Liquid Proust Send Message

The Trails of LBZ, Case 10 of 6
(Liquid Proust search for his favorite laser beam zensheng)
Eye candy before reading https://www.instagram.com/p/BGXhClmxYAJ/

First I just need to reiterate as I do many times that I wouldn’t drink all these ‘top notch’ teas if it wasn’t for the amazing tea community. Many times I am surprised with random acts of kindness that I myself am use to being the sender and not receiver. There’s something special about teamail, especially when it’s something you want but can’t afford currently. This time, someone from Instagram hooked me up. A huge thank you to this person as it provided happiness as I went through the samples sent to me. This type of generosity is not just found by those who spend hours online talking about tea and sending it out. The tea community is very welcoming to trade with many people so please never shy away thinking your cupboard wouldn’t interest someone as many times it’s the idea that helping anyone out is an invitation that has been waited upon.
On to the tea.
I could easily sum this up as: Worth the price. However, that would be prior to shipping and what not. A 5g session, which is what I had, runs $8’ish and I firmly believe that what it provided was well worth that tag; speaking in which 5g brews out 20+ steeps while a glass of wine doesn’t refill itself.
The first three steeps were not bitter, but it was easy to tell that the leaf had a little unfurling to do before the smoothness of the session began; but I will make the comment that the lip smacking sweetness is gone by steep four as it begins to mellow out. Once I got this leaf down to where it brewed out something similar on each brew, I began to notice how gentle each sip was in the way that you describe the higher end rice used for sushi versus everyday rice; if you know what I mean, imagine the difference of ramen noodles versus handmade noodles (good ones).
It wasn’t long until I started to taste a combination of squash and a dry sweetness like grape/apple skin. While dry ended teas are not my thing, the flavor of this one made it acceptable in the way that a great yancha also does. It’s hard to say if the look of the leaf or the taste is more appealing as the leaf is just beautiful.
Going into the later steeps it mellows out and provides a thinner soup base texture; this may be due to the drying of my mouth and wetness making contact, or a possible increase in viscosity as it brews. I found myself playing with some steeping time as it went on to see how 45 seconds would do and it didn’t bring out any bitter notes which was awesome; but if it is brewed longer there comes a tart like sweetness at the end of each sip rather than a minor grape/apple skin taste.
It’s the clarity of this leaf that leaves me considering a purchase, but I’ll wait for a group buy and jump on 25g as that would be 5 sessions; and if I find friends who would share near me it would be what… $2 a session if 4 people join in. While it’s not as powerful as the 2009 stuff I had, or as remarkable, it has that purity to it that I found in Last Thoughts, Midas Touch, and spring Bang Dong (which I suspect will double in price as I drive the market to it… :P )

Grateful to have tried this once, online banking will disagree with me by the end of the year : )
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGXhUpaxYA_/ Bath time.

Drank some Bang Dong with a new friend :)
http://steepster.com/Hoalatha/posts/336555
^ I did my best to not provide any tasting notes from my end.

It’s pretty awesome to learn something you never knew with a leaf you’ve been brewing. This spring Bang Dong because sweet if it cools down which is pretty sweet.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGFsfvTxYMa/

Unique would be the correct term; however that sometimes equates to a bad connotation such as this time.

I tend to only write positive reviews, but I will adjust this one to provide some help from my experience. Floral notes work best for that vegetable like tea taste and the lighter teas. There’s a reason why jasmine works well with green tea but not so well with black tea; just a balancing act of flavors.

When it comes to this blend, there’s a strong upfront roast profile to the tea with a smokey finish while having the osmanthus flavor throughout. While I can say the flavoring is balanced and does what it should, the base of this really throws off the experience. When it comes to floral, a dry mouth feel coming from the smokiness makes it hard to enjoy while a stronger dancong could be acceptable for such a thing.

What would I change? Well, I think a base tea that already agrees with the taste being mixed in would be best. It would be cool to see a dayuling and osmanthus or a dancong osmanthus as both have a nice thickness that ends in a wet way rather than dry.

There’s just something odd about drinking this that made me want to stop, but I went through four steeps to ensure the smokiness stays as well as the roast. The osmanthus lasted as well so that’s good, there’s a good technique being used just needs a more agreeable base.

After I finished my oolong session this morning, I knew I needed to open up one of the reserved sheng samples I have. Being that it was nice outside, I wanted one with no smoke and little to no age on it. The selection was down to about 12 things so I kind of just grabbed this one at random, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which is quite odd but I learned something interesting" The word ‘fecked’ means stolen. I hope one day I can tell a girl she fecked my heart because that’ll be witty :)

At first I looked at the leaf and there was a mixture of dark and light colors to it. Also to note, there were no silver hairs or white leaf within the piece. The first brew came out much lighter than I thought it might. I was expecting something strong, like ‘THIS IS MY LAST THOUGHT, YOU GONNA REMEMBER IT’ but it was nothing like that. Interestingly enough this tea wasn’t that complex and I nailed it down pretty quickly which to me says that this tea exemplifies in one area: clarity.

