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Drinking this 2005 Liu Po “Golden Award” (Chua) from a swap… I need to do some research and find out who sent this to me because it’s kicking my ass in a great way.

Not only does this brew a deep tasting liquid… it literally provides a feeling each and every sip. A wonderful drink to unwind to :)
I need to acquire some.

This was the second aged oolong that I drank yesterday and it was the first to disappoint me.

Water hit 90c and I was ready to start the session. Washed the leaf briefly and the aroma hit me…. no :(
I ended up sipping and throwing out six steeps. This tea taste like dirt to me, just like cheap ripe pu’erh taste like.

I’m hoping that others may enjoy this though because I tried 10s, 15s, 30s, 45s… nothing worked. I don’t think it was the 90c water, amount of leaf, or timing. Can’t always have a great cup I suppose.
https://www.instagram.com/p/-ZpqzjxYN9/

Drank this down yesterday with my best friend and came to realize why this will have such a mixed review. While many have had freshly roasted oolong tea, there is something different about aged ones; especially when they were originally cheap and terrible leaf, which I don’t know if this was or not.

This was a dark balled leaf that brewed a lightly colored liquid with a much better aroma than the leaf itself. The taste, depending on steep time, can be a bit roasty. This is the kind of taste profile that some like or don’t (similar to smoky taste).
I was surprised to steep this over eight times, ended with thirteen to move onto the next tea. While I enjoyed this tea, it’s hard to not look at the price of it… which makes roasted TGY much more appealing.

I must say that the lasting flavor of this tea makes it a great experience.
https://www.instagram.com/p/-ZpqzjxYN9/

This is the first tea that I drank from the Aged Oolong sampler I put together and it was such a joy to finally drink something I’ve been working on for awhile.

I meant to pick out a cheaper tea to have the other look weak when I get to them, but this is not doing that. The leaf may be small and a bit beaten up, yet when you look at it you can tell that it hasn’t been abused in regards to roasting because you can see its green color to it.
I ended up only using 3grams with a few ounces of water at a time at 187c (or so) for 30 seconds to a minute. Each steep was absolutely amazing. Don’t tell anyone…. I drank 4 steeps back to back within three minutes. The taste changes depending on the steep time. If you steep it for 30 seconds its possible to get the buttery texture because the light roast doesn’t settle in as much. Steeping at a minute gives it a defined taste like a roasted bancha from Japan which is strange to compare to. This was a fun tea to play with because I was able to get a buttered texture and a slightly roasted texture. The taste lingers for a long time which is great. There are nutty remarks and sweet undertones to the tea as well. All together, this is just fabulous.
What’s better? This is the same tea that What Cha has which means that I can compare two different styles of storage :)

https://www.instagram.com/p/-XAiGpRYAU/
p.s. though I don’t want to pull in price here, THIS IS ONLY $4’ISH PER OUNCE!

Today at the store I saw Arizona Tea’s new oak brewed tea, it was an impulse buy once I saw it.

They use honey sugar and honey to sweeten it which is nice, but what is odd is the strong taste of oak it has. I doubt that the tea was in the oak barrels very long because Arizona is too massive to wait for a new batch to be put out. The look of the liquid is murky and taste a bit strong. This would be fantastic to use for a mixed ‘adult’ drink though which is why I may have to buy a few more to mix with my alcoholic lapsang souchong that I bought which is too strong by itself.

I’m not part of the W2T club… but I got one of these :)
I’m more of a swapping type of person and was quite happy to see this come in the mail recently.

I took this guy to work with me without knowing anything about it. What I found out is that the first two steeps were light and wonderfully because it didn’t expand. Once it opened up fully around the eighth steep there was more depth to the flavor and a nice feeling came over me at work around the 10th steep so I synced it with some epic music. This is clearly something easy to steep, sip, and enjoy. Now I need to hunt down a Misty Peak orb to compare because I find these to be practical for someone like me who dislikes owning full cakes.

The third and final tencha sample… so sad to not have any more.

The first one I had was the best by far, the sweet tender taste… so good.
This leaf however would out preform it in regards to being matcha. Why is that? Simple: This leaf keeps the vegetable integrity while having a slight sweetness to it. A combination like that is key for a matcha, but for a loose leaf tea I like my sweets so this ranks in #2. I really like the Yunomi series based teas that are put together. I think I might get suckered into getting the aged green Japanese tea leaf one which is 2014 and 2015 side by side.

I didn’t try this for awhile because I dislike saying bad things abut small companies but I recently got some in a swap so I had to try it. You’re probably reading this questioning why I would say that about something I haven’t had before… good question: See, Capital Teas milk oolong is ridiculously good. Vibrant green and large.

However, this is great in another way. This is smooth without that odd flavoring. I really enjoyed drinking this down, enough so that it will be put up against BTT version to see who I buy some from.

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #17

After trying four different LaoCha teas, I am able to declare that this is weak. I thought I could get a dark liquid from this with some strong notes, but I was unable to do so. Sometimes there are products to look so similar to another but are worlds apart in regards to taste. This is based off of two different session though since I had enough of it to do so; I did only drink 5 steeps of each though because it wasn’t very enjoyable.

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #16

I have been rather curious about the Impression cakes so I was glad to see a portion in the TTB. I used a nice 6g to have a session with which was a nice mount because it brewed a deep cup every time. Unfortunately I picked up bitterness from this even in the 8th steep so that’s about as far as I could go. To me this might just be a tea to buy and store for it to improve as it ages since it is a decent price for an entire cake. I’ll have to try some of the 5+ year old Impression sometime soon to see if they have a better mouth feel and taste.