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Drank a very peculiar sample today… http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/1998-hunan-dongting-brand-9101-qing-zhuan-sample-50g.html

This tasted almost exactly like a weakly brewed bancha that I bought from Yunomi that Furyu made. I suppose the reason that is would be the processing and the time it has has to sit around and be lazy before someone decided to stab the heck out of it so it could have a spa and then thrown into the trash, down a disposable sink, or outside; maybe even ate… ewwww

This was a pretty nice tea. I’d suggest it for those who like that old tea taste and heicha dryness. Steeps over and over quite well. It’s something you drink and understand, not much to describe as I think these older teas taste much much different to each person and are defined better as an experience rather then particular tasting notes of ‘flavors’ which are really just comparing one taste to another of things to describe because we need a frame of reference… stuff stuff stuff.

This is a decently strong and astringent tea for its age. A little complexity to it, but you can figure it all out in roughly 4 steeps but around then you will start to feel the dry mouth that comes with the astringency. I think this would have been better say 5 years ago when these apricot notes were still fresh as they are beginning to fade; though it is noticeable. However, I am pretty sure the tea would be bitter so it’s a catch 20/20…
This wouldn’t be one for me as I can tell it prefers a humid storage over my preference of dry; this is something I picked up on the dry notes and understanding the time process of aging due to humidity and the variances it has.
Not looking at the price of this… I would say if it can be found for 10cents a gram it would be something to invest in a cake of, but I’m a cheap person :)

After Dr Jim’s review, I had to:

HOLY SHIT, while you may not appreciate it, I have finally found the first ripe puerh that has a fish taste and smell to it. I have always thought people were crazy, but after all I have only drank the Green Miracle, White Lotus Golden Needle, Whispering Pines stuff, and then some other high end ripes.
So let me be honest: This tea sucks ass and I’m unsure what I’ll do with the rest of mine. I broke off 7g and thought it was fun because it was like a ball holding all kinds of possibilities and the pu came right out; hehe. Dry leaf smells great, but once you brew that… it’s like a dead fish comes back to life in your hot water you just poured on it; YOU HAVE AWAKEN THE DEAD FISH; oh, and there are not xp points for defeating it.
I too shall pour this down the drain.
Here’s where I suffer. I want to help support vendors by providing awesome stuff and help it become known, but in this case… what the heck do I do? For me it was educational to know that fish taste is a true thing with ripe, well as far as I know it is for this one at least, and I’m unsure if it’s typical with chenpi though.

Well, to keep track, here’s one that goes on the ‘no no’ list for Dark Matter 2016 for me.

Verdant discontinuing their blends was a sad thing, but we all understood why they made that choice. It was interesting that they posted everything about them as well. When I inquired about reblending this I thought they would say no because LPT is a company, but they said they didn’t want the larger companies doing it and that I was fine.

I should be reviewing this tea, but I’m just going to write. Tea is something I’m really engaged with and over the last few months betweeen tea blending, group buys, apartment searching, driving to Cleveland and back, and a new job, I have been so busy that the most I’ve done outside of all of that was a TV episode or so.

This morning i woke up at 6am feeling refreshed; must of slept well. I decided to brew this for the second time. It’s an odd choice for the morning, but black teas are normally what I use to wake up if I don’t want matcha. I used a teapot which is odd for me now, but it brought back memories :)

This morning I’m going to put in some Halo 5 time after watching a 2 minute review of the upcoming new firefight mode. Super excited.

This tea is very breakfast acceptable which is nice and I have a whole mug of it here next to me :)

After seeing some comments about this particular wuyi on IG, I knew I had to try it. Well, it turns out that it fit perfectly in with the Dark Matter 2016 group buy because it’s profile is much different then the rest.
Being that I’ve been spoiled with oolongs now, it takes something superb to provide an enjoyable cup; this is not something I like because that generally means it cost more.
Imaging this to be an up scaled oolong, but not as precise as the $20+ an ounce stuff, I underestimated the leaf by thinking of money instead of just tasting the tea.

The first brew has the most roast in the profile, but it’s after that first brew that one can begin to understand why this tea is considered premium. I find it extremely interesting that the roast fades while keeping a smooth texture throughout the session as the floral notes pop out. Clearly this is a tea meant to be resteeped and given time to understand what is happening throughout its stages. If you take a moment you might find that the mouth feel is more balanced than other wuyi that have a strong upfront taste but do not compare with the after taste. While the feeling isn’t a lingering tingle that some stronger wuyi have, the taste and developing flavors that come out of this tea are what make it what it is.

