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This tea is quite a bit different from the 2014 First Spring Nanpo Laozhai.

This one is a lot less bitter, there’s less bite. It’s still fresh and green, and reminds me of green beans or spinach water as well as matcha. I’ve just been doing flash steeps, but the liquid is a pretty yellow, and the flavour is also sweet. I would say that this one is more mild than the other. More approachable, although I do like the sharp biting bitterness of sheng.

Thanks so much, WymmTea, for sharing.

I haven’t had tea in a while, but I managed to have a cup of this today.

Still delicious. Still much loved.

Maybe once I get some seriously disappointing club stuff out to my swapping pal, I’ll be less cranky when I look in my tea cupboard…

Tealizzy posted on instagram about Thai iced tea, so of course I had to go find my favourite recipe and my favourite iced tea and make some.

No, this isn’t traditional. According to the internets, Ceylon tea is used, not Chinese tea. Oh well.

http://wishfulchef.com/how-to-make-thai-iced-tea-from-scratch/

What I did was I took 1 bag of this tea and steeped it as directed in 2 cups of water. In 1 cup of water I added some sugar (2 tbsp, which is too much as I rarely sweeten my tea! But you sugar to your tastes.), 1 small cinnamon stick, 2 star anise, 1/4 tsp powdered vanilla, a few cloves, and some crushed green cardamom pods. Brought it to a boil and let it steep for about 30 minutes. The tea, once it was steeped for 15 minutes went into the fridge to start it cooling. (1-2 tsp vanilla extract is fine too. Everything is to taste, so if 1 tsp isn’t enough then add more. Apparently orange flower water is another optional ingredient, as well as pandan leaves.)

Once everything was steeped I combined it and added ice to 4 cups. And refrigerated overnight.

Now I’m having the tea mixed with whole organic milk (aka homo milk, aka 3.5% milk fat milk), and it is divine.

Yum yum yum.

I need to make this more often. I need boba.

My one tip is DO NOT USE PLASTIC. One time I made this I steeped the spices in my DavidsTea Steeper and OMG, the smell of star anise would not go away. Use a pyrex jug, or a metal pot, or something not plastic.

Mmm, what a good choice of tea this morning!

The sample was 6-7g (my scale isn’t totally accurate) so I decided to use the whole thing in my clouds easy gaiwan. And I’m using the new rice grain cup I got during my last trip to Victoria! It’s perfect – just a touch bigger than my other cup.

I rinsed twice, then had to brew up a cup before I let the leaves rest. The colour is lovely, a vibrant red-brown. It tastes woody and mushroomy and very mild.

The second steep is almost black. Whoa. Again, it’s really smooth and woody and mushroomy and mild. I know, “mild”. IDK tea friends. I’ve been drinking coffee and sheng recently, so this is coming across as “mild”.

At this point I’ve had a few steeps, and I’m still really enjoying the tea. I think it’s delicious, and a really solid option.

One thing I would have liked to see is a little information about each tea in the note that they included in the package. Is it loose or cake? What is the price range? How many rinses are recommended? Little things like that.

Thank you so much to WymmTea for the samples!

https://instagram.com/p/29L4lxR5Fa/

My initial impression of this tea is green, and fresh, and sharp. In fact, when I opened the package, the whole thing smelled fresh and sharp. There is one shou in here, though, but I’ll probably get to that later this week.

I’m steeping half the sample in my teeeensy gaiwan. After two quick rinses and a flash steep, it’s filled about 3/4 with slowly expanding leaves.

It’s exactly how it smells. Nice and sharp, some bitterness, very fresh and green feeling. I’m 6 or so steeps in and I’m still doing flash steeps. I’m really enjoying this. I really don’t have enough of this type of puerh, and I really like it.

I wouldn’t say this is like spinach or asparagus, but rather warm dried grass in the sun, with a hint of that sharpness that ponderosa pine sap lends to the air and that green bitterness that I think is the caffeine. I would not say this is astringent at all.

Not everyone will enjoy this one as it is, and I don’t have enough experience to say how well it would age. This is a tea I’d consider getting some of (if I had any tea budget left!) to continue drinking over the next few years, and following how it changes.

Thank you so much for the sample, WymmTea! I’ll probably run a litre of water through this, so that’s about another 12 steeps. I have a feeling the tea would last even longer if I cared to drink more!

Thanks for the tea, Amariel!

The first cup I made tonight had something in the steeping basket and I was so worried it was toasted barley (I can’t have it because gluten). I think it was just an orange peel that had rehydrated and looked weird.

So I made another cup.

And I made sure to scrape some of the flavouring that was stuck to the bag I have the tea in. You know, those little white crystals that some teas leave everywhere? Yeah, those. Pretty sure they’re not sugar.

The caramel is still pretty light compared to what I remember, but it’s so delicious. Roasty toasty flavours that I appreciate, with a hint of caramel and a bit of dried hay.

I do still really like this tea.

Thanks again!

Finished off a packet of this yesterday! And I steeped and chilled some so I have the rest of it as an iced tea today.

Seriously, this tea is amazing. Boiling water? Super easy to steep? Really forgiving as long as you keep it under 3 minutes? Check, check, check.

I’m so glad I have another packet in the cupboard. But as I need to get through some samples (heh. “some”) it will have to stay sealed for a few more weeks.

Some tea bags from MissB! :) Thank you.

I brewed this as usual, and am (OMG) having it plain. I can’t even.

It’s pretty good. A little astringent though. I definitely wouldn’t steep this at boiling.

Thank you, MissB!

To sum up: Harrod’s does not understand what chocolate tastes like.

This is not chocolate.

This is ovaltine or something similar.

Since I lost my precious sparkly burgundy one, I bought a new one for my birthday!

Yay!

It’s a golden/orange sparkly colour, with this kind of mesh screen lid: http://www.timolino.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=VMB-38TMTR

I love it. So glad I went back to this kind. The DavidsTea timolino lid with the horrible strainer just… sucks. I was not happy with it.