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Drinking this 1993 Toucha raw teabag I bought to put in with everyone’s mysterious package for the mystery group buy. James at teadb said that was was worth buying, meaning I should try it. I heard some bad and good things… and then I was like, damnit… I need to just drink it, so now I now!

I took the bag and smelled it, immediately knew it was from 1993 :P
Decided to go easy before hardcore. Took the bag and dropped it in my gaiwan and poured that hot water ontop. After 10 seconds I pulled it and started my first of 15 brews, FROM A TEABAG!

This stuff comes out like a light shou and almost like a light soy sauce which is intimidating at first as I don’t like darker sheng. First sip made me go, ‘what the heck’. I signed online and acted like a kid who is too excited and can’t contain it. This stuff is really really taste. The depth is there, the taste is pure, and the brewing inside a gaiwan for 10 seconds is simple and provides pleasant brew after brew. There’s no doubt that I will be buying more of this as well as seeing what two bags are like rather than one. Very glad that I provided this for others as I feel like it will be a fun time :)

Drank the autumn all day at work today; lasted a solid 7 hours at four steeps an hour, I drink a TON at work.

This stuff is great. I tell new pu’ heads to try Bang Dong or Jingmai because they are light and easily understood while being tasty. Simple brew with some floral undertones. This leaf withstands those long spa treatments that we drink the bath water from quite well. Interested in seeing how the spring taste now, but this is solid… did someone say Bang Dong is coming to the 2017 Sheng Olympics?

This leaf smells like my brothers bo which make me worried… I’m not even joking, how is that possible?

Anyways, brewed this up with two infusions in a kyusu to drink. Nice mouth feel that sticks around. Taste is on the low spectrum of floral with some vegetable in there. Was hoping for something stronger. This would be ideal to drink outside or by itself, wouldn’t do well with food. I’m more of a shan lin xi or dong ding type of guy, but oolong is still the best type of tea so this made me happy :)

This is a high end daily drinker. Looking at this as it’s $9 for 50g… not what I expected. It’s really good. The sweetness is evident with each sip though it is complex because there is a roast profile in front of it all.
Easily brewed. Cheap. Tasty.

There’s nothing more I can ask from this tea honestly, it exceeds what I had expected. I would regard this as a daily drinker and good to put a little aside for the fun, but if I were to share a cup of YS oolong with friend it would still be the Iron Arhat which has true depth to it. Probably going to look at getting more of this for work.

This was bought because the owl mentioned it and I was like: What an awesome thing to include in the mystery buy!
A Japanese black tea smoked with whiskey barrel wood? That should have been reason enough, but I didn’t know about it so thanks owl :)

So I approached this like I do with all five of the black Japanese; just brewed it as if it was a roasted oolong. Here’s why I do that: I believe Japanese tea is the most delicate and pure of all the types I’ve had, tasted, ripped apart, ate, and overall evaluated as I drink all the teas possible. I’m quite thankful that I did that with this because the leaf when brewed looks like that of a first flush Darjeeling; you know, that dark seaweed olive color.

90c for 150 second in the large kyusu (western stylin’)

This is among the top 10 most unique teas that I’ve had from the first few sips. When I think of smoked tea I think of lapsang smoke… like, campfire in my mouth smoke. This is something completely different. Immediately I’m reminded of bbq by the aroma; how did I not think of bbq smoke vs campfire smoke vs ashtray smoke as possible for teas? There really is this odd taste which comes somewhat from the aroma of a woodsy roastish liquid… with this underlying cooked vegetable taste. Unfortunately I cannot decipher if this is a roasted or smoked vegetable taste underneath, it’s just too frickin’ weird.

After drinking a decent amount of this I realize it reminds me most of wood chips that were left to the side so you pick it up and get that smoked wood smell on your finger and sneak a smell in every once in awhile because it brings back a good memory of some awesome bbq.

This is pretty good, but it’s just hard to explain because I feel as if it is an experience type of tea and not a taste type of tea… what a unique thing. Maybe I’ll try smoking tea with my barrel one day when it retires :P

Glad that this is in the mystery buy as I know I will thoroughly enjoy reading the thoughts of others :)

Drank this today while reading the timeline of Star Trek and now I feel dumb… then again it’s confusing. Enterprise is the earliest of them all but it was made last, why why why!
Anyways, this is a solid tea that has no bitter notes to it and a strong taste of what raw sheng is like when pure and untampered with by elements such as age, humidity, traveling, random hairs stuck in the cake, fast food oil from fingers when it was broken, and anything else.

That being said: All jingmai material I’ve had has been excellent and pure. This is true for this as well, even if I support what Glen is doing and say with a bias; CLT has that good good jingmai.

Here’s a reason to buy this: It’s a 2013 Jingmai cake at only $19 for 200g. I’m being serious when I say that’s a good deal.

Here’s to trying some more YQH.
I will admit that my tasting notes are all different in the way I write the and what not so let me say that I am writing this one after drinking 19 steeps of this.

I bought a sample of this off a friend because it’s one that I was fairly certain was a type of sheng I would enjoy; though I was told that all YQH will have that humid basement leather smell n’ taste. The price of a sample isn’t so bad really if you know someone: $5 is the same as a beer somewhere, but this will last 15+ steeps.

The first thing I did was take a picture: https://www.instagram.com/p/BFhaLLOxYAR/

I went ahead an tasted the rinse because I was curious. Silly me, the leaf of this cake is pretty large and needs to open up so after the rinse I spread the leaf and let the moisture and heat pry it open a little. About 7 minutes later I came by and drank three steeps back to back. There’s an upfront feeling with this, somewhat to do with not eating yet though. I drank these steeps quick because I know it was going to have some storage to get through. I was right, the more dry leather with basement came through with a peak one steep 2.

