TJ Elite Send Message

Time to test out the Badass King! Similar to the YS Hekai, I used half of my sample in my 160ml Yixing zini teapot, which ended up being 13.1g. My teacup and cha hai were also the same, both made from Jianshui clay.

The scent of the wet leaves after the rinse is quite sweet and herbaceous. The taste mirrors this in the rinse and early steeps. The tea is cooling, herbaceous, high-noted and fragrant. Definitely complex and multifaceted. The initial qi is almost immediate and quite calming.

As the infusions progress, hints of bitterness start to emerge, along with an active, perhaps even somewhat titillating feeling at the back of the tongue. At this point the qi has switched gears and I’m starting to feel quite alert. The body is quite thick, especially once the tea cools a little. I’m now getting dark cherries in the aftertaste and this is reflected in the wet leaf aroma as well, which is quite rich at this stage.

As I entered the mid steeps, the tea suddenly got incredibly sweet all of a sudden. Actually a bit too sweet for my taste. I was now getting some hints of dark wood in the finish and gradually some touches of dark chocolate started to reveal themselves in the aftertaste. This was accompanied by an appropriate growing bitterness, which thankfully counterbalanced the sweetness by eventually overtaking it. Unfortunately the nature of the bitterness wasn’t enjoyable in the same way as say in the Hekai, it just kind of was, but it was still better than nothing.

Things continued to improve, with the chocolate gaining a nice acidic quality to it. This was also joined by touches of a winey, alcoholic character. There was some rounded, slightly peppery upfront bitterness, which was replaced by a subtle sweetness in the aftertaste alongside a pleasant lubricating feeling from increased saliva production.

The mouthfeel improved with the extended infusions toward the latter half of the mid steeps, inducing slight euphoria and becoming very oily in texture. The qi returned from energizing back to calming. The taste was full, yet subtle with incredible depth. At this stage it was no longer easy to pin down any individual flavors as they had all begun to blend together to form one whole.

Once we got to the late infusions, the taste obviously simplified a lot as expected, but still retained more depth to it than your average shu. There was also still plenty of body, even requiring some effort to swallow at times. The taste was fairly typical but difficult for me to classify. I’d likely say more earthy than woody, but probably a mix of a bit of both.

I had no expectations going in, but man was this a great session. While I liked the Hekai ripe a lot, I was even more impressed by the Ba Wang. At its most complex, this was honestly probably one of the most complex teas I’ve drunk, and I’m not talking just ripes. Then again it’s a blend which would help in that. Whereas the Hekai is an exemplary single origin tea, this one is a great showcase of what a skillful blend of premium ripes can bring to the table.

Whereas I’d quite possibly say that purely in terms of taste I actually preferred the Hekai to the Ba Wang, I noted in my review for that tea that for whatever reason it didn’t have that wow factor for me, whereas this one did, to a degree. That just goes to show that taste is but a single facet of a tea and not even number one priority for me personally. The Hekai is a great tea in its own right, but Ba Wang as a whole most certainly ranks higher in my book.

As such I was certain Ba Wang would be the more expensive of the two, but no, it is slightly cheaper. That makes it all the more easier to recommend. I think it’s in a great place already, but in the same breath I will note that this is definitely a tea that I would recommend storing for at least a minimum of five years to get the most out of it. I’ve noted great changes in much lesser teas than this and would expect a blend like this to hold great potential within it. Obviously ultimately it’s up to you.

I recently ordered over a dozen ripe samples from Yunnan Sourcing. This ended up being the first one I tried. I weighed my sample and put half in my 160ml Yixing zini teapot – this ended up being 12.9g. My other teaware consisted of a cha hai and teacup both made from Jianshui clay.

The Hekai starts off sweet and fragrant, moving to pleasingly bitter in the early mid steeps. After this I experienced a complex woodiness before the tea started simplifying. While not the most viscous tea, there should be enough body to satisfy most people. Mouthfeel is a similar story and the light syrupy texture offers enough tactile feel to not make the tea feel disappointing in the mouth.

I don’t seem to be very sensitive to the wet pile taste in young shu, so I might not be the best judge of this, but at least to me this Hekai tastes quite clean, without crossing the line of tasting TOO clean. I found the tea to have a quite noticeable, mostly grounding cha qi and I even felt quite lightheaded after the session, so I would recommend eating something before and after the session. For those looking for a really casual brew this might be a bit of a minus.

All in all I was very pleased with this tea. It actually reminded me a lot of the Yunnan Sourcing 2016 Golden Needle ripe, which I’m a big fan of, but which unfortunately sold out rather quickly. That tea has more of a berrylike, winey character in typical Bulang fashion as I recall, while this one is more woody, etc., but their profiles share a lot in common. I’d actually say this one is probably somewhat higher quality, while in terms of taste the Golden Needle may have had more of a wow factor on me. While I’ve noted the Golden Needle to have aged nicely so far, I’d expect the Hekai to possibly have even higher potential in the long term.

The Hekai is a very nice ripe and relative to the price especially so. While it’s somewhat more expensive than your average shu, the quality should be very noticeable to a seasoned drinker. I’ve drunk many a tea that offered similar quality at double the price. Those who haven’t been fans of single origin ripes in the past are unlikely to be converted by this one, but to others I would definitely recommend sampling it if you’re at all interested.

While I let my Bitterleaf 2020 dragon balls chill just a while longer, I decided to dig into this one. Mine is from the non-smoky batch. I must say that the pressed long straws are quite attractive and will help brighten up a tea session.

I used a 130ml gaiwan with a 1g/15ml ratio, steeping times similar to how I brew most sheng. For the first one or two infusions the aroma I got off the wet leaf was akin to that of cooked vegetables like zucchini and eggplant, but after that transformed to an uncanny smell of standing next to a cotton candy stand with that hot, burnt sugar smell. That’s pretty rad.

This tea is very sweet, as one might expect from Jinggu. Immediate upfront sweetness with plenty of flavor. This tea is honestly just straight up liquified cotton candy. Sugarcane is the best way to describe the sweetness and there is even a barely noticeable slight toasted note to this tea as well. Bitterness and astringency are vanishingly low as far as I can tell. The body is really solid and taste very pure and clean.

Overall Lucky Draw is an extremely approachable and very good tea for the price. It’s a great daily drinker and very forgiving to brew, likely making it well suited for brewing grandpa style or iced. I like it a lot and so does my mother who now wants a tin after hearing how affordable it is. I’m actually curious enough myself to order a tin of the smoky variant for comparison.

The tea’s straightforward nature can also be one of its biggest caveats for some. While very pleasant and easygoing, the tea doesn’t have much in terms of complexity or depth to it. The flavor does change gradually over the infusions, but not to a degree that would make Lucky Draw a particularly engaging or rewarding tea to session. The finish is also fairly short, with the aftertaste not lasting particularly long. Don’t expect a qi bomb either and while the leaves themselves have nice aroma to them, in the mouth I didn’t find this Jinggu to be the most aromatic sheng.

As long as you know that you’re looking for something easygoing and straightforward, none of the shortcomings I just mentioned matter. Lucky Draw is a tea that’s very difficult to genuinely dislike and one that will be in regular rotation for me this summer.

I finally received samples of Bitterleaf’s 2020 sheng lineup. Since I liked last year’s Full Frontal enough to grab a bing of it for daily drinking and figured this was the closest thing to it in this year’s selection (I believe Bitterleaf has said as much in one of their Instagram posts), I ordered 100g straight away instead of a mere taster.

I tried to pick two mountains totaling as close to 8g as possible for my new 120ml Yixing jiangponi clay gaiwan which I’ve been absolutely loving so far, but the best I could do without going through the whole bag was around 8.4g. I rinsed the lil peaks for half a minute filling the gaiwan to less than full, but this turned out to be too long (or not enough water) as the wash turned out really intense. Despite the seemingly heavy compression, the mountains aren’t too tightly compacted and open up rather quickly, hence I proceeded with the brewing normally as I would do with any sheng.

Right out of the gate, I was very impressed. The early brews were the most floral I’ve ever experienced with any tea. Typically I have a hard time even picking up on floral notes, but this tea literally tasted like I was munching on a bouquet of flowers. I’m no expert on flowers, so the best description I can give is that to me they tasted like white flowers. Bloom is a very flavorful tea, but didn’t come across as an overly intense tea to me as some can be. Even more impressive though is how strong and long-lasting the aftertaste is, only building up as you keep drinking through the early infusions. Around midway through the session I reached a point where the aftertaste was essentially just as strong as the taste while having the tea in your mouth.

Speaking of impressive, Bloom is one of the most full bodied teas I’ve had in a long time. Thick and creamy in the early steeps, the tea coats your mouth and offers a very satisfying textural experience. As the infusions progressed, I began to feel a very pleasant active sensation at the back of my tongue and in my throat, like an almost euphoric massage. As I said, very impressive.

The tea has a lot of upfront sweetness, in the late steeps concentrating in particular on the sides of the tongue. While there’s some green character perceptible, it is largely overshadowed by everything else going on. While I struggle to describe some of the flavors in particular in the mid steeps and also didn’t take notes as I wasn’t expecting to be reviewing this tea based on this first session without it having had any rest at all after arriving, I found this Jingmai surprisingly dynamic and certainly an engaging tea to session. Time seemed to fly by very quickly while drinking it.

There’s certainly some astringency in a tea this young, but I never found it to rise even close to being an issue. For most of this session I actually did two infusions with the same water before reboiling, with the temperature typically having dropped to around 95°C for the second steep. This resulted in every other infusion being a bit more heavy hitting and the ones to follow a bit sweeter. Both approaches worked very well and mixing them up helped make the session even more interesting than it normally would have. I only continued up to a two-minute steep, but the tea was certainly still going at that point.

All in all a really superb tea, especially for the price. This one was like Full Frontal on steroids. It has everything I love about that tea, amped up to the max, and more. Perhaps the one slight disappointment I had was how quickly the flavor started dropping once it did, but by the two-minute steep the tea most certainly still had plenty of strength – just compared to what had come before it seemed much weaker. This will likely improve with age anyway, so certainly a very minor gripe.

As this marks my 100th review here on Steepster, I was a bit worried of not having any kind of special tea planned in advance, but this one somehow managed to really impress me and is most certainly worthy of commemorating this occasion!

Bitterleaf kindly threw in a full bing of this with my recent order upon me reaching a milestone in their Tea Miles program, so I decided to give it a shot while the tea was at its greenest. The artwork is a looker and the cake loose enough in compression to make breaking off leaves a breeze without much risk of breaking too many of the leaves themselves. The appearance of the dry leaves can be deceptive, as their dark hue reveals a very verdant green color when reintroduced to water.

The bing gives off a pleasant sweet fragrance, whilst the wet leaves reveal more of a vegetal character. My order included a 120ml Yixing jiangponi clay gaiwan which I intend to dedicate to dry stored sheng of all ages, so Mickey made a natural choice for breaking it in. I used 8g of leaf and freshly boiled water as is standard for me. I didn’t keep notes as this was more of a casual session, but I used more or less my standard brewing times for sheng.

For such a young sheng, the first thing I noted about the tea was how fragrant it already is. Typically I find young raws processed according to my tastes to lack fragrance in the first year, but gradually start to develop it as the months and years go by. Then, as I took my first sip of the rinse, what immediately hit me was the potency of these leaves. I’ve had the year of the rooster and year of the dog iterations of this tea, and I can say this year’s harvest is a real powerhouse. The trout this year was even worse than last year from what I hear, resulting in even denser, more concentrated tea than many of last year’s offerings from Yunnan. If this tea is any indication of what to expect from the rest of this year’s teas, I’m excited to taste them.

The flavor is immediate. Aftertaste is much more subtle, but it’s there and lasted me hours after the session. Sweetness is the most prominent characteristic. There’s definitely a verdant freshness present in such a young tea, but it’s not a leafy or grassy greenness, rather more of a vegetal character. While it’s been a few years since I last had it, I’m reminded of the Yunnan Sourcing spring 2015 Da Qing Gu Shu and Jinggu teas in general. I got hardly any bitterness and astringency was kept largely in check. Later longer steeps saw a growing roughness creeping in, which in my experience seems to be typical for young teas and tea produced from younger trees. I found longevity to be good, but stopped the session prematurely to avoid dealing with the roughness.

Overall an excellent tea and one that performs well above its price point. I prefer this year’s iteration to previous vintages I’ve tried and it’s the first one I can recommend without reservations for someone looking for a quality tea that doesn’t break the bank. Mickey is a great daily drinker for immediate consumption, but the added potency makes this one a great candidate for aging as well. Not a tea I would have necessarily caked myself as I tend to prefer teas that are a bit closer to midrange or even high end, but definitely a tea that I’m happy to receive a bing of and one that will be in regular rotation this summer.

