Cwyn Send Message

This early 1980’s tea, if the date is to be believed, is the oldest puerh tea I’ve had so far. Got me a 20 gram sample pack for $25. Broke off 5 grams for tasting in a 70 ml Yixing. Brewed up red and brown, and got dark brown in later steeps. Tasted of wet earth and minerals. Wish I could get a full cake of this! The tea has traditional Hong Kong storage, so you will want to air this out good, and if you don’t like a bit of musty in your tea, then you might have to take a pass on this. But it is really good, well worth ordering at least once!

Full review in my blog at http://deathbytea.blogspot.com

This is some good stuff, nice floral roast with minerally fullness that opens up on the tongue and lingers. Some pepper very late. got a sample of this from a friend and will keep it in mind for a purchase.

Oh my, yes it WAS. Can’t resist a Big Zhong. Bought 20 grams of this, and cakes are available for $129. We are getting to the point now where aged tea is really more affordable than the high end new stuff. 8 grams in the gaiwan and 125 ml water.

Still steeping this a day later. The liquor is mostly orange, but a darker red ring shows around the edge of my cup. This is really just turning into aged tea, the next few years will be quite interesting. According to the description, the cakes were stored in HK a few years, and then dry stored after that. There is a slight humid flavor, however much of the tea I’m drinking lately is much more humid than this is. A bit of smoke, but not much.

Great deal on an aged plantation cake if it’s your cup of tea.

The more naughty version of this review plus pics at http://deathbytea.blogspot.com.

Bought this 1 kilo of ripe from Dizzy Puerh on Taobao. Sessioned it today though it really needs more time to rest and lose the wo dui flavor, which actually isn’t bad. Cracked off about 8 grams into my usual 125 ml water. Two rinses and two strainers and then did 4 short steeps. This ripe is more lively on the tongue than the older, and originally nicer cake that I have.

I am not a collector of ripe, but it drink it a lot. This tea is for puerh like Maxwell House is for coffee. Not the premium stuff, but gets the job done. More of my silliness and pics of the session on my blog -—→http://deathbytea.blogspot.com

My back hurts today after gutter cleaning on my roof yesterday. I couldn’t sleep and feel like crap, so why not just feel worse and drink some of the most awful tea sludge I can find? Also, I made certain to pick a tea that contains Sucralose (aka Splenda) which gives me the scoots something terrible. I shouldn’t really review this but once in awhile I like to shock the children who think I only drink the finest puerh.

This is a 20 oz bottled tea beverage marketed to sports types, weight lifters etc. It contains black tea, lemon juice, 40 grams of whey protein (probably caseinate) and 2500 mg of something called BCAA. I don’t know what that is, but it could be like growth hormones for Big 10 Bull College weightlifters? Anyway, I found this for 99 cents at the local Bent ’n Dent, it normally sells for like $46 for a case of 12 bottles and reviews on the Vitamin Shoppe prove some people buy this stuff. Mine is a few weeks out of date, just to add to the fun.

I drank 1/3 bottle chilled, at first I thought it was kombucha because it tastes sour and tangy, like fermented tea. Without preservatives, maybe it HAS fermented by now. Or maybe it is the lemon? The offending beverage is clear, however, so the casein is hidden in there somehow. I was sure this had gone bad, but a few sips more and I’m not so sure now. I think this could be how it really tastes. Basically like sour lemon and then the Sucralose hits me with a blast of artificial candy and lingers forever. Because Sucralose isn’t digested by the body, I fully expect to be in the toilet within an hour.

Okay I got through 1/3 of it, cramps are coming on. For those of you worried about trying sheng puerh, there are worse things to be drinking, homegrown in the west. This is one of them.

Well this tea isn’t bad, and certainly undeserving of the reviews it has on here. Like most reviewers, got this as a free sample when ordering something else. I think the problems arise with the steeping parameters, this one doesn’t work English style and it won’t work done grandpa either. Nope, leave your horse and carriage at home. Takes a puerh drinker riding in on a yak to the rescue and show these people how it’s done.

It’s done by gongfu, and yes in an unglazed clay pot. In this case Jian Shui, but any dedicated black tea unglazed clay pot will work. 5 grams (which is a lot of loose leaf) and 100 ml. As in small cup, around what 4 oz tops. Do a RINSE. I’ll say it again: do a Rinse. By Rinse I mean fill the tiny clay pot with boiling water over the tea and then pour it off. Water your tea pets with the rinse. Then fill the pot again and steep 15-20 seconds, pour into your cup.

The results? Delicious. This loose leaf has dried banana bits, they don’t taste like anything. Main profile for me is floral black tea, a rather good roast in fact. Chocolate and root beer whiffs. Slight bitter with short 20 secs 2nd steep but long sweet aftertaste.

This is pretty good actually.

