TJ Elite Send Message

Time for another semi-aged tea. This is only the third aged sheng I’ve tried, so I’m still very new to aged teas. The sample I received consisted of one larger chunk and some loose bits to round out the weight. The large piece was very close to the 12 grams I intended to use for this session, so only a few additional bits were required. I brewed the tea in my 180ml wood fired teapot made from clay from Dehua. The teapot has a very small opening, so I had to break the large chunk into three or four smaller pieces to fit them inside the pot. I rinsed the leaves just short of ten seconds and let them rest for just over five minutes due to time constraints before proceeding to do a total of nine infusions. The steeps were around 10s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 25s, 35s, 60s, 85s and 2 min. 10s respectively.

The first steep brewed a cloudy pale yellow. I should note however that I had this session in an apartment with minimal lighting available, so any visual remarks I make in these notes are not necessarily the most reliable. The tea was still light, but it had flavor already. There was some fruitiness on the front while the finish tasted of creamy vanilla. The overall impression it left was soft. There was a certain semi-aged quality to the tea, although it’s hard to pin down exactly what it was. Those who have drunk more aged sheng than me probably have some idea what I’m talking about. Maybe it’s a whisper of smoke in the finish or a tiniest bit of sourness. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily even a taste, but more of a feeling. The body was light, maybe light+. The tea never really got thicker than that or water thin.

The second steep brewed a pale, slightly more orange yellow. The taste was greener, more mineraly. The semi-aged quality was still there as well. I could still detect hints of the cream from time to time. I can’t be sure if I could feel the tea already starting to affect me a little, but I made sure to not drink it too fast. You need to respect the tea. This infusion seemed to have a cumulative effect where the tea gradually coats your tongue and it starts to taste sweeter as you keep drinking it. I noticed this in some of the later infusions as well. The sweetness seemed to bring out the creaminess, giving an impression of a creamy sweetness.

The third steep was slightly darker and could maybe barely be called an orange. I sort of got the vanilla as a really bright note. There was also another bright “side flavor” running concurrent to the tea that I can’t identify. While the overall impression was very bright, there were also deeper semi-aged flavors running underneath. The tea was slightly drying and it was possible to get some lightning-fast bitterness when you swallowed. The bitterness became very noticeable once the tea cooled down.

I started extending my steeping times perhaps a bit too early and a bit too much as the fourth infusion ended up being very bitter. Once the tea cooled down a little it did reveal some subtleties beneath the bitterness, but I wasn’t necessarily the best person for discerning them. My best attempt would be some sort of vegetal vanilla. At this point I could feel the tea rummaging my belly quite a bit.

The fifth steep had a bright mineral taste to it. It left your tongue a bit sandpapery. There’s more to it, but it’s hard to discern. Perhaps it’s a touch of sourness. The next steep was more clearly astringent while the mineral was less bright now. This was one of the steeps that got sweeter as you kept drinking the tea. The seventh infusion I steeped maybe a tad too strong, but the tea remained similar to the last two steeps: mineraly and astringent.

The tea started tasting a lot simpler in the eighth steep. Clean, mineral, astringent. The last steep I did was even simpler. Non-sweet sweetness, with that semi-aged tinge still there. Strength-wise the tea was still okay, so on that front I’d say it was still good to go for a round or two, but I’d seen what I wanted to see and decided to call it here.

Mad King is representative of its age and still retains quite a bit of its youth while displaying semi-aged characteristics as well. The storage has been clean and dry. Compared to Whatever 98, Mad King is more dynamic in terms of flavor and the flavor profile appealed to me more. There’s still some bitterness and astringency in the tea and while it does not kick quite like a young gushu, the tea did affect me in a similar fashion to a young raw. It left me feeling restless and a bit agitated for the rest of the evening, so if you are looking for a gentle tea, this might not be the tea you are looking for. I guess the tea could be considered drinkable now, but personally I’d give it at least a few more years. The tea is still far from full maturity and drinking it now would be a waste of its potential. Taking age into account, I think Mad King offers fair quality for the price, if you are looking for a semi-aged tea to age yourself.

So this is something a bit different: a roasted raw pu’er. At first I thought I was a bit too much of a purist to give this one a go, but ultimately the artwork compelled me too much; it’s just that fantastic. Originally I was just going to order a sample to start, but when it came time to place my order the samples were temporarily out of stock and I ended up just picking up a cake instead. That way I get to enjoy the artwork anyway.

Is this from Lao Man’e? Is it gushu? I. Don’t. Care. I don’t care. What I care about is quality and taste. If you can’t enjoy tea unless it’s absolutely from 300-year-old trees from Lao Ban Zhang, you may just stop buying tea. With that out of the way, let’s get to the tea itself.

The smell of the dry leaf is absolutely fantastic. Truly intoxicating. It’s really hard to grab hold onto any specific notes, but the best description I could come up with is this sort of burnt lemon scent. The scent in the preheated gaiwan is even more enchanting, reminding me more of lemon licorice. These small cakes are tightly compressed so you will have to use some force and you will end up breaking some leaves, but just aim to break off larger chunks which should make the few leaves you break negligible. The leaf quality looks good to me, with plenty of gorgeous buds.

I used 8.66g in a 130ml gaiwan, so a ratio of 1g/15ml. I’ll also note at this juncture that I haven’t been storing this tea in my pumidor, but instead been treating it like a roasted wulong and keeping it in the sealed ziplock bag it came in. Anyway, I gave the leaves my standard ten-second rinse followed by a rest between five and ten minutes. The wet leaf smell was shockingly different from the dry leaf aroma. Gone was the lemon and in its place was a dryer, dirtier super potent sharp aroma that reminded me of some sort of unpleasant food maybe made from leftovers or something. It was an interesting smell, but not necessarily very pleasant and sniffing it too much might give some people a headache. Fortunately this smell didn’t translate to the taste in any way.

I did a total of twelve steeps. Pay attention to these steep times, because they are not at all how I normally brew pu’er: 6s, 6s, 7s, 9s, 12s, 15s, 20s, 25s, 35s, 40s, 45s, 50s. Yes, twelve steeps and I never even got to a minute. This tea brews strong and like with Chaozhou style brewing every second counts. If you are new to gong fu style brewing or not confident in your ability to pour fast, I would absolutely recommend starting out with a lower ratio of leaf than I used. This will give you more room in terms of brewing the tea.

The first steep had a very light body. Right out of the gate the flavor profile was very interesting. Citrus fruit, specifically grapefruit, with a touch of sweetness in the finish. The note I got in the strong aftertaste was different and that of citrus zest to be specific. The second infusion had slightly more mouthfeel and felt perhaps even a bit oily. At this point it was already clear that this is a very nice tea. It is one you want to stop to savor and explore after taking just one sip. The grapefruit/citrus taste had developed and the overall taste was very complex and rich. Letting the tea cool down a little brings out a bit of a sour note, but it’s not a bad kind of sourness. The tea really coats your mouth and you can taste it long after finishing your cup.

For the third steep I extended the steep time by just a hair. The body remained quite light or maybe light+. The taste was immediately sour upon entering the mouth. I could also now taste the mineraly roast following the initial sourness. The grapefruit from before could now be found hiding in the aftertaste. In the fourth steeping the mineral taste was moved to the front joined by some sweetness, while the sour note moved to join the roasted note in the finish.

The fifth steep ended up being quite strong, but not overly so, just bold. The central flavor was still formed by a mixture of the sour note mixed with hints of the roast and citrus. The tea was almost refreshing in the same way that a green tea is, but it didn’t quite get there. My notes say, “Nice.” The sixth steep ended up being perhaps just a tad too light. This was accentuated by the flavors starting to become lighter in nature and the contrast to the boldness of the last infusion. I’m not saying this tea couldn’t be considered friendly towards newcomers in terms of taste, but this was a point where it started becoming noticeably more amiable. The tea was sweet, but in a subtle, elegant way, not in a bold, sugary manner at all. This was the first time when I could taste just hints of the typical young sheng character peeking through. My tongue was also left feeling just a tad astringent by this steep.

Despite the flavors themselves becoming lighter in character, the strength of the seventh infusion was fairly strong. It tasted sort of sweet, sort of sour, with maybe a hint of coffee bitterness in the finish. It is my thinking that the sourness and most definitely the coffee association come from the roasting. The oiliness made a small return in the eighth steep, with your tongue getting hit with a lot of roast when the tea entered your mouth. The finish was mineraly and it was sometimes possible to detect hints of the young raw flavor when swallowing. The tea tasted almost like a roasted green tea like hojicha, which makes sense. This is just my personal opinion, but I think the roast in this tea has been done really well. At this point I went to buy some groceries and I could taste it in my mouth for a long time.

I pushed the tea a bit too hard for the ninth steep by extending the steep time by ten seconds (the shock!). It ended up being quite strong, very pungent. The flavor reminded me of blood orange, but with some of your typical mineral sheng sweetness underneath. The tea wasn’t actually that overly pungent once you got used to it after a few sips. For the next steep I succeeded much better with the steep time. The tea was still strong, but the flavors were now starting to become thinner. Despite this, the brew was still very rich with much more complexity and depth than you usually see from most teas in their late steeps. The taste itself was sour, citric, maybe a bit mineraly. The roast was still there in the finish.

Steep number eleven was similarly quite strong. The flavors were becoming more simplified and some notes were starting to drop off, but the tea wasn’t one-note yet and still had multiple things going on. Grapefruit, roast, mineral. The flavor was bold and the balance between the notes good. The last steep I did was similar and still not quite one-note. You got the mineral and roast on the front and the citrus in the finish. The leaves could have probably steeped for god knows how much longer, but I think I’ve drunk enough tea to know when I’ve seen practically everything a tea has to offer and so I decided to stop here. If you wanted to get absolutely everything out of the leaves, I’d recommend tossing the leaves in your fridge around this point to see if you can make some nice iced tea out of them. I don’t personally practice this, but it’s worth considering instead of continuing with gong fu brewing.

And there you have it. This tea isn’t cheap, but I found it to be high quality and very unique. Perhaps most importantly it is perfectly ready to drink right now. I don’t even know if and how this tea would age and how you should store it. The strength, longevity and aftertaste are all exemplary and the flavors were enjoyable even to someone like me who isn’t necessarily the biggest fan of roasted teas or citrus. I think the roast complements the tea very well right now, but if you absolutely can’t stand tasting the roast in your teas, it should come down over time. A lot of young raw pu’ers in this price range aren’t in my opinion necessarily worth the price unless you intend to age them, but with this tea I would say that the price is reflected in the quality.

I definitely recommend giving this crazy tea a go while you still can!

I received two of these balls with a teaware order a few months back. I took one of them on a trip with me during the summer to drink with a friend, but unfortunately that session turned out to be a big disappointment and the tea didn’t really taste like anything besides green and astringent. It could be that the tea didn’t like traveling with me even in a closed ziplock bag. After letting the other one sit in my pumidor for a few months, I finally decided to break it out.

I brewed the tea in a 140ml gaiwan giving it the two suggested 30s rinses before brewing it like I normally would. I gave both rinses a small taste, but the first one was still far too light while the second was too nasty to drink due to the long steep time. Thanks to being a single serving, you mainly get large, intact leaves with less broken leaf you’d get with a cake. Aromatically the tea is pretty much your standard young sheng fare from what I could tell. I did a total of ten steeps, for 8s, 8s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 60s, 60s and 60s.

The first infusion was still quite light, but perhaps partially thanks to the long rinses the body was already quite big, I’d say medium+. I’m not quite sure about the taste, it wasn’t really purely mineral nor vegetal. The lasting aftertaste was light, but it was there. Despite being light, the tea comes across as pungent, possessing a backbone that you can sense.

The mouthfeel remained almost as thick in the second steep, with the taste being now more mineraly, but not in a typical way. The tea showed signs of being astringent or bitter upon entering the mouth, but the actual astringency never arrived. The finish on the other hand had hints of vegetal to it. There wasn’t really any sweetness to speak of, but the taste and aroma lingered in the mouth. The underlying sense of pungency from the first steep continued to be present as well.

Only extending the steep time marginally for the third infusion, both the body and flavor were getting lighter. Despite this the mouthfeel was still pretty nice and the aftertaste very long-lasting and stable despite not being particularly strong. The taste continued to be predominantly mineraly, but again not in the most typical way. What you noticed immediately about the next fourth steep was how cooling it was, impressively so. The body continued to be decent and the taste was very clean and still quite mineraly. The brew had a very nice calming effect that was almost meditative. Definitely a standout infusion.

The fifth steep still maintained a decent body. At this point the tea started to hint at astringency, but it was almost nonexistent. I’m not quite sure about the flavor, it lay somewhere between green, mineral and vegetal. Aftertaste was still a thing, albeit weaker now than before. The body got again maybe a bit lighter in the sixth steep, but the mouthfeel remained nice. The flavor was stronger now thanks to the extended brewing time and the mineraly taste was now similar to some mineraly premium Chinese green teas like Long Jing, etc. The tea may have even hinted at some vegetal/mineral sweetness in the finish. This was probably the best infusion of the session. After finishing your cup, the tea did leave a slightly astringent feeling in your mouth. It also had a mildly mood elevating effect similar to green tea but milder.

The seventh infusion was the turning point for this tea. I should have probably extended the brewing time less than I normally would for pu’er, for in addition to getting more body the tea also started tasting less enjoyable to me and being a bit astringent. It wasn’t bad yet, but it started bordering on nasty. For the eighth steeping I extended the brewing time less than I typically would and for infusions nine and ten I kept it at a minute. All of these tasted very similar. They were somewhat drinkable, but all had this quality to them that is a bit off-putting to me, I just call it nastiness. I will say though that all of these infusions even with the truncated steeping times were stronger in flavor than all the prior infusions, which I found quite impressive. I think that this is a good sign for future aging prospects in mind for when the flavors in the late steeps have become more developed.

After my initial disappointment with this tea, this second session really surprised me. It has a long list of good attributes. That being said, for me this was more of an interesting tea to experience than something I’d be interested in drinking regularly. My gut feeling has great confidence that this tea would age well and it would be interesting to revisit it in five or ten years once it has some real age on it. Since my experience with it was so positive, I’m on the fence about whether to give it a Recommended stamp or not, but I try to keep my standards for doing so high, so since I would not purchase more of this tea for myself I’m opting to not do that. However, if you do have any curiosity toward these planets by Crimson Lotus, this is one I recommend trying.

This is the oldest tea I’ve drunk to date and besides one semi-aged Xiaguan tuo my first foray into aged sheng. Perhaps my expectations were too low, but the leaves in the sample I received were larger and more intact than I’d expected; not that this is necessarily gushu or anything, but still. My sample consisted of one long, thin ten-gram chunk of the surface layer along with accompanying individual leaves. I’m not sure if the cake was just originally pressed loose or if it has loosened over two decades, but the compression in the chunk I received was fairly low. There wasn’t much aroma to the dry leaves, which obviously means there weren’t any funky storage related odors either.

