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Hey teaheads!

Ahhh I decided to pull this tea out for the first session in a while, and boy did this tea not disappoint. I blindly picked out this tea and made sure not to see the label until the third steep, and I could have never guessed that this was factory tea. It just tastes so good, just everything that I love in a raw puerh all in a really good daily drinker. This is one of the teas that I would actually consider purchasing a whole cake, as the price to enjoyment is hard to beat, and a tea that I can see myself enjoying long into the future.

Yikes, I’m probably one of the most inconsistent reviewers on the site, but oh well.

[First steep] This tea had quite the effect on me, it’s really unique. On the first steep it brewed so incredibly clear and amber, with an amazingly fruity taste. I’d say it tasted like subtle grapes and figs, along with a little bit of a raisin. I’m not sure why so many people here in the states are too fond of raisins but honestly I love them so much, so that’s probably the reason why I really like this tea (so far). Lets hope the other steeps are just as good!

[at about the 4th steep?] This tea is still impressing, it still has that arisen taste to it, and has a great mouth drying effect with a tad bit of bitterness. It also tastes like, hmm I’ve forgotten the name but it’s the dried Chinese fruit that is like the arabic date, it tastes exactly like it! This tea is really good, and perfect for a late night read.

[I’m far too teadrunk to remember] Ahh, in conclusion this tea is probably one of my favorites. I’m not sure why it’s had such a bad reputation with other reviewers but I absolutely fell head over heels for this tea! It’s just got such a unique, smooth, and nuanced flavor, and really brightened up my day. I drank this tea during a late night read, and it deffinately was made for the occasion.

I’ll try my best to force myself to review teas, haha, but I’m probably not going to be on for a little while, but until then I wish all you tea heads a great summer months!

So sorry I’ve been extremely bad at reviewing teas lately, so in this tasting I’ll try writing my review as I go, so that I don’t have to dread having to spend time writing a review of the tea I’m drinking afterwards. Hopefully this technique will help me share more of my tea thoughts with you all.

This tea starts off very very comforting, with the light yet warming tastes of apricot, and fig mixed with a sort of herbalist spicy note in the back ground

By the second steep the texture starts to become more oily, and the warm tastes of the first steep move to the background, and it’s more of lighter, I guess I brewed this one too fast. Whoops.

ehh I forgot the steep i’m on, but I’m around 3 or 4, but I finally pinned down that delicious warm spicy-ish note that I was tasting! It tastes a tiny bit like sandal wood. I’m not talking about the crappy sandalwood candles but truly like ground up sandalwood, not burned but the unburned wood. It’s very specific, haha, but along with this the tea has a sort of light fruit quality, it’s a great tea to just sit down and relax with on a Saturday morning. Don’t take my word for it, as we all feel different things when drinking tea, and you might not have smelled sandalwood before, so that note might not be apparent at all to you.

I’ve now totally lost track of which steep i’m on, but it’s a later steep so around 6-8, but I’ve noticed a very floral quality in the smell of the liquor. It’s almost like rose water, but this doesn’t show up in the taste. Towards the later steepings the tea gets pretty boring, the flavor isn’t gone, but theres not much there. I threw in the towel at around steep 8.

Yikes, I’ve been very very bad about drinking tea lately, and even worse when it comes to sharing my thoughts on teas with you guys. Hm, I think I really need to get myself a blog, but until then this tea forum will have to do, haha. I’ll definitely keep you guys posted if I do end up making one.

So these past few months I’ve only really been drinking raw puer, and when I first started out in tea it was the opposite, I used to neglect the raw puer for the ripe. I guess I have a bad habit of just liking one tea for a certain time, and with this tea tasting, I decided that I should start drinking shou once more. It’s great when you find yourself not wanting to drink ripes to ease yourself into it with an aged ripe, as this will probably give you the complexity of flavour that you are used to with raw puer. The thing i’ve noticed with the two puers is that ripe puer is the best with texture, but is sometimes lacking with the complexity of flavor. It will always be so smooth, and relaxed, whereas raw puer will often times just have your normal texture, and you’ll have to play a very fine game of balancing the bitterness until it’s just right. I’ve found, that ripe puer is best for a lazy day, or in my case studying.

I’ve been neglecting tea for a while, because on weekends, when I usually drink tea, I’ll often times be studying, so that I won’t have to cram in the middle of the week. So ripe puer has reminded me, that it can be the perfect tea for when I don’t have time to focus 100% of my attention towards brewing.

[If you want info on the tea this paragraph is for you, haha]

So this tea is a very good ripe in my opinion. The name might suggest that it’s a weird tea, I mean I’ve never drank a Nonpareil tea before, but this tea is an absolute jem as regards to ripes. It’s the perfect balance between flavour in texture. It starts out, hen first opening up, very flavorful, and so smooth. These nubs take a very long time to open up, so if you have a lot of time on your hands, and people to share tea with, this tea is for you. I stopped at around 6 steeps, but looking into the gaiwan these nubs hadn’t even opened up the whole way yet. I’d probably guess that they could go until steep 15, or 18, it’s a tea that doesn’t give up. Since I hadn’t just drank the tea, I really couldn’t give you every flavour note, or how the flavour changed over time. What I can remember was the general consensus that this tea was very good.

Pretty solid raw puer, as it gets to its 3rd steeping you really need to watch out for the bitterness, but then afterwards the steeps are great, and soft. It’s not the tropical fruity type of raw puer, but it has a strong minerality and grape like body to it. I’d say that plums come into play too, but when I’m listing fruits, they taste close to these notes, it’s not like a cup of fruit juice. I know that most pu-heads out there don’t even need me to tell you this, but when I haven’t tried a gong fu tea before I took the notes as is, haha. But never the less, this tea is I’d say a pretty standard raw, there’s nothing that really jumps out to me that makes me really fall in love with this tea, but a great daily drinker, for the times where you don’t want anything special and are just craving a regular cup.

The aftertaste on this is very very good though, which is something that actually did set it apart now that I think about it. The minerality really made this tea super enjoyable, it’s sweet, and for a moment I even tasted vanilla ice-cream, never had that in a raw before, ever, but a majority of the lasting taste is bitter and acidic stone fruits. I can tell that this tea was either grown near plenty of rocks or was from trees with very long roots because the minerality is great! I just wish that there was a more exciting body to it, that wasn’t so average, haha.

In the end this is a very very good daily drinker, but not something that you would save for special occasions what so ever. Just what I needed today, honestly.

Drinking a 90s HK stored puer. It’s not labeled ripe or raw, but I’m pretty sure it’s a ripe because of it’s amazing creaminess. School has been extrememly busy lately, I come home at 7 everyday and just fall asleep, so the only time I have for tea is on the weekends and friday.

But this tea just made my morning, it’s so great. It’s like a warm hug, or sitting in a grampa chair next to the fireplace with a kitten in your lap. Yeah, that kind of warmness, haha. It’s colour is so great too. I normally don’t talk about colour, but my word is this one beautiful. It’s like a deep dark red, but when the morning light hit it the red colour started to shine.

It starts out just like a ripe, without too much flavour, but a lot of creaminess, and you get some storage flavour. Except that it starts out at like the pinnacle of most ripes with the mustiness of an aged tea of course. If you’ve ever drank a ripe, you know what I mean. At around the 3rd steeping, it’s just pure smooth creamy mushroominess. If you haven’t tried a ripe yet, it’s deffinately worth a try. Anyways, after the first steep, it brewed pretty consistently up until the 3rd steