festival to provide coverage of vendors who cannot make it
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