I brewed this tea in a gorgeous new wood fired teapot I purchased through Bitterleaf Teas. It’s made from clay from Dehua and I’m dedicating it to aged and semi-aged sheng pu’er. Since it has a really fast pour, I used the same ratio of leaf to water that I would use with a gaiwan, so 12g to 180ml. I rinsed the tea once for 10s and after a ten minute rest I proceeded to do ten infusions, for 10s, 10s, 12s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s, 2 min. and 3 min. The rinsed leaves had a somewhat fruity scent of dark hay. After cooling a little the smell almost reminded me of an apricot pie.

As I mentioned, I don’t have much experience with aged teas, and as such I struggle with describing the first couple infusions as my palate was trying to get accustomed to the flavors. The first steep was fairly strong, yet gentle and smooth. I struggle with descriptors like woody, so I’m not sure if I’d use that word here, however I was detecting some smokiness in the tea and it made me quite thirsty without being drying. The second infusion while still having base notes to it also felt brighter in a way, to the extent that it felt almost prickly on the tongue.

The third steep was really mineraly, with an almost metallic finish. It was increasingly drying and also coated your tongue with a sensation that made you feel like it was burned. The mineral taste continued in the next steep, but this time merged with something else and perhaps even hints of cream. The mineraly nature was only ramped up in the fifth steep, which was super, super mineraly and almost too much for my tongue to handle.

In the sixth brew the mineral character finally settled down a little, starting to be about even with something else that was beginning to emerge in the tea. At this point I noticed this tea might taste better if you let it cool down a little. While the mineral taste continued in the next steep, it was joined by hints of some mineral sweetness that was starting to emerge. The steep was also very clean tasting in general. At this point I noticed the muscles in my lower back starting to ache and soon after I noticed feeling very calm and relaxed. The qi continued to move upward, growing more intense. It spread to my upper back, chest and head. It may have even made me feel a bit tipsy.

The eighth steep was similar to the last one in flavor, with maybe a touch more of that hinting mineral sweetness. At this point I was starting to get a vibe from the tea of it being somewhat medicinal, of it being fairly cleansing. I took my time brewing the ninth infusion, because at this point I was starting to feel quite tea drunk and my motor control was starting to be a bit wonky. The taste was still chiefly mineral, but instead of the prior hinting sweetness I got some of the earlier creaminess in the finish, which was a weird combination with the mineral taste. I should note this was the first time the flavors were starting to drop off a little as well.

The tenth steep was the last one I did and this was where the color started to fade for the first time, although this wasn’t reflected nearly to the same degree in the actual flavor. There weren’t any notable changes in the taste, so I decided to stop here, figuring I’d seen what this tea had to offer. The tea could have possibly gone on for an infusion or two, but that would have most likely required extra long steeps and I didn’t see enough value in trying that.

All in all an interesting first step into the world of aged pu’er. I generally don’t tend to like mineraly flavors very much, so the flavor profile wasn’t really for me. The flavors also shift very gradually without any dramatic changes at any point, so flavor-wise this isn’t the most dynamic of teas. I think rather than the flavor the cha qi is the highlight here, and although not the most intense pu’er I’ve drunk, I must admit I was caught off guard. I could see those seeking the tea buzz you can get from a young sheng but without the stomach twists drinking this tea. In terms of body the tea is fairly light and the longevity and the way it brews seem very similar to me to how a younger average sheng behaves. The tea brews a woody orange. Fairly light, nothing super dark. This to me would suggest that you could easily age this tea for at least another ten years if not more if you wanted to. How it would age, I have no idea.

Not the tea for me, but a valuable experience in learning more about pu’er and aged teas. More reviews of aged raws are to come.

This is the second of the pu’er samples I ordered from white2tea. It has had three weeks to sit in my pumidor before this session. I used 8.4g in a 130ml gaiwan and drank the tea from a Jianzhan teacup I received the same day, in case you feel that may have had an influence on the tea. To my nose the dry leaves seemed to have a smell of pretty typical young raw pu’er. The wet leaves also had a fairly typical warm green, perhaps a bit buttery scent. The smell of the leaves did gradually change over the course of the session, but I didn’t commit to memory all the various stages.

The sample I received was practically mao cha, with only a couple very small intact pieces from the bing in the mix. There’s a fair number of stalks and unlike “f*ck what u heard” where the sample seemed to consists nearly 100% of large, whole, intact leaves, there’s a decent amount of broken leaves to be found. Whereas with “f*ck what u heard” I commented about the rehydrated leaves looking quite healthy, in this tea’s case they seemed kind of sad, pitiable and droopy to me. The leaves seemed so thin they’d disintegrate like wet toilet paper if you rubbed them between your fingers.

I gave the leaves my standard 10s rinse followed by a 10 minute rest. In the meantime I did sip the rinse to get a feel for the tea. It was still light in flavor and texture, which isn’t that unexpected even for mao cha. The tea seemed to feel warming in my mouth, and in my mouth only. The flavor was soft and “white”. I could feel some astringency at the tip of my tongue. After this I proceeded to do eleven steeps, timing for these being 7s, 7s, 7s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 25s, 40s, 70s, 2 min. and 3 min.

The first infusion tasted of cream and vanilla, with some astringency. The next one was water thin in viscosity. Some of the cream was still left, but it was combined with your typical young sheng greenness and astringency. There may have even been some bitterness in this steep, which I don’t recall ever experiencing in a sheng apart from the one Xiaguan tuo I’ve had. The flavor of this infusion did linger in your mouth.

The third steeping had a soft taste of cream merged with green. The astringency was minor at first, but grew over time in your mouth instead of you getting an aftertaste. I may have even detected a slight peppery sensation at the back of my throat. The following steep was super thin in body, with the flavors starting to get thinner as well as a result of me not extending the steeping time thus far. Some of the earlier vanilla was back, accompanied by greenness and astringency.

Starting with the fifth steep, the cream and vanilla finally dropped off and you were presented with a smooth green flavor, with perhaps some slightly vegetal character peeking through. The sixth steep was also mainly just green tasting, with perhaps some butteriness to it, although I’m not totally sure. The seventh infusion was probably the only one I experienced that had even some minor mouthfeel to it. It had perhaps some vegetal and possibly even mineral sweetness to it. This sweetness I experienced struck me as something that might have promise for evolving with age.

The astringency was back from the eighth steep onward. The brief prior mouthfeel was gone and the tea was less enjoyable in general. Flavor-wise the mineral or perhaps vegetal stuff continued to have a presence somewhere in the background. The ninth steep tasted of mineraly low-grade green tea with astringency to it. Ditto for infusion ten, where some minor mineral sweetness may have also hinted of its presence. The eleventh infusion turned out bitter and astringent and just nasty in general. I ended up tossing it.

And there you have it. All in all this tea reminded me a lot of the Essence of Tea 2016 XinZhai that I reviewed a sample of some months ago. The flavor profiles are similar, although the XinZhai was tastier and much, much thicker in the early steeps and also displayed better overall longevity, while Pussy had perhaps a bit more going on in the steeps past the first four, although not much. Both taste still very young and seemed to be quite lacking in qi for me, but the one area Pussy was especially disappointing in was the lack of body. I severely hope this will improve with age. Comparing the two, while they may age to be two very different teas, looking at them now the XinZhai seems to offer a much better value in my eyes. The Essence of Tea offering will set you back around $0.21/g when talking about a full cake, whereas Pussy is more than twice that at $0.45/g. Personally I would drink neither now, nor would I purchase a cake of either, either. For the price Pussy is going for, there are a lot of fantastic teas out there. Do your research and find out which ones you prefer.