Feeling a bit under the weather today for reasons unrelated to tea, but I’ve had Giant Steps planned for today for weeks now. And I wanted to taste it no matter what. It just meant I used only 5 grams instead of my usual 8-10 g, and reduced the amount of tea liquor to tasting quantity. Two rinses on the boil, then did about 8 quick steeps using a gaiwan and about 70 ml water.

Soup came out yellow and lemony tasting, no bitterness in quick steeping. Got a good dry mouth afterward, but I can’t fairly rate astringency due to taking hydrochlorothiazide, amongst other meds, which is designed to remove water from the body, aka water pill. Thus I have artificially dry mouth anyway. I note a nice astringency in a puerh, but rating it on a scale would be unfair to a tea (T).

This will be the only time I will drink my Giant Steps cake, as I plan to save it for my son. A more humorous take on that plan, plus photos, are in my tea blog -——>

This tea is an appropriate cake for me. In fact, I am using it for my life narrative. Or, end of life narrative, as it were. I decided to start writing some of my thoughts in a tea blog called “Death By Tea.” The address is on my profile————>

I wanted to be able to post photos and this is a worthy cake. Dramatic? Yes. But I have my reasons.

Of course I will continue to post reviews on Steepster, usually with different content. And I really need the cupboard here and the good tea drunks who know my stash and I know theirs. :P

I haven’t steeped out this tea yet, people. I tried. This is the most highly caffeinated puerh I have yet brewed. 8 grams in my 130 ml gaiwan and they are now busting out the top past 15 steeps. I’ve tried over brewing it, thick and bitter, as well as quick, soft steeps. An old lady like me half gone but not ready to quit yet she is barely a few months old. Baby soft.

Lots of buds and leaves of many sizes. Yellow soup, I smell that light apricot and expect that taste but what I get is 2 notes lighter, white grapes.

Is it worth the money? Only when you’re dead, or almost. Like me. Children grown and done. I don’t have the time to see how this ages, but maybe someone else here with a really big penny jar will spring for it and report back to y’all in 20 years.

88 score today for the TwoDog and for the people of Yunnan. The news of the earthquake in Yunnan today gives me pause for having drunk this cake, my Last Thoughts for today are for them.

Drank two cups of this brewed 3 grams in a barrel-style zhu-ni for 125 ml cup. Boiling and just under. Fell asleep and dreamed about the tea.

One of the downsides of spending time doing theatre is a lifetime of performance anxiety dreams. Just about to go on stage, and I don’t know what play I am in. I don’t know my lines, I can’t find my script and am buck naked in front of the audience.

This time, however, I brewed this tea is a small vintage brown clay pot I actually bought in real life. From Origin Tea’s remaining stock. Debated between using it for highly aged oolong or very old sheng. I decided to use it with old sheng in real life though. Is this a sign, do you suppose? Should I have used it with oolong like I did in this dream? In a really nice adjoining condo with two cats.

Then I’m on stage at the end of the play for bows, in costume actually. I thanked the audience for attending this wonderful Shakespearean performance and that I would be returning to America after this, our last show. But first, drinks for the cast on me. Audience stares, bows for all, a few claps, off we went. Then the cast reminded me we were gonna do one more show again that night. Oops, inappropriate speech. Then we walked through the mall as I fully intended to get a drink anyway, and isn’t that a really nice t-shirt with belt buckles across the chest? And the store has a gourmet chocolate section with pink wrapped chocolates and I’m asking about a big chocolate covered caramel I can’t seem to find while staring at massively huge chocolate bunnies.

Woke up to dry mouth. But I finished the play!! Okay, one last show still and I don’t know the name of the play or my lines, but I wasn’t nekkid and got through bows! And it was Shakespeare, on an English stage, no less (aka A Cold Day In Hell Before That Ever Happens).

The tea is astringent and still needs time to age, rolled leaf like Tieguanyin, very dark charcoal roast, long steeping, floral in the mouth and long brewing.

Yeah, I write some strange stuff but this actually happened, and it is the first time I’ve dreamt about a tea I am drinking. I need more sessions with this to mess with leaf amount and steep times, had to brew it for a minute or so but it keeps giving. Well-spent cash on 50 grams of this. High score because I finished the show.

At the risk of sounding ignorant, I am going to call this tea the Assamica version of Bai Mu Dan, which consists of first flush silver bud/two leaf mix. The tea is classified as black on Steepster for previous years, Mariage Freres refers to the leaves as green, and silver tips can be considered a white tea. Someone who knows more about Darjeeling tea can edit the description as needed.

Used 1 tbsp leaves in 140 ml gaiwan, just under boiling water, quick steep. Tea is same color as other white teas I’ve had, ranging from clear to yellow brown. Similar peony taste, and I got a sniff of lavender on the first steep, and camphor in the taste. A little sharper and more astringent than Bai Mu Dan, which is welcome, it cuts the floral taste a little.

Would serve this to my sister as a sweet love fest sort of family tea. Special event. Left to my own devices, though, I can be found digging in my puerh fridge for dirty, wet, fruity, cigar flavored earth.