At first I thought there were notes of sugarcane, but then I quickly realized it was more of the sweet notes you get from a pickled vegetable. The theme for this was asparagus for me. Bang Dong has always been a zucchini tasting sheng and now that I am tasting something like it I am able to say that this has more of that texture taste that asparagus has; with a little more of a distinct sticky taste. Now this liquid is lip smacking which you’ll hear said about sheng that has some syrup likeness to it; which this has. While some may say it’s like honey, for me it’s like syrupy with the main difference of being a runnier sweetness rather than a honey which is thicker and for me sticks around longer.

Now the taste was great, very light which agreed with me 100%. Still taste quite new without that bitterness coming through as the leaf opens and settles. This leaf doesn’t open for a few steeps and was a little unique. At first I thought it was smaller and then I noticed as it opened up it almost looked like some wet dancong leaf. Some of the veins were twice the size of others which looked funny next each other.

My first session with this tea last about 90 minutes and then I went and ate some jalapenos and drank some Irish cream soda to reset my taste buds. Came back to the tea later on to see if it was the same. The sweetness was as I thought because it wasn’t near sugar, but clearly had some sweetness you find in a pickled mango (which I dislike); but no sour notes. Liquid still brewed out pretty clear. The sharpness was faded when I came back and it was dying out as I could tell which sucked, but I was at around 22 steeps by time I realized I didn’t have long before I said goodbye. I probably ended at 26 steeps, but this was meant for the clarity and taste for me rather than the longevity so I was quite pleased with it.

Price. Yes, that’s a thing as many have remarked on.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGCmSa1RYHQ/

This morning I brewed up something I knew I would like as I had all no day with no plans :)
Grabbed a high mountain oolon from Taiwan Craft Teas; lot 401. It’s not on here or their site so that doesn’t help.

It had all the notes and buttery’ness that I wanted from my morning session. Very happy with my 5g brew as it brewed for an entire 16 steeps. The leaf was full and less broken than most high mountain oolongs come through at an average price; but I have no idea what this one cost so I cannot compare really.

Longevity of this one made me quite happy,

Drank this at work on Friday and it was quite beautiful looking. Looks like a Darjeeling tea with silver hairs all over it. The brew came out nice and dark for the first infusion. This is a solid tea that like Oriental Beauty drops off in strength over a year or two of settling; and this is how I like them both, smoother as time rounds those sharp notes off and leaves behind a softer taste.

The Trails of LBZ, Case 9 of 6
(Liquid Proust search for his favorite laser beam zensheng)

Obtaining some of this through a swap made me incredibly happy because this is a pricey tea. In that same trade I got some LBZ maocha from Tea Urchin as well so I really hope that what I sent to that person made them feel special as I did opening the swap.

Now many had told me that this was the one to compare the others to and if that was true I did it backwards because I should have done it first or second, but it wasn’t but two weeks ago until I had my hands on it. Blah, blah, blah… tasting notes:

The broken pieces are ugly; as I would guess for anything coming off a brick to be honest. The smell of this is quite strong which was unique. The first few steeps seemed to have been the brewing of astringent notes coming out. I’ve been told that true LBZ will drop off quick and become sweet so this astringency isn’t causing doubt for me.
Going into the fourth steep with nothing really to comment on, all of a sudden texture appeared. I’d call it creamy, but it’s really best described as buttery (but I never refer to sheng as being buttery because that’s an oolong thing to me).

Hoping that some fruity sweetness would come out, I was kind of met with this dirty nut from outside laying on the grass taste. While that’s not something bad, but it wasn’t what I had expected. This makes it much different than the others that I had drank.

The texture and taste stays the same throughout without much to point out after steep 8. Realizing the price factor on this tea and trying to evaluate it the best that I could, I ended up going 27 steeps all by myself. This lasted all morning and I ate nothing until I finished this session with a purpose; test those feels. So what is the conclusion? I felt absolutely nothing in regards to power which is odd. With no feels and a taste profile that is somewhat like a nutty yellow tea and a freshly dirty raw pu’er (if you know what I mean), I cannot sell myself on it. Honestly I could put this up against a lot of Mengku cakes and it wouldn’t stand out.

Honestly, I was disappointed and still am. Not only did I not eat anything so my body could feel the tea even more, I set aside the whole morning to do this because I knew it was a special occasion that I wouldn’t get again unless I paid a decent amount. As of today, the 2007 Mengku LBZ is the best bargain for feels when it comes to this search. With the Tea Urchin LBZ maocha , 2010 LBZ from YS, and puer.sk 2004 bamboo stored LBZ, I’m almost to the end of my road with these unless someone else comes along with a surprise.