My first Hai Lang Hao. I’ve had a sample of this sitting in my pumidor for over a month now, I think. Since I was lucky enough to get a corner piece, I decided to use that one and just a few of the loose bits at the bottom of the bag to round the amount in my 160ml Jianshui teapot to 11g. Both the smell of the dry leaf and wet leaf after a 10s rinse were a very typical shu pu’er aroma with maybe a hint of sweetness in there somewhere. I didn’t really pay attention to the early steeps, but in later infusions the liquor itself smelled of clean raw fish fillet with the skin still on.

After giving the leaves ten minutes to soak up the moisture, I managed to prod the big piece to come apart with my finger with less difficulty than I’d expected. I proceeded to do eleven infusions, for 10s, 10s, 10s, 15s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 50s, 90s, 2 min. 30s and 3 min. 30s respectively. The first infusion brewed quite cloudy, but also quite a lot darker than I would’ve expected. The subsequent infusions brewed crystal clear as far as clarity goes, though, and it is possible that the cloudiness was caused by hairs floating in the tea soup as I noticed clumps of beached hairs at the edge of my cup after I was finished with the first round.

I could tell that this would be a great tea from just one small sip, and spoilers, it was. The flavor was strong, yet also very round and soft. My cup already raised to take my second sip, I put it back down, because I wanted to fully enjoy the long-lasting finish this tea has. This is a tea you want to take your time with and savor. The taste was chocolatey, with maybe hints of coffee. The tea wasn’t super thick or viscous, but it still had a decent body/mouthfeel. The texture was perhaps just a tad grainy.

The second infusion brewed very dark and now had a much more prominent coffee flavor, but without any sort of bitterness. The chocolate was virtually gone from the tea. The flavor continued to be strong, especially for a shu pu’er, but retained its soft and round, full-bodied character. The aftertaste was even longer lasting than before and seemed to only grow stronger over time. The viscosity remained low while the mouthfeel also remained decent. Both this and the first infusion shared a slight underlying sweetness even though at no point was this an inherently sweet tea.

Having not lengthened the steeping time for the third infusion, the tea brewed dark, but not quite as dark as before. This was also reflected in a lighter taste. The flavors were relatively typical ripe pu’er flavors, ones I have difficulty describing. The tea gave me the impression of being in transition between lighter and darker flavors. It still retained most of its prior round smoothness, while the texture/mouthfeel actually improved. In its finish the tea may have actually felt slightly syrupy. Lengthening the steeping time for the fourth infusion produced probably the strongest infusion yet and brought a small return back to the darker flavors. I’m often not a fan of darker flavors in tea, but here they didn’t bother me at all, which actually seems to be the case with most shu pu’er. At this point my tasting notes read: “Excellent tea.”

For the fifth steeping I didn’t dare to extend the brewing time. This produced a slightly lighter color, which was still quite dark, however. Instead of the prior reddish brown, the color was now a beautiful red. The darker flavors were starting to taper off, while one could notice some more sweetness creeping into the tea. The long-lasting aftertaste from previous infusions was retained still. Having lengthened the time for the sixth steeping, the tea brewed about as dark as before. The flavors were now getting lighter, while the strength of the tea remained about the same as before. This steep wasn’t particularly sweet, but what I got from it were berries.

The seventh steeping brewed a still quite dark red. The texture was noticeably thinner. The flavors were even lighter now, with the tea tasting like sweet water. While the brew seemed simplistic at first, it turned out to have more complexity to it than might’ve appeared at first glance. The berries were still somewhere in the mix, and I could almost say I tasted a light toffee note in there somewhere. There was also still some darker stuff present in the finish. While there wasn’t really a lasting aftertaste in the tea anymore, this steep did leave some aromas lingering in your mouth. Overall the tea wasn’t as excellent as before, but still quite pleasant and drinkable.

The eighth infusion was an improvement over the last. It tasted like super smooth kissel with a hint of milk/cream in it. Even the texture – especially the finish – was reminiscent of said dessert. The flavors were light, but very smooth and full-bodied. My notes read: “Such a superb tea.” Steep number nine produced still a quite dark liquor, even if the color was getting lighter. The note was light, but I definitely tasted strawberry in this steep. In addition to extending the time, I filled the teapot with slightly less water for the tenth infusion. The resulting flavor was surprisingly strong and the strawberry was replaced by the taste of black currant leaf juice. The eleventh steep I brewed with even less water, pouring hot water over the pot from time to time to keep up the heat. The color of the liquor was once again a couple shades lighter than before. Even though I’m confident the leaves could have still gone on, at this point there was practically only basic sweetness left and I decided to stop here.

Ripe pu’er is the one category of tea I’ve had difficulties getting into, but this tea was excellent. The material is clearly very high quality and the processing has been done expertly. This tea is perfectly drinkable right now. Not only is this the most flavorful and strongest tasting ripe pu’er I’ve drunk, it manages to somehow combine that with the best longevity I’ve seen in a shu pu’er as well. It’s the best of both worlds with no drawbacks. Even though the mouthfeel was decent, it was not on the same level with the other attributes of this tea. That is the one area where I hope this tea might improve with age. Flavor-wise I found this tea very enjoyable, even if the flavors are very typical shu pu’er flavors. The strength of this tea is how it delivers those flavors instead of what those flavors are specifically.

While I know a brick of this currently costs $245 on Yunnan Sourcing, I think this tea actually represents a great value. While this tea is $0.245/g which is well above most moderately priced ripes, I found it to be way better than twice as good as teas that cost around half as much. I know you can get a pretty fancy raw pu’er for that price, but if ripe pu’er is your thing, this tea is definitely worth ordering a sample of. All that being said, I’m not sure if I’ll be buying any sort of quantity of this tea for myself. While this tea was excellent, the one thing it perhaps lacked was that something that made it feel special. This would be an excellent tea to brew or recommend to someone as an introduction to how ripe pu’er tastes. As an experience, it’s probably up there among some of the best teas I’ve had, but if I were to keep coming back to it, I think I might want there to be some sort of hook that makes it feel more unique. I will have to keep sampling other ripe pu’ers and come back to this one after I have a broader sense of the category as a whole. If it still holds up as one of the best ripes I’ve had, then perhaps I will have to buy it.

I received a free 20g sample of this with a teaware order a couple months back. It has sat in my pumidor since then and now was finally time to give it a go. My sample was practically just a single large chunk from the cake with a handful of loose leaves at the bottom of the wrapper. Doing my best to try to maintain leaf integrity, I separated 9.5 grams from the sample for my trusty 140ml gaiwan. It was difficult to make out much aroma from the dry leaf, but in the preheated gaiwan I did pick up a scent that came across as somewhat darker to me than in some other young raws. After a brief 10s rinse the scent was very reminiscent of the white2tea 2017 “f*ck what u heard” that I reviewed last time. Once the leaves cooled down, the aroma did change. It was perhaps more sweeter, I don’t know if I’d use the word floral.

I’ve been in the habit of drinking some of the rinses lately, and despite filling the gaiwan almost full I did drink this one as well. It was very light as is to be expected. Green, buttery, with something else in there later on that I can’t put my finger on. Perhaps it’s some sort of floral sweetness of some kind, but I can’t really say. There was some body/mouthfeel to the tea already and it made my heart start beating noticeably harder in my chest as well as made me feel significantly hot. It also made blood start pumping into a certain key region in my lower body, which was interesting and an entirely new experience related to tea.

At this point I gave the tea my customary ten minute rest before I proceeded to the first proper infusion. In this time the large chunks soaked enough water and loosened enough for me to make the leaves come apart by just poking at the clumps a little with my finger. I proceeded to do a total of ten infusion, for 7s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s, 2 min. and 3 min. The first steep had a light flavor of cream/vanilla infused with green. The body wasn’t that heavy, but the mouthfeel was nice and noticeable. After my initial observations about the taste, I actually forgot about the taste entirely as the mouthfeel was such that it just really grabbed all your attention. Even though, apart from the even stronger pro-erectile effects than before, the direct effects of cha qi were subtle, you got the sense that there’s energy in this tea. This was the last I noticed during my session though.