The first tea from Dark Matter 2016 and I’m 1 for 1 for what I have enjoyed! With black teas, shou, and then some weird stuff from YS, I know I won’t report a solid 100% enjoyment rate… but I think I’ll do well as there are some more oolong in there :)

Deep and buttery. This is the type of green tea that I would assign a solid ‘A’ to

It’s as thick as a buttery oolong gets while having that crisp green taste to it from the head to the body, while that tail is much different. This is a green tea to call a treat :)

and to think I gave away 2/3 of what I had… now I want it back!

I have been working on this tea for awhile and finally figured it all out in time to showcase at my fundraiser today :)

To me this taste like a honey gram cracker and to which others said that it doesn’t but explained the story about how they were created to suppress sexual appetite…

Anyways, this stuff brews a nice dark liquid with complexity. It is a loud tea and many heard it today. I ended up selling it, french toast dianhing, and watermelon baozhong. This was everyone’s favorite and I explained that it was one I worked the hardest on so it made me feel good! Still waiting for pictures from today because ti was a really fun event to answer questions about my journey as an online tea blender.

I had to admit that I have drank this finished version three different times before the event today. It took time figuring out the ration to mix and then roasting nuts as well as caramelizing sugar was a bit challenging. Hopefully I’ll get to share this with many at the Midwest Tea Festival.

I did a no no by checking the price after I started drinking this because it was either one of two things: a cheap tea that is badass and nobody has been talking about or an expensive tea that I have yet to be exposed to.
Turns out it’s at the mid to high spectrum as far as pricing goes: $13 for a 25g sample is still rather cheap when you think about it as 10+ hours of drinking between multiple sessions.

Anyways, I began brewing this knowing nothing about it because I just pick samples up with no thought anymore; when you have 150+ it just seems like the way to go.
This tea brewed a middle level color with a rather easily picked up aroma that I could say is strong but others may not think so. The first sip was when I knew this was going to be one of the ones I will drink for the rest of the day. Head of the tea has a strength to it that kind of fades, but that taste just goes right to the mouth feel. Lots of subtle tingling going on with this tea. Really enjoying the complexity of the taste as it doesn’t go one way or the other, I decided to put a few steps aside to cool down. Results came back once I tasted them, this is one of the few sheng (about 1 in 20 that I drink) that is good cold, luke warm, and hot! Most pu’erh ends up being really unpleasant when it cools down which is why I test them… I find it fun.

I would clearly recommend picking up a sample of this if I was you. With under 30 cakes left, the price will continue to go up. Now these cakes are 400g so that puts it at 35 cents per gram so you would be looking at $2 per session and I can confirm that this will go for hours. One thing to note about this is that this tea is only a few years old at this point which is awesome because there isn’t a mouth bite to it with that tingling; which I should add doesn’t have the mouth dryness that a strong new DHP tends to give.

Drank this earlier this week and realized that something about older black teas is not as appealing to older oolong. Most of the oolong that are not reroasted tend to lose that roasty head and stronger body, all while creating a refined caramel taste. Black teas as they age seem to just lose some strength and astringency.What I get ut of trying this, which was still alright, is that what I should probably look for is a 3 to 5 year old CTC, Ceylon, or Assam tea to see if they lose the astringency and bitterness.
This tea brew up rather easy and I thought it was an oolong because of the date on it, not very often does a black come to me over 2 years old. Brewed this one up 4 times before I quit it, nothing that important struck me with this though :/

I either drank this one of the more expensive one. Regardless, whatever I just drank yesterday was amazing but also not ready for me. This brewed up one beautiful cup. Most noticeable thing about this was the 20+ minute lingering taste. I know this for a fact because I watched an episode of anime before brewing another steep and I still had a thickness to my saliva with the taste in my mouth. A nice body and mouth feel throughout the session. While all of that was nice, there is still a bitterness to it that causes that sweetness to suffer; however I know it is in there.
Probably in a few years this tea will be sweet and thick with a long lasting session each and every time… aka, if I ever store tea, I’ll end up with a few of these for sure. You just can’t ignore a teas thickness if it was legit.