This is a tea I received a free sample of. At one year of age, it finally felt like a good time to give it a shot. The parameters and brewing times were my standard ones for sheng. I won’t repeat them here, so go look at one of my other reviews for reference if you so wish.

Full Frontal sips very clean, most of the flavor arriving in the aftertaste, immediately after you swallow. This is exactly what I look for in quality pu’er, so high marks here. The tea soup is quite oily; taste floral and dense. Though light in nature, the liquor is very flavorful and the aftertaste long-lasting. In the mid steeps the floral notes are joined by soapiness in the aftertaste. I mean that by no means as a negative. In my experience Jingmai teas tend to express very little bitterness, but in its stead a fair amount of astringency or dryness. That was not the case here, with only a modest amount of astringency at best appearing in the late steeps.

The leaves themselves are very small, presumably at least in part due to many trees in Jingmai being mixed leaf varietal as I understand. This no doubt contributes in part to the strength found in the early brews. Many small-leaf teas tend to brew out quicker than their large-leaf counterparts, but for me Full Frontal continued to deliver perfectly acceptable results till the two-minute infusion which is where I stopped. I wager they had at least one more good brew in them, so longevity is good.

Personally I’ve never been a fan of Jingmai. I’ve had one sheng that I liked from there in the past — one also of the floral kind — but the teas veering more towards honied, greener notes I’ve always hated. This tea on the other hand I can wholeheartedly recommend. I might even pick up a cake myself as the price is more than reasonable relative to the quality.

With the growing prices of pu’er, huang pian has been gaining popularity over the past few years. Most western-facing vendors have been focusing on offering much more affordable versions of material coming from highly revered areas and old tree material, but Go Big or Go Home while hailing from Yiwu breaks this trend by being an even more affordable alternative to an already very affordable tea.

I received a free sample of this with an order and now having finished the bag I can say that I’m a fan. As you’d expect from an Yiwu, the tea is sweet, honied, maybe a bit fruity, with perhaps hints of vanilla and a woodiness that appears in the later steeps. Bitterness is virtually nonexistent. Depending on the water you’re using, brewing temperature, how broken your leaf is and how hard you’re pushing the tea, you can start to get some dryness and astringency in the later infusions, but overall the tea is very forgiving to brew.

While simple and easygoing, the tea is not lacking in strength, body or longevity, nor did I find it boring. I think for the price Go Big or Go Home performs really well; better than many teas costing several times more that I’ve tried. Ultimately a daily drinker as you’d expect, but I liked it enough to buy two bricks as presents.

Lao Man’e is my favorite pu’er producing area, so I always jump at the opportunity to try a new production from there. Last year Bitterleaf only offered this bitter varietal loose; this time they’ve gone ahead and pressed it into cakes. I used my standard parameters: seven grams, 100ml gaiwan, freshly boiled water, sub-five-second rinse, five-minute rest. As expected, the wash was strong, hella strong. Mineral, creamy. I followed up with a dozen infusions, the timing for these 5s, 4s, 5s 8s, 8s, 8s, 10s, 12s, 18s, 30s, 50s and 75s. The tea could have easily kept going, but I was well hydrated by that point and decided to call it there.

As you’d expect from a Lao Man’e, the tea is strong, with the characteristic grapefruit note present. There is certainly bitterness, but it does not persist and typically only last for a matter of seconds. Honestly, I would hardly describe this tea as bitter, while many factory productions, etc., I’d certainly characterize as hella bitter. But I might have a very different tolerance and affinity for bitterness than most, so you can certainly take that statement with a grain of salt.

This is one of the fruitier Lao Man’e I’ve tried, with minimal dryness or astringency and instead a juicy, salivating effect. While it is a very good representation of your typical Lao Man’e, it is at the same time one of the more unique ones I’ve had. It is both a lot creamier in the early steeps than I’m used to, later revealing a strong earthiness in the mid-to-late steeps. The bitterness does become increasingly prominent as the infusions progress, but this is countered by sweetness, creating an enjoyable dynamic.

The overall experience is surprisingly smooth for a Lao Man’e, having unexpected parallels to the Crimson Lotus “Danger Zone” which I reviewed recently. I finished up my sample at work and can say that this tea would make for a nice daily driver for me were it not for the price. And I say that as someone who does not like drinking the same tea more than once every month or two at most. The cha qi is also positive in nature, helping to energize you without being aggressive or too overbearing.