The second infusion still had some body to it, but the nice mouthfeel from before was gone. The taste was your typical green young sheng flavor, but slightly more mature/developed/elegant with perhaps some underlying sweetness of some sort to balance it a little. You could still notice hints of the creamy vanilla from the prior infusion. There wasn’t really any noticeable astringency to the tea yet, but it did leave the surfaces of your mouth a tad sandpapery. The third steep had a very “clear” taste to it. There wasn’t that much of the green or astringent character, but they were out there somewhere. The tea is hard to describe beyond that. It didn’t simply taste like water, nor did it have a particularly mineral character to it either. The body was light and the tea did leave the roof of your mouth a bit more sandpapery than before, but not your tongue.

The body became even lighter in the fourth steeping, barely surpassing water, although it was still not poor. There was more astringency now, and at times you could get an almost metallic finish. There wasn’t much greenness to the taste and instead the tea had more of an astringent taste to it. The fifth steep produced a darker green flavor than I’m used to experiencing in young raws, with this time not very much astringency at all. There was an interesting balance to the rather simple green flavor, with the balance coming from something darker lying underneath that might’ve also been almost savory in nature. The steep was surprisingly filling, leaving me feeling sated after finishing my cup even though the flavor itself was nothing to write home about. The tea left a green aroma lingering in your mouth and nose even though there wasn’t really a lingering aftertaste to accompany it. There was also slightly more body, even if it remained light.

While I don’t think that the sixth steep was a weak infusion, there weren’t really any flavors there to grab onto. There was some typical green astringency that you expect, of course, as well as a sort of weird vibe I got in the finish that reminded me of manure, but all in all there wasn’t really much flavor there. The seventh steep did rectify this somewhat by presenting a green taste that differed from the green taste I get in a lot of young shengs. It reminded me of a sort of semi-passable lower grade green tea. While there wasn’t much astringency, it did leave your mouth a bit sandpapery.

Somewhat surprisingly, while the eighth steep was relatively light in terms of viscosity, it did have an okay mouthfeel. The taste was now that of your typical young sheng, green and slightly astringent. After lengthening the steeping time for the ninth infusion, I found that the tea was starting to taste unenjoyable to me. I expected the tenth infusion to only get worse, but it was actually better than its predecessor. It wasn’t something I enjoyed, but it wasn’t too unpleasant to drink. While I suspect this tea could have probably gone on, I decided to stop here because I did not want it to get nasty.

After really liking Crimson Lotus’s Lucky Cloud which is allegedly also Jingmai material, I was interested to try out my first raw pu’er from the region. All in all, to a still relative pu’er newb this came across to me as a midrange sheng, which is also how it’s priced. If there’s one word I would use to describe it, I think it would be “balanced.” I don’t drink very many blended raws, so I don’t know how much this being a blend has to do with it, but this tea, while still very young and in my opinion not something I would drink now, rounds off some of the rougher edges you tend to see in my experience in material that comes from a single family, etc. I don’t think those things mean very much now, but ten years down the line it would be interesting to see how they affect the overall profile and balance.

While this tea did seem to have some cha qi – even if very front-loaded – decent texture that will hopefully improve with age, and seemingly okay longevity, nothing about it struck me as particularly special. As this is a tea that I would not drink now, if I were to invest money and time into a cake, I would want something I have a good feeling about. While this will likely be a very good tea in ten years’ time or more, if I’m going to make that sort of commitment, I don’t just want a tea that I think will be good, I want a tea I think will potentially be amazing, even if it doesn’t turn out that way. I want either something really high quality or something really special and unique. I feel this tea is neither of those. If you are looking specifically for Jingmai material to age on a budget, then try a sample of this to see if it’s what you’re looking for. Otherwise, if you’re going to be sitting on a cake for 10+ years, I’d save up and invest in higher grade material like the Midas Touch. If this tea were drinkable now, it’d be a different story, but in my eyes it’s neither interesting, rewarding or enjoyable enough in its current state. Your mileage may vary of course. If you’re looking for the best bang for your buck, then I think there are better value propositions out there. If you’re looking specifically for Jingmai and you really love Jingmai, then there are less. It is not my intention to try to sell this tea short as it has quite a few promising attributes and probably has potential to be a very tasty tea, it’s just not there yet.

I received a free sample of Bitterleaf Teas’ 2017 In Bloom with a recent order and will likely be ordering a sample of the 2017 Midas Touch to try out as well, so expect to see reviews of more Jingmai teas in the not too distant future. Those are of course different vintage than Jingmai LOVE, but I’m interested to see how they compare nonetheless.

This is the first white2tea production I’ve ever tried. Before we proceed, it should be noted that I may be an extremely biased reviewer and you may want to disregard everything I have to say about this tea or any other white2tea production. To explain my weird relationship with this company, I may not know very much about them apart from that Paul who runs it started out as a blogger and that their teas are extremely well regarded by many people in the Western online tea community based on information I’ve passively accumulated browsing the web, but browsing their site, looking at the names and artwork for their cakes and the vague product descriptions paired with often frankly quite ridiculous prices, I can’t help but get a sense of a pretentious hipster label. Yes, there are a lot of buzzwords being thrown around by vendors when it comes to pu’er and ultimately none of those things matter because what it all boils down to is whether you like the tea or not. But informed tea drinkers do want to know certain things about the material they are buying, especially if they are paying a lot of money for it. People want to be able to try to gauge how the tea might age and they’d also like to be able to compare the cost of the tea to the base cost of similar material. And if they like the tea they’d like to possibly seek out similar material from the same region and so forth to see if it shares any similar characteristics. I can agree with white2tea’s philosophy of letting the tea speak for itself on paper, but they lost any right to make such statements after releasing a product like The Treachery of Story Telling that costs an absolutely absurd amount of money, features no product description whatsoever and they sell no samples for.

Another reason why I’ve been avoiding their products up till now is because I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to tea and while I appreciate people like Glen from Crimson Lotus Tea who create blends and consider tea their art, I don’t mind experiencing the flaws and imperfections of single origin material, and what white2tea offers is exactly that, blends. To use an analogy, while I love music but don’t listen to that much classical apart from modern classical and minimalism in particular, when I do listen to classical, what I very much want to hear is music recorded live in the studio or live in concert, none of that modern over-producer, over-edited crap that is all too prevalent nowadays. You’d be shocked if you saw what the Pro Tools sessions for a modern digital classical recording look like and how many edits there can be in just a single track. To continue the music analogy, those audiophiles who understand the breathtaking beauty that well recorded analog recordings can offer know that “hiss is your friend”. A little tape hiss never killed anyone, and as long as we are talking about hiss that’s within reasonable bounds, making hiss part of the discussion about sound quality is just nonsense. In tea, I think one could liken noise to bitterness and astringency perhaps to digital clipping. As long as bitterness is within tolerable levers (too much of anything in life is a bad thing), it is not an issue and can enhance the experience and even be very pleasurable and desired. Astringency, like digital clipping, is generally not desired or found pleasant. Some amount of astringency can be okay and digital clipping can be used creatively to create a certain sound, but when digital clipping is introduced as a product of trying to simply make the record sound louder, most people find it unpleasant and undesirable. Of course from a young sheng a certain amount of bitterness or astringency is expected and generally desired to give assurance of its ageing potential. Anyway, to get off this tangent, while I acknowledge that blended teas may be better than the sum of their parts, I, while a perfectionist of sorts when it comes to certain things, don’t mind imperfections, in fact I welcome them. Imperfection is in itself perfection. There’s nothing more boring than perfection. It is the pursuit of perfection that drives and motivates us, but I don’t think we’d actually ever want to attain it.

