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This is an impressive matcha if made correctly and by that I mean offsetting the slight dry taste with just water. I whisked this one up smelling the pumpkin spice which made me happy :)
The taste at first was a bit much so I adjusted it with two teaspoons of milk with a topping of whipped cream.
My mom and I both enjoy this. Adjusted, this is fantastic and I’ll be curious to see if their chocolate matchas are as good because that will sucker me in… chocolate…

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #15

I’ve had less than a handful of TeaUrchin teas which has been different than my experience with everyone else. This is one of the few sheng that I can say has no notes of bitterness which makes me a happy camper right now. Also, this one is high in caffeine. I drink a lot of tea throughout the day but once I began drinking this today I had a spike of energy. This is a rather nice tea with just a pure taste and no bitterness. No smoke or wood, just great. I wish it had a little ‘wild’ to it though.

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #14

You could convince me that this was made in an ashtray. While the smell and aroma from the tea were both kind of nasty, I ended up drinking and liking this more than the 2003 Mengku I drank before it. Not really sure how the smell is different than the taste, but this ended up being an alright pu’erh. A light dry taste to it but not unbearable.

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #13

I thought this was going to be great, a 2003 Mengku raw!
Unfortunately this was too strong of a taste for me to enjoy so after awhile I gave up on it and switched to the next YS which was a variation I generally don’t like but when compared to this I found it enjoyable :p

I read somewhere that someone really liked this tea from YS so I decided to buy a cake from them. If you look, it is $53 which is high for a ripe since they are cheaper than raw. I really liked seeing that this was an authentic cake though; all those little things make it more fun to open up. My view on ripe tea is kind of negative because while I enjoy it, I believe they are about all the same while sheng varies much more. Of course someone can point out the difference in a WP ripe versus a $5 full size cake; but something about cakes that cost a bit more seem to all taste the same to me. This cake was highly compacted and pressed well which took my pick to get a chunk off. Upon steeping it I noticed the aroma that ripe has but with no funk to it which was a positive already. The taste throughout the 8 steepings that I drank were very fine and smooth. While there may not be a unique taste associated with this tea for me, it is the smoothness that runs through the steeps with this tea that appeals to me. A sample of this would come up with the same tasting notes and I wouldn’t have purchased it. I’m not regretting my purchase, but I may be realizing that ripe just isn’t my type of tea. However ripe tea will be my great friend when winter rolls around :)

I drowned myself in W2T :)
https://www.instagram.com/p/91u9-nRYNE/

Quite a fun experience. It seems that Repave is still my favorite. I’ll be grabbing the 2014/2015 Last Thought samples sometime in the next two months to see if they might be a decent purchase for the 2016 year. It’s interesting how raw can vary so much and ripe has to be very special to notice differences (for myself at least)

This was a sample that a friend provided :)

It went well with all my other W2T that I tried yesterday. This one was a bit creamy for the lightness that it brewed. I really enjoyed this one as it didn’t dry out my mouth while it was the last tea I drank it would have the highest possibility to do so. The leaf of this one looked a bit dark and yet it brewed lighter than the rest which was fun to observe.
Not as tasty as the old bear that was tried next to it (for only 12 steeps each) but it was smoother with nice light tones.

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #12

This had the most flavor out of all the W2T that I drank on Sunday. Rather nice taste, but it was a bit darker than I like my pu’erh. I think it’s the flavor that makes this special. It doesn’t seem that 9 years has really mellowed out all of the bitterness, but sometimes that’s okay because with a nice punch you want to feel it

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #11

I made the same mistake with this tea as my first taste note… I didn’t even know I drank this before until I went to add this. http://steepster.com/Proust614/posts/310341#comments
Tea addict problems: Not even sure what you have drank or not :/

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #10

This was a much darker liquid than what I just drank which made me think it was going to shock my taste buds awake. While this tea is a beautiful bronze color and has a nice aroma, I believe that a few cups of this in a row becomes rather drying. Someone might say: “hey didn’t you just down 15 steepings of another sheng?”
That would be a valid question, but… if you saw my drinking habits at work you would understand that on some days I am drinking 12+ ounces of sheng per hour for roughly six hours straight and there are certain teas that do not produce that dry effect. Does the taste negate the negative effect of the dryness? Not for me, but this is still a pleasant darker sheng that has some qualities of the light ones such as a small sweet aftertaste that makes me think in years this will lower on the roughness and become a much nicer elixir. Unfortunately, I do not store tea because I buy and drink… so I’ll pay the higher price later on if someone lets me know that this has become better with age :)