For a bitter varietal Lao Man’e, this one has a surprising amount of depth and isn’t boring or one dimensional like many of them can be. The bitterness is playful but not abrasive, which is exactly what you want to see. All in all a tea I can recommend and one that is in my view a vast improvement over last year’s Bitter End Xtra.

This is the last of the Mei Leaf pu’er samples I had in my stash. Two five gram sample packs totaled eleven grams, so once again it was time to bust out my 165ml silver gaiwan which is the perfect size. I did a brief flash rinse, followed by a few minutes of rest while I sipped the wash. It was strong, citric and piny/foresty with a rich aftertaste.

I followed up with eleven infusions, the timing for these 7s, 7s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 80s, 2 min. and 3 min. Canopy Flasher started off strong, thick and coating. The taste was citric, creamy. The mouthfeel was great, very full. There was plenty of aroma permeating in my mouth and nose, which is always a good sign. From the second infusion on, the tea gets bitter. Overall, I’m very much reminded of the Crimson Lotus Tea “Danger Zone”. Both are incredibly thick and creamy, the differences being Canopy Flasher is much more higher noted and the citric and bitter characteristics were absent in Danger Zone.

All in all, Canopy Flasher isn’t the most dynamic or exciting of teas. That is not to say that it is totally boring either. The strength and bitterness are definitely its defining characteristics, with the latter varying from fleeting to intense to one that transforms quickly to sweetness. The tea is very energizing, one that makes you feel awake. It is not just ridiculously thick, but the mouthfeel is great as well. Your mouth will feel numb whilst being flooded by the sugary sweet aftertaste. If you are a fan of intense teas and Nannuo teas in particular, this one might be for you. Personally I prefer the (more expensive) CLT Danger Zone, even though I complained about it not being nearly bitter enough. The material here is clearly good — one of the better Nannuo teas I’ve had — but after trying several teas from this area, young and aged, none have ever grabbed me and this tea was no exception. I think it’s starting to feel safe to say Nannuo isn’t my cup of tea.

He Kai is one of those areas I’ve always been interested in, but never really gotten around to exploring proper. When Crimson Lotus came out with this tea, I was immediately interested to try it. The gorgeous artwork also helped.

I brewed this tea in my standard manner: seven grams in a 100ml gaiwan. The aroma of the dry leaf in a preheated gaiwan is surprisingly pungent. In contrast, the rinsed leaves present very little in terms of aroma. The wash itself was very strong, very pungent, quite creamy. After a few minutes of rest, I followed up with twelve proper infusions, the timing for these 7s, 7s, 5s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s, 2 min. and 3 min.

Right out of the gate, Danger Zone starts off with a big body and a really rich but balanced flavor. The aftertaste is also quite strong. The first several steeps are like this, growing thicker and thicker with each infusion, presenting a very dense and rich but also smooth and balanced taste. While the soup is packed full of minerals, strength and plant matter goodness, there is no one single characteristic that ever starts to dominate the tea. The tea can be quite sweet at times, also presenting some playful kuwei here and there, but avoiding any real harsh character throughout the session.

At its thickest, the He Kai gets absolutely ridiculous with its brothy goodness which becomes almost difficult to swallow. The soup is oily and coating, with a hint of bitterness and citrus in the finish. The word I keep coming back to is ‘smooth’. Despite the infusions having strength to them, the tea never even begins to approach becoming overpowering or dominated by any singular characteristic. The bitterness and astringency do start building up toward the end of the session, but they are always playing off of the sweetness.

Overall, I was very pleased with Danger Zone. The material is clearly high quality and it has a unique character that sets it apart from your typical generic sheng offerings. For a high-end tea, the He Kai is much more flavor-focused than most, albeit still not a tea where the flavor profile is the main attraction, like with other types of tea like most hong cha and wulong.

The thickness is totally nuts and the strength very deceptive due to the tea’s smoothness and balance. There were only really two areas where the He Kai fell a bit short. The first one was the aromatics. Aerating the tea in my mouth presented me with virtually nothing to play with. Since this is still a very young tea that hasn’t necessarily had time to develop aroma, I’m willing to give it a pass for now. The other area is more of a personal preference, but for my tastes the tea was a bit lacking in bitterness. As a fan of Bulang teas, extremely spicy food, etc., I do prefer some more backbone to my teas, but overall Danger Zone was still a tea that I find very easy to recommend. The fact that I ended up ordering a cake after the session should speak for that.