By now you have hopefully gathered that my extreme distaste for white2tea without ever having tasted any of their teas is part rational, part irrational, or perhaps just purely irrational. In any event, up till now I’ve avoided handing over any of my money to white2tea even though I’ve been curious to try out their products, but in the end I ended up ordering a couple of samples from different price points. Originally I’d planned to taste these teas blind and have a person pick teas for me at random from various pu’er samples from different vendors to remove any biases I may have, but right now I’m doing a small experiment to see how much (or little) letting a pu’er sample chill out and hydrate in your pumidor impacts the tea. I may still do the blind test for the other samples, unless I deem it too much hassle, we’ll see. Regardless, this tea was drunk the same day I received the sample, so that along with my potential bias may affect my findings. I will be having another session once the sample has spent some time in my pumidor and if the results differ notably from these initial ones I will do a follow-up review.

To finally get to my actual tasting notes, I brewed around 8.4g of this tea in a 140ml gaiwan. The sample I received was prepared exemplarily, consisting of really nice looking large intact leaves and a few larger chunks. No dust, no debris. I don’t know how they detached so many so nice looking leaves from the cake. I got hardly any smell trying to sniff the sample bag, but once in the preheated gaiwan my nose was greeted by the scent of… cotton candy? Maybe. I’ve seen the words cotton candy floating around in the list of flavor notes for some young pu’er teas recently and that was actually on my mind right when I sniffed the leaves so I may have been influenced by that. I haven’t actually had cotton candy in a decade or more so I can’t really say I can recall off the top of my head how it smells like. After a 10s rinse the smell of the wet leaves was green, darkish and buttery. Pretty typical for some young raws. Since this was such an expensive tea, I did drink the rinse. It was extremely light, but had a nice body, which is not that unusual for a lot of teas if you rinse them with a relatively small amount of water like I did. The taste that I could discern was sweet, buttery, with a finish that was… maybe fruity would be a more conventional way of putting it, but I’d describe it as kind of perfumey. I don’t want to use the word artificial, but it had this “unnatural” quality to it, like it consisted of an impossible combination of flavor notes. The finish turned mineral after some time passed. After it died down, there wasn’t really any kind of lasting aftertaste. I can’t really say if the rinse had any effect on me, but if it did, I’d probably describe it as calming/grounding.

I carried on with the brewing after giving the leaves a 10 minute rest. I did a total of nine more steeps, for 7s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s and 2 min. The first proper infusion had a nice milky/juicy body. It was still very, very light in flavor. Despite my extreme preconceived biases, I actually secretly had really, really high expectations for this tea and I expected it to blow me away. This was evident when I thought I could feel cha qi from just the first sip, before I’d even swallowed the tea. I assume all of that was just pure placebo. After this I never felt any cha qi over the course of the entire sessions (spoiler). The flavor wasn’t exactly like water, but water is the closest thing I can think of to describe it. I couldn’t really discern if it was mineraly, perfumey, astringent or what. The finish was sort of unpleasant, but in like the mildest way possible. Again I happened to pay attention to how the finish dies rather quickly and leaves your palate relatively clean without any sort of real aftertaste. At this point I drew the conclusion this is probably a tea you don’t drink for taste. I was basing this on expectancy of plenty of body and cha qi. Things didn’t quite turn out that way (spoilers).

After doing the second steep, I noticed a leaf with clear black spots/burn marks on it in the gaiwan. This wasn’t anything like the scorching you can see in tea leaves that have been hit with boiling water over and over again over the course of a session in the form of mild discoloration, etc. I can only assume the black marks are from the wok. I’ve heard you can get burnt leaves if the frying isn’t done correctly, but I’ve never actually seen it myself before. If the spots are indeed from the pan frying, I find that a very big no-no for material that otherwise looks quite nice and is being asked such a steep price for.

The second infusion itself lacked any real flavor initially. The first thing it reminded me of was fat-free milk, but the milkiness went away with time. There was an underlying young greenness and astringency, but both were very faint. There was also a mineral character. The body was lighter now, which even though the tea was still probably thicker than some other teas was kinda disappointing after the last “two” steeps. Even though the flavors weren’t strong, I wasn’t enjoying the tea very much. The very last gulp had a very rocky taste to it, literally like licking a rock. That was a first one for me. Although the tea left some stuff residing in the mouth, there was once again no real lasting aftertaste to the tea.

After the third steeping the leaves were finally starting to open up. I noted that the material does look rather good, healthy is the word I would use. Sadly the body of the soup was even lighter now, not too far from water. D: The flavor wasn’t too far off from water either. It wasn’t really super mineraly anymore. There was a very, very lightly green aspect to it, but overall the tea stayed impressively neutral in flavor, like it was trying its damnedest to be Switzerland and not taste like anything, not even water. I could see someone calling the flavor a super, super, super light white chocolate if you ignore the slight green tinge. The taste was soft and the astringency was kept surprisingly well under control for now. Since it had become a habit by this point, I noted that there was once again no aftertaste, the taste just dies down like soft drinks for example are designed to do to keep you drinking them. This tea was no battery acid like some young shengs can be for your stomach, but I noted it starting to affect me somewhat, although I hadn’t actually eaten anything so it could have also been my growing hunger.

As I continued steeping, I noted that the leaves look kinda weird color-wise. I’m not sure if it has to do with the tea being blended. The appearance reminds me of the dry leaf for Oriental Beauty. The fourth steep hit me with a ton of astringency. It was almost more like a flavor than the typical physical sensation you get. The mouth-pucker was actually kept relatively minimal. The tea had perhaps a mineral finish. Albeit I didn’t particularly enjoy it, the tea wasn’t as unpleasant as you might think. Over time the tea became dominantly more mineraly – unfortunately the bad kind – replacing the astringent taste. Once again no aftertaste.

The leaves started looking just about fully open after the fifth steep. I will say again that if nothing else the leaves do look rather pretty, even if different than what I’m used to. The tea was still extremely light. Thankfully it did not have the same astringency from before. It had perhaps a very, very light front vegetal sweetness to it. It tasted greener, more vegetal than before, even though the flavors were still faint. The greenness started to resemble for the first time the typical bad young sheng greenness I don’t enjoy, although it was still lighter than in other teas. At the end of my cup, I could feel some slight pucker on my tongue.

I was scared to lengthen the steeping time for the sixth infusion, but what really surprised me was to find that the flavors had tapered off severely despite me doing that. The tea was mineraly again. You really had to look for the vegetal character to maybe catch a glimpse of it if you were lucky. The tea was starting to taste a bit nasty to me, although it was soft nasty. There was more pucker now after finishing my cup like I’d expected, but the sensation wasn’t as uncomfortable as with other teas.

I didn’t really want to keep drinking the tea, but I went on anyway. Somewhat ironically, I think the flavors were genuinely really strong and bold for the first time in the seventh steep. I’m not sure if the taste was a weird mixture between mineral and vegetal or what. I don’t know why, but I found the taste less enjoyable than the “too young, too green” taste I’ve encountered in so many other young raws. The following eighth steep was equally bold in flavor, flavor that was that epitome young sheng green astringent bad green tea taste. It did have a softer edge to it than other teas though.

