1113 Tasting Notes
After a dozen of session with this, I can write about it :)
This was my second full cake I ever bought. I made that purchase based on the pictures and reviews; a mild pu’erh with a beautiful look :)
This sheng brews so beautiful because it can be controlled by the user :)
This doesn’t have the punch that the 2012 Wild Monk has, but it surely has the color and a comparable taste. I’ve sent this to a few people to explore the lighter side of raw puerh with hopes that they will enjoy it as much as I do.
Instead of writing about my methods and ending notes from each session, just look at this tea porn: https://www.instagram.com/p/9pC8CwRYMI/
BTTC is one of my favorite and I poured about $500 into them last year so saying this isn’t so easy for me: After having Whsipering Pines golden lily…. everything else will probably compare as lesser. While this is a wonderful product, with subtle sweet notes of fruit to it, it’s
These are nicely rolled mid-range green oolong pieces with a decent aroma level that makes you aware that it’s a variant of milk oolong. The brewing of this tea is quite simple and can get decent four steeps out of it. I really enjoyed the second steep the most with it’s more mellow notes and more oolong’ness comes out as the leaf unravels. I’m pretty sure this would make for a nice cold brew as well, but I don’t cold brew often.
Yeah, most other Golden Lilies don’t reach the heights that WP’s does, but the two that come to mind for me are Mandala’ (very different, extreme buttery-ness!) and American Tea Room’s (the classic milk oolong flavor, punched up to 11). WP is unique with its coconut-milk overtones, which are crazy good!
Out of all the teas I could drink when I’m upset, I chose this one. This is one of the teas I bought a sample of for the next group buy; which I am going to make quite special because I’m going to arrange all the taste and quality by testing the products first.
So, the only time I’ve ever had a black TGY was from Verdant when they had the experimental oolongs they sent out for one of the monthly subscriptions. This one, in comparison, is lighter which helps bring out the life of the TGY in it. I brewed this one with 90c instead of 100c because I wanted to pull out the subtle notes; such as floral and sweetness. Thankfully it worked out :)
This tea rebrewed over six times and probably could go more, but I moved on to sheng which had me switch.
Overall: This is a surprising tea with lots of sweet notes at the end of the taste while still having the upfront black tea taste and smell. The look of the leaf isn’t rolled/balled which was odd, but as a black tea I suppose it makes sense. This is something that I will be comparing to three other products that in the same category (it’s actually number 2) and right now I’m unsure of which of the two takes the spot… I’ve got a few months to figure this out :)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBGYY4LRYDS/
Mead infused, sweet, sheng batch #1
FAILED
Unsure if this is something I’ll be able to do without working with the vineyard here; however when I contacted them they said 55 gallons… that won’t work for me. Well, I can say that I reduced the bitterness by a slight amount and for only four steeps there is a slight sweetness that is on the tip of the tongue after the liquid goes down. It did something, but it wasn’t what I would consider a success.
https://www.instagram.com/p/-sYa7uRYPX/
Knowing that I needed to take a new oolong to work, I picked this out because it was my free sample.
At first I looked at it like: thankfully I took this to work because it looks like ‘free sample’ quality to me.
So I began brewing these small beat up pieces of oolong that I wouldn’t consider to look good. The first steep was full of that sweet oolong aroma! The mouth feel was in that high zone, not the best but it is clearly noticeable. As for the texture, it’s there. This might be a bit on the salty side, but once you get through six+ steeps you will see that there are multiple leaf inside that stem that looks like it’s holding a ripped up leaf. I even found one to have 5 leaves coming from it :)
This was probably one of the better samples I’ve ever received from a vendor. This was unexpected though as it doesn’t look or smell like what it taste and smells like when it brews. I’ll be looking at the winter crop for my next order for sure because if it has some of that more woodsy notes within the backtone of floral… that’d be sweet.
Pulled sample of this out the other day with a smile because it’s quite old at this point. When ahead and washed it off a bit and began my sessions. The thickness of this tea doesn’t exist so for the darker liquor that it brews out, it’s disappointing that it just slides down without having a texture to leaves its taste in the drinkers mouth. Well, that was five steeps of thought so I brewed it longer… pulled out some dry and bitter tones, but still no texture so thankfully the bitterness didn’t linger. Maybe I wasn’t a fan of this, maybe this wasn’t a fan of me, maybe the sample was faulty… either way, I stopped under 10 steeps which means it wasn’t that enjoyable for a sheng.
This review is for the 2014 harvest.
While this is a dancong, it resembles a pouchong because of the floral notes and brightness. Yet at the same time it as the characteristics of a roasted oolong because of the color. The darker color doesn’t add any notes you would expect though which was quite a surprise as I was expecting a stronger tea. To be honest: This is one of the most gentle cups of tea I’ve had in a long time. Between the mouth feel and taste, this is a beautiful leaf. The liquid has little aroma and the taste is very delicate. This is one of those teas you have to drink slowly and think about the taste right after to realize exactly what you just tasted; unlike stronger teas that kind o punch your taste buds.
Tea Habitat being included for the 2nd or 3rd group buy in 2016… maybe :)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BA7d331RYD1/
That looks like something I might like. My fingers crossed in the groups buys.
Couldn’t agree more with you on the tea being delicate. Each steep changes flavor, and sometimes there is a bitterness that surprises in a middle steeping. Love the way the sweet note at the end continues for a long, long time.
Received this tea for Christmas (15’) and it has been my everyday morning cup at work. This brews how you brew it… meaning: You can use 185 to 205 on this tea and brew it between 30 to 90 seconds and find different levels of malt and ‘tea cocoa’ to this. I think any good dianhong can have the same said about it. I will say that I prefer the straight strands opposed to the curly leaf, but that is a personal preference. Dianhong at work for breakfast is a automatic win; if you haven’t tried it, I highly suggest it.
I’m a strange person, not to say strange is bad or anything… just, what I do sometimes cannot be made sense of.
Yesterday I took this 2004 sheng and sprinkled some roasted mate ontop of it. The heck was thinking? Well, it was early morning so maybe I wasn’t.
I ended up steeping this through that way about eight times until it got funky. That was an odd experience.
Anyways: Today I brewed the remaining 8g(which is a lot for me) and steeped it 11 times to come to a conclusion that I don’t like the dark soup’ness to this tea that comes out in the fourth steep and continues to stay there. The stronger taste to this sheng ends up being a dry experience for me and that isn’t something I like about drinking tea of any kind which is why I’m picky about pu’erh and yancha. Since this already has some age on it, I don’t think it will really get any better :/
Is that a good thing? Or…
It’s a good thing that they are not around. This is not something I would recommend someone spending money on.
hahah same though I had xD
When I first read the tea’s title I didn’t see the ginseng part and I was fascinated by your acquisition of a 1988 oolong. I have to say, any added herbs or flavorings to tea is a turn off for me, but ginseng of all things could be a cool alternative to tea. I see this a waste as well because I would like to go in one direction or the other, while this tea seems to be lying right in between.
@kevdog19 I’ve got oolong from the 1960s… they are not hard to find, actually. I ran an aged oolong group buy in 2015 and we all received two from the 70’s, one of which was a oriental beauty; taste like a 90’s sheng to me… frickin’ great stuff.
LOL