This has to be among the top 10 most unique oolong I have been able to drink thus far. At first I thought it was stored wrong because it smelled like chai in a way. I ended up brewing it and was just… wow, this stuff is complex and confusing.

Strong notes of cinnamon come through with this odd taste of butternut squash. Almost like cinnamon butter and sweet potato fries. While it sounds like a fun blend, this is a straight tea. Really messes with my head as I drink it and to think it’s about $10 an ounce is a great price for such a unique oolong that has aging ability that would be much different than other oolongs

The Trails of LBZ, Case 8 of 6
(Liquid Proust search for his favorite laser beam zensheng)

So… I got on Steepster and looked around to see if anyone owned some of this because the samples were and are sold out. Being that it is $190 a cake, it’d be a gamble that if good would be a steal for what it could cost but if not it would be a whole $190 out; or just saying an opportunity cost of possibly 2 Dong Ding cakes and a Jingmai cake.
So, I found someone and tempted them with the now sold out 2009 LBZ that YS had which was at $240 but I doubt that is what it would be sold for now. That tea set the bar for everything else period. As the best sheng I ever had, I’m still upset I cannot buy it as it’s the first cake I’d pay a few hundred for: http://steepster.com/Proust614/posts/335389

The leaf looks like nothing special and has a scent of old tobacco and whorish storage; it’s been places :P
The first few sips were odd because it was like a tea that was made from wood and then aged in a tobacco jar that wasn’t fully cleaned. With those thoughts aside, and being authentic on my experience, I found that the storage notes faded at around steep 3ish. Now it was time to play with this : )
So… this is darker than I would like it to be, which has something to do with being 11 years old and the storage that it has gone through, but I was able to push through multiple steepings of this because of those feels. Taste wise it stays with that grandpas old tobacco that grandma hid 30 years ago so he couldn’t have it and then someone stored some sheng in it not knowing that it needed to be cleaned.
So why are those feels what am I talking through keyboard? Yes, something as if that sentence you read correctly and now I recollect thyself.
breathe
Okay: This tea did a few things for me. Number one, my eyelids are heavy and I look like I fell asleep in a hotboxed car and just woke up. My arms are really light feelings so I can be one of those outdoor floats if I wanted to be right now. This is a calming tea for me, like a … relax and let time continue on slower than it really is passing by; I could talk about the perception of time and the time that Data encountered this complex issues in The Next Generation, but now is not the time.
So the taste of this is not what I prefer but this feeling of just floating on a cloud and letting the cotton candy caress me is quite enjoyable as well is the clarity of my imagination that I’m trying to hold back on while I write this up.

I hope that the same that I sent to my friend ends up being favored over this as well so I can find more confidence in myself in evaluating tea. As the world of evaluating tea is very scary when it comes to pu’erh, I want to establish myself as a laid back dude who knows taste accommodation with people who will vouch for me as I start to bring people in and make recommendations.
Wait did I begin blogging on this tasting note? Okay, so back to watching the end of The Flash and Arrow; wish these shows didn’t have to take a whole year to start watching again, I’ve really enjoyed the nightly discussions my dad and I have while watching them.

This is by far the most interesting cold drink I’ve had to date, besides birds swallow nest.

Been eyeing this at Whole Foods for awhile but decided that $10 a bottle was not worth it. Recently saw a 3 for $9 sale and was like ‘dang, 1/3rd… got to try it now!’
Turns out someone put the sale sign in the wrong place, but I still got to only pay $3 for a bottle :)

This is a mixture of green tea and mint tea with ginger, sugar, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper. There’s no doubt that this is a high end product as the taste is so wonderful; you can tell that it was crafted well. Now it’s the uniqueness of this that makes it something that convinces me it that it might be worth $10 for the reason to share or use for cooking. Ginger at the bottom is a good 1 inch think as it settles so you have to shake it up. Once you take a sip it’s sweet in your mouth, nice and light with some citrus notes as well as sugar in general. Once the liquid leaves your mouth you get your ass kicked with spicy cayenne pepper; the mint is too background to notice over the spice. Now when I say you get your ass kicked, I mean it. This stuff is intense but because I drink it cold it’s an awesome contract. I figure this would mix in drinks great, cook amazingly, and be a sipper for the adventurous group of people.

I don’t recommend much from Whole Foods that is tea infused, like that weird matcha orange juice that is really dry tasting with a nasty color, but this is really good and if you can find a friend I recommend cooling a bottle off and drinking it; a bottle is 25 ounces / 750ml.