In an effort to try to do as many steeps as I could, I did do one final ninth infusion and I was punished gravely for it. The tea was really damn nasty from the moment it hit my tongue and I for the life of me could not finish my cup. It’s not typical for me to toss a cup even if it’s not very enjoyable, but this one I simply could not bring myself to down. Even the half a cup that I did soldier down caused unpleasant prickling on my tongue. The tea was way beyond just simple bad green tea.

And there you have it. A bit of a longer review. If you made it through the whole thing, rant and all, then well done. You’re a real sport. Needless to say I did not enjoy this tea. I’m not sure if saying this is the worst raw pu’er I’ve ever had is going too far, but it’s not far off. One could say that it started off kind of decent, but I think it would be a bit too generous to say that it was genuinely interesting even at that point. As I was drinking this tea I started to ponder what my criteria are for rating a tea “Not Recommended” as that has not come up before, and whether it would be too extreme of me to rate this tea as such. After giving it some thought after the session though, taking into consideration that this is one of the most negative experiences I’ve had with pu’er and pairing that with the extremely high price point of this tea, I think there is actually nothing extreme about my conclusion. I half expect some pu’er connoisseurs to say I don’t know how to appreciate this tea, which could of course very well be true, but I fail to see how that would be the case when I found this tea mainly quite unpleasant to drink after the first few steeps. I got no qi, the body and texture were ultimately disappointing after the initial steeps, and the longevity was really disappointing as well, especially relative to the strength of flavor and the price of the material (bringing up the price again).

Now, it could very well be that this tea will improve dramatically in my pumidor as it hydrates a little. As stated earlier, I am going to session this tea again in a few weeks’ time and if the results differ dramatically I will report on that. It is possible that I will try to do the blind tasting arrangement for the other white2tea samples I have, but as fun as that would be, if I deem it too much hassle I may just end up reviewing the teas regularly. I’d like to be able to trust my own ability to ultimately review teas fairly.

This cake has spent a few months in my pumidor. Today I finally decided to break into it. This is over a year old now, and while still containing plenty of various shades of green, I was surprised to see some much darker shades than I was expecting. The leaves are respectably large and the average leaf size is surprisingly homogenous. Leaf integrity has been maintained well in pressing the cake, and unlike in many cakes where the surface layer looks really nice but beneath that you find a lot of broken leaf and dust, the leaf quality seems consistent throughout the cake.

For this session I filled my trusty 250ml Yixing clay teapot with 13.3g of leaf and after a brief 10s rinse followed by a 15-minute rest I got to brewing. I did a total of nine steeps, for 15s, 15s, 17s, 20s, 25s, 35s, 1 min., 2 min. and 3 min. respectively. The drinking was done from a silver teacup. The scent of the dry leaf in a preheated teapot was a very typical young pu’er scent of hay. The scent of the rinsed leaves was also very typical: green, slightly creamy, and vegetal.

At first I wasn’t sure if the first steep was really watery or just really light. When the tea hits your tongue it tastes a lot like water. The other flavors are quite light and subtle and come with an interesting delay with each sip, not just in the beginning. The taste is green, vegetal, maybe very subtly sweet, and clean. There’s a very gentle vegetal aftertaste that appears with some delay and lasts quite long. I’m not sure, but I may have already felt some qi from the very first steep. There was some warmth in my belly and slight ache in different parts of my body.

The second steep was very similar to the first. It tasted a lot like mineral water when it hit your tongue. The mineraly green tea taste comes with a delay. The taste isn’t similar to a lot of other young raws I’ve drunk that border on unpleasant and conjure an image of you steeping some random tree leaves, but instead the flavor is comparable to some actual pretty high-end green teas that have a very dominant mineral character to them and aren’t necessarily that focused solely on yummy flavors and a wow factor. I haven’t drunk that many quality green teas, but I’m thinking of teas like Long Jing, Huang Shan Mao Feng and Anji Bai Cha (at least the ones I’ve had). The second infusion maintains the long aftertaste of the first.

The third steep tasted possibly even more watery to me than before, but I simply can’t say if what I was tasting was actually the taste of the water pushing through or the taste of the tea itself. The overall taste was very mineraly, with less green notes than before. I’m not sure if there was possibly some very, very slight astringency to the finish; it felt different from your typical astringency. The green, vegetal, maybe even slightly sweet aftertaste from before remained the same, however. The aftertaste may have even been getting better. Despite my initial uncertainty about this tea and how relatively simple it is taste-wise, it was around this third steep that I began finding it surprisingly interesting and enjoyable. The way it sounds on paper betrays the true qualities of this tea.

In the fourth steeping I immediately noticed the lighter body. The body in this tea had actually never grabbed my attention up to that point, but when it was suddenly gone I immediately took notice. I’d say the body in previous infusions had always been reasonably light, but it had been there. This tea is interesting, because if you don’t consciously pay attention to the texture in your mouth, you simply don’t notice it. The taste continued to be very mineraly and retained the same aftertaste. Like a great green tea, this sheng in its current state is a surprisingly nice tea to just sip away. I could however definitely feel it rummaging my gut a little at this point. This is undoubtedly from gushu material and commands a certain amount of respect.

In the fifth steeping the flavors were slightly more immediate than before and perhaps slightly more forward as well. The tea may have also been getting a shade sweeter, with the sweetness being mineral in character. The prior body was back now and not watery thin anymore. The same familiar aftertaste was also retained. The tea continued to be surprisingly nice, although I’m not sure why. I suspect it may have some mood lifting qualities, but they are so subtle that I could not reliably identify them, possibly partially because the tea also feels like it’s wrecking your body from the inside like a kid throwing a tantrum. I would describe this sort of as a green tea+, even though it’s not necessarily strictly better than some of the finest green teas.

The sixth steeping saw no change. The tea continued to be very enjoyable, contemplative even. The seventh infusion however tasted even more dominantly like mineral water than all the prior ones, with other aspects of the tea greatly diminished. The body remained consistent to before, if not a tad thicker. It may have actually even been considerably thicker than before, but you really have to pay attention to the texture in this tea to notice it. After sipping enough of the tea, a bit more green sweetness did appear, but the previously very consistent aftertaste had now weakened notably.

I pushed the eight steep a bit harder, which resulted in even stronger mineral water taste, but this time with a bit of a harsh/unpleasant edge to it. There was however some mineral sweetness in the finish and overall the steep was still surprisingly tasty (mineral) water. The greenness was there if you really looked for it, and there was some faint astringency in the finish as well. The ninth infusion was the last one I did, and this time the flavors were more balanced as I wasn’t pushing the tea in the same manner as before. The flavor was still dominated by the mineral character, but the mineral taste had changed from before. The body was somewhat lighter now and you could detect some minor astringency in the finish, but the mineral taste still retained notable strength to it and on that front the tea showed no signs of losing steam yet. I, however, decided to call it here, because I’d had plenty of tea by that point.

After some uncertainty during the first two steeps, I found myself having a surprisingly positive experience with this tea. The tea has a very pure, light and simple taste right now, which really surprised me. I usually don’t enjoy a mineral character in tea, apart from some really high-end teas that can sometimes have an actually enjoyable mineral taste to them, but this is really rare. In this tea it wasn’t necessarily enjoyable, but I didn’t mind it either. I also typically demand dynamic progression from the flavor over the session, but with this tea the very consistent flavor did not bother or bore me. There wasn’t really any totally obvious qi, but the tea’s young potency can certainly be felt in the stomach and as aching in your muscles during and long after the sessions. Those to whom some potent young sheng can feel like battery acid in their stomach and simply can’t handle it may not want to drink this tea young.

