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I was planning to review some of my YUNOMI order tomorrow, but I just have to write about this now.

First let me mention this: I only bought this tea because it is an aged Japanese tea, that to me sounds rare/odd/cool/musttry.

My only experience with tea stems went horrible last time because it was quite unappealing in taste and appearance. While this tea still looks lame, it brews out a wonderful cup of calmness. Knowing it’s past midnight, I chose this tea because it was aged to reduce the caffeine content. The taste of stem is surely there and the explanation of ‘slightly roasted’ cannot be worded better . What makes me happy that I bought 100g of this tea is that it is great. This is a through and through an autumn tea. I’ll probably be buying more since I might end up sending this out for others to try.

It’s as if I’m drinking the woodsy remains of a roasted bancha that has settled in time to taste like a falling leaf that has recently became orange with red spots on it. Yeah, that’s how it taste.

So. Damn. Good.
https://instagram.com/p/83udDlxYK7/

mrmopar only wrote Jing Mai Huans Pian, hopefully I will find out what this is since it worked fantastically at work.

I’m naming this: Reversal Sheng.
The first three steeps has this nice sweet undertone and after taste which was quite appealing and then after the four steep the bitterness storm began to come in over the horizon I didn’t know existed. Normally I like shengs as they tune down, but this one decided to tune up into something I did not like. If it stayed on it’s original path and din’t go bipolar on me, I’d really enjoy this.

AllanK provided me with a bit of this in our swap and it interested me because it’s not often you get a tea that is older than yourself. This was an absolutely strange tea. For starters, I’m not sure if this was an odd ripe or an odd raw. A pretty strong smoke smell comes off of this tea, but the brew doesn’t have much in its taste (I’m fine with that). As I try to figure the leaf out, this has to be an aged smoked sheng of a wild variant. However, I may be quite wrong. My session lasted hours which was great. I ended up playing with the steeping dimensions by trying 3 minutes and then back to 12 seconds to 1 minute. Overall I found this leaf to produce under all circumstances quite well with no overwhelming astringent notes. This is a fun tea, but it isn’t as subtle or pure as I like my sheng… and again, darn you (in a good way) White2Tea for Repave and Mandela for Wild Monk; forever spoiled my sheng taste buds.

I didn’t think I’d write a review this weekend as it didn’t go so well. Anyways, I tried to escape the emotional pain via tea; in case you were wondering, it doesn’t work.
Here’s my attempt: http://postimg.org/image/648w2w0hf/
A few hundred cups within 72 hours and here I am drinking this absolutely wonderful tea that I had to come online to review it. First let me say this: There is no better deal out there that I am aware of, roughly $6 for 50g… absolutely blew my mind.
This was a sample someone provided for me and upon my first sip I had the same thoughts as I did when I first sipped Repave: There goes my paycheck.
However, the price on this is CHEAP. This tea has a thick texture that makes one think of molasses but taste of chocolate from another dimension. The smell wouldn’t tell you that and neither would keeping the liquid in your mouth, but once you drink it down there is this immediate robust flavor of a dessert that you’ve been craving all day (even if you haven’t been, you will realize it was there all along).
I’m just in shock at how amazing this tea is. I’ll be buying a decent amount of this to share with others because when you find something great, why wouldn’t you share it?

Nicole sneaked some Shang Tea samples in with my TeaLeaves order… I’ll pay her back soon enough though :)
To me, which is probably going to be different from others, the taste of this tea is like a strong white tea had a child with some Oriental Beauty and this is the child. The taste is brisk and reminds you of what you are drinking with a slap across your taste buds, but that slap is packed with flavor so it is welcomed.
The best part about this tea, for me at least, is watching the color come to life as you steep this tea. I steeped my sample size three times and then half steeped another to see if the dark liquid still came about. Almost a solid brown color unlike Shang Tea’s website, however preparations could be different as I used 190’ish. Yes, this is good; however, I am not a fan of Oriental beauty (which this is not) so the notes of ‘spice’ that come through the brisk flavor of this tea don’t appeal so much to me. The word rich does describe this tea :)

Although the Pear Oolong smells like I need to buy another tin before I even try it, I had to make the decision to drink this one first and save what I believe will be best for last.
The first thing I noticed about this tea was the size of the rolled oolong. It lands in the large size which makes me happy. The smell is fantastic. Upon drinking the first brew it reminded me a lot of Goodbye Butiki, A LOT. This is a good thing :)
This tea is quality as far as the leaf goes and the flavoring. Some of the leave has 3 buds on it which was awesome to see at it unrolled. I resteeped this six times and then stopped because citrus flavoring always dries my mouth out in an odd way. Overall, this was a beautiful tea that I’m wanting to cold steep so I will probably try it.

Just drank 3 steeps of some 2015 Wild Dehong from Yunnan Sourcing that Dr Jim sent me, but I’m not entirely sure where it is at.

This was a fruity/sweet tasting tea from the beginning to the end notes that sit in the mouth. Surprising taste from a black tea, which it doesn’t taste like one to me. Quite a great tea :)

So
https://instagram.com/p/8gwX_5RYGA/
Dang
https://instagram.com/p/8gw4ftRYG2/
Good.

Very vegetable and pure. The liquid comes out darker as you rebrew it, which is rare for me to do with sencha. I brewed this three times and was quite happy every single time, it was close to a gyokuro without the buttery texture. The smoothness and size of the leaf of this tea when combined to its color… makes it certain that I will have my first flush sencha from Obubu on preorder come February 2016 :)

Out of all the teas that AllanK has provided for me to try, I believe this is only the 2nd one that I have not liked; that’s pretty awesome since the number is somewhere around 20.

I believe it is the material used in this tea that I don’t like. For others I am sure it is great, but the taste is a little weaker than the ripe teas that I like and it doesn’t have the same earthy tones to it or the deepness from the first brew. There is some dryness to the tea, but that can be easily overlooked if the taste profile fits with what one likes, this one just isn’t for me. I will say that it does resteep quite consistently though which is a plus.

Never had anything from Tea Trekker before… but someone is buying http://www.teatrekker.com/tung-ting-aged-27-years :)