From there, I finally find a new note in sheng I have yet to come across: strawberry. Not the sharp tasting strawberry you get from the tongue, but that sweet taste on the lips. With that flavor coming through there was also a texture just like those oily dancongs; in a good way. This isn’t thick in a cream texture sense but in an oily way… think, leaves a residue but complex because while you think it’s moist there seems to be a lingering dry aspect to the taste coming from the leaf.
Now this taste, strawberry as the best I can describe it, continued for roughly 8 steeps and I really enjoyed it. Other teas have an apricot upfront and it levels off quicker than this one did so that was enjoyable. Unfortunately, this tea turned around and the old taste came back. It began to lose the oily texture and have more of that humid to dry stored… taste, smell, and whatever you want to reference it to.

This is probably something I wouldn’t mind buying another sample of later on, but I just don’t have the way to store it or else I would look into spitting 1/4th a cake because it really is unique and tasty. The tea was still going, but I am just not a huge fan on the old stored tea taste as I’ve realized so I cut it short by probably 6 to 10 steeps. For now I will do a second browsing of YQH to see if that other cake I knew I might like is still there.

I have to admit, I drank this like; the hell is this???

It’s pretty much a thick heicha. Not tasting any fermentation which is fine, but I also don’t seem to find a dark color to this at even 30 seconds. Very light in color with notes of hay and maybe the burs on my shoes after a walk off roads; but I have never tasted one because they are too spiky, do they have a taste that is noticeable though?

Anyways, I drank this 6 steeps deep at work because I didn’t want to miss out in case there was a prize in the middle like some cereal boxes…. but, nothing.

The Trails of LBZ, Case 7 of 6
(Liquid Proust search for his favorite laser beam zensheng)

Yesterday I had the best raw pu’erh to day so whatever comes next will just… yeah.
I ended up convincing Awazon to sell me 100g of this which I split with a few people; hoping to see if it makes it to the 2017 Sheng Olympics. Not sure if I wanted to consider this a LBZ or regard it as Awazon’s most expensive tea; either way, I’m going for the taste and feel over 16 steeps.

Leaf, 6g. Temp, 90c. Steep time, 6 to 10 seconds.
Prior to steeping I will say the leaf is full and beautiful. I haven’t had anything quite order worthy from Awazon because it’s’ all basic factory tasting stuff to me thus far.
Steep 1, the tea had a spark of tang towards the end making it a bit mouth puckering. Did not like this, but I’ve been told that this leaf (if it is) starts off rough and then sweetens within a few steeps.
Steep 2, initial production and storage smells fades which is nice because I was hoping it didn’t stick around. Steep 2 and 3 I did back to back: upfront in the astringency as if it is coming forward, hopefully not to stay but going from the back to the front as a way of exiting backwards (please please please)
Steep 4, seeming like the astringency is fading but I think it’ll be a bumpy road to find out what is on the other side of this hill I am going up; is it a dry flat land of dust and hay or is it going to be a secret rainforest of fruit I have yet to taste?
Took a bit of a break to see if this mild sensation was from the tea, seems that a little head feel is going on; somewhat of a lifting feeling.
Steep 5, still pretty astringent with hidden notes of tarty fruit.
Steep 6, hue of the liquid is beginning to lighten up at this point which should mean the taste should start transitioning to something different. Still a rather upfront biting of an astringency, but at this point there is heat that runs through my neck onto the end of my fingertips with a high point at my shoulders. Kind of interesting feeling, a warmth that spikes when I sip.
Steeps 7 & 8, the astringency is mild at this point allowing me to notice that there is a gently taste to this tea underneath but it took far too long to get to this point. The feeling is still lifting, calming for sure.
Steep 10, here we are… some mild notes of apricot and honeysuckle inbetween that took forever to actually become noticeable as the astringency masked and covered the other notes that were there earlier. At this point the head in my upper body is also occurring in my back which is pleasant.
Steep 11, yeah at this point I am pretty sure I will enjoy every steep until it dies. The brew has become lighter with more clarity in what I am sipping at, add on the warmth and mild calming sensation and this is something really nice.

Comparing this to the other LBZ Trails, it is somewhat hard to do. The taste of this tea took much longer to lose its astringency which was unexpected because it is a few years older than the others that I was drinking. Yesterday I had the best one which had a sharp change in the color and taste which was great, for this I am unsure how much I like waiting for the change to happen. Telling someone that a tea will be wonderfully light with hints of fruit and sweetness of higher quality pu’erh would be appealing, but if you tell them that it takes almost 11 steeps to get there… I’m not sure if I would want to go through the journey of some mouth pucker for that long.

At about 70 cents per gram, I would say this would be a great tea to age for anyone who wants a quality leaf to use for a project. The sample I got was just like the pictures which make it seems quite nice, to which I can say it is. Personally I would go the route of getting the 2007 Mengku from YS first for 100g brick at $62 while they are still in stock and then invest in the larger purchase such as this later on. This has no humidity noticed throughout the steeps so I’m pretty confident in saying that the taste can change quite a bit within just a year of being stored differently; pu’erh eating a new diet always changes.

While this is 7 of 6, I always go overboard, I still have about four more to go and someone is sending me some from Bana tea which I hear is the best one around on the market; we shall see.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFct6wnxYBf/

p.s. I have 14g I’m willing to trade for another LBZ I have yet to try, please PM me if this interest you

9 grams of this… what a strong brew for this morning!
Still quite a strong fermentation punch throughout your mouth as you sip this down. Certainly a tea fit for a morning, but dang it’s hard to get past a few steeps because it’s strong; maybe due to how I made it :P