Your session may vary wildly from mine, but at its current stage this is a tea that I would recommend to people who enjoy green tea with a prominent mineral character. If for you the taste is the most important thing about tea, this may not be for you, however. The more I drink tea the more emphasis I’ve started to put on aftertaste, texture and how the tea makes you feel. Taste is of course great, but some of the best teas I’ve had did not blow you away with their front flavors. This tea has such an interesting flavor profile and interesting delay to the follow-up flavors that I find it hard to gauge the longevity of this tea, especially since I did not fully steep it out. If you draw the line where the greener notes drop off, then the longevity is perhaps a bit disappointing. If you draw the line somewhere else, however, then I have no idea how long this one can go without actually trying it out.

I debated over whether to rate this tea as Recommended or not. I try to be somewhat strict about that so it does not lose its meaning, and one of the main criteria I’ve crystallized it down to is whether I would buy more of the tea were I to run out. As much as I enjoy this tea in its current state, I’m not sure if I’d buy more of it after drinking all 400 grams. However, when I take into account the ageing potential of this tea, I have high hopes this one will become really yummy in ten years or so. Who knows how it will actually age, but I have a good feeling about this one, granted I’m a total newb when it comes to ageing. Therefore I am awarding San Ke Shu a personal recommendation, making it only the third tea so far. If the tea interests you at all, I recommend checking it out relatively soon, because not many cakes were pressed, only thirty or so I believe. The prices are not going to come down and once these are gone they are gone.

I’d like to have one more session with this tea, but I will try to refrain as this tea does feel quite special and I’d like to reserve as much of it as possible for the future. I’ve been somewhat concerned about my pu’er storage after a string of some negative experiences and disappointments, but luckily this session helped dispel many of those concerns. I will have to continue sessioning my teas to verify that the concerns I raised in my previous Crimson Lotus Tea single tree Lao Ban Zhang gushu review were unfounded, but for the time being I’m content concluding that young sheng simply can be very fickle.

I’m debating over whether I should move to using a slightly higher leaf-to-water ratio with my Yixing since the pour time is quite good relative to the size, but that remains to be seen.

This single serving spent a week in my pumidor in a humidity just shy of 70% RH before the session. I believe this was my first time drinking raw pu’er as mao cha. The dry leaves were impressively large. To honor this special tea, I drank it together with my mom using a full set of a fine silver teapot, cha hai and cups. The 120ml size of the teapot was perfect for the eight grams provided, although there was barely enough room to fit all the leaves in and the largest one I had to soak in some warm water to bend it enough to fit it in without breaking it (it was absolutely massive). As for most of my tea reviews, I used bottled spring water for consistency.

I gave the leaves a typical 10s rinse, but since this was such expensive material we of course drank the rinse (might as well call it the first infusion). It was the most sublime rinse I’ve ever drank! White chocolate! Definitely white chocolate. Absolutely stunning. In a league of its own. Far above any other tea I’ve had and this was only the rinse. Rich, divine, euphoric. An overwhelming multi-sensory experience. I could have sworn even the liquor in the cup smelled like white chocolate, but it could have also been the cup itself (warm silver smells like bliss). The wet leaves themselves had a pretty typical greenish scent, with perhaps some creaminess in there, but that could have again been the silver.

At this point I gave the rinsed leaves a customary 10-minute rest before resuming with the brewing. I proceeded to do a total of fifteen more infusions, for 12s, 12s, 15s, 20s, 25s, 35s, 50s, 85s, 2m 15s, 3m 15s, 4m 30s, 6m, 8m, 12m, and 20m respectively according to my mental clock (and later cell phone). The “first” infusion was quite similar to the rinse. Soft, delicate, gentle, maybe a bit floral, with a hint of green perhaps in there somewhere. All in all the rinse was better though. The next infusion was stronger, greener, with some mild astringency. This did not change for the next several steeps. The tea continued to brew out soft, delicate, green, slightly astringent. A pattern I’ve experienced many young raws fall into after the first few initial steeps, before sometimes proceeding into sweetness. Where this tea differed from the others I’ve had was the softness and delicacy to this essentially bad green tea taste, although I’m not sure if this is an attribute of the tea or all the silver used (this was my first time brewing sheng in a silver teapot). I noticed perhaps some very, very mild vegetal sweetness in some infusions as well as a “cleaner” taste in some of the later infusions. For a few steeps I did experiment with some slightly cooler water as I’ve heard some people brew young sheng at below boiling, but it did not have a significant impact on the flavor. The greenness and astringency were perhaps diminished to a very slight degree, but the overall flavor was weaker as well. No real changes in the flavor profile.

It took till the tenth infusion (this was also when I returner back to boiling water) before the greenness and astringency started weakening and the flavor profile shifted back towards the early steeps. The leaves were showing no signs of losing steam at this point. The overall experience became softer like in the beginning and eventually the greenness tapered off completely while the very mild and manageable astringency remained quite constant. One steep produced a mild cooling effect in the mouth as well as a relatively weak but reasonably nice aftertaste. The tea exhibited perhaps some very minor (often vegetal) sweetness in the very late steeps, but not nearly to the degree than many other young shengs. At no point was there any kind of mineral flavor. The very last infusion I did was the only one that felt significantly thick in the mouth. Prior to that only a couple random steeps had displayed some light body to them. For the fifteenth infusion the flavors had taperer off quite significantly and the astringency had shot up for the first time, although it was still manageable. The tea soup also came across as somewhat creamy, but that may have just been the texture. The leaves could have probably gone on for a couple more steeps, but based on the trajectory of this tea I did not expect it to improve from this point onward and I also didn’t have the time and patience to start doing hour-long infusions just to see if what came out would be drinkable or not.

At the end of the session the brewed leaves were a very pale green, massive, and extremely soft and tender. If I’ve ever seen leaves that I could believe were gushu based on looks, these would be them. This being mao cha no doubt helped preserve the integrity of the leaves, but examining the big, stout leaves after brewing does not fail to make an impression.

All in all I’m not sure how I’d rate this session as a whole. The rinse was the absolute highest quality cup of tea I’ve had the privilege of consuming and the longevity of this tea is probably the very best I’ve seen in a raw pu’er, but after the first few initial steepings the flavors became extremely basic and not particularly enjoyable even if they possessed a very soft quality to them. Back when I first started getting into young raw pu’er some nine months ago (still haven’t progressed to aged or semi-aged, although I have a couple samples on the way), the very first sessions I had were very dynamic in terms of flavor and always hit me with very noticeable cha qi. Since the beginning of summer, all the sessions I’ve had have lacked cha qi and have either deteriorated after the initial steeps to the bad green tea taste I experienced in this tea in the mid steeps or started off that way from the very beginning, even teas I’ve drunk before and had totally different experiences with. I don’t know if the summer has something to do with it. Maybe I’ve just gotten lucky with the very first teas I drank and they have since all advanced to an awkward state in their development all at the same time. In any case, what I’m saying is something about the way I’m storing my tea or brewing it might be affecting it negatively, unless the experience I had with this tea falls within expectations. I’ve been avoiding raw pu’er for most of the summer due to the bad experiences I’ve had, but I’ll need to get to sampling more of the teas I have to see if I’ve just had bad luck or if there truly might be an issue. The next sample I receive I’m going to try out right away and then drink again after it has spent some time in my pumidor to compare.

Anyway, the first two cups of this were sublime. If stored correctly, I could see material like this being extremely nice in a decade or two. My own experience leaves me somewhat unsure if I can wholeheartedly recommend purchasing a sample of this to experience a tea of this caliber for yourself, but if you love tea and love pu’er and this isn’t your first rodeo, then consider it an investment into growing your own tea appreciation.

Is Ban Zhang truly the king of pu’er? I dunno, but you can serve me the rinse from this tea any day. Look forward to my next pu’er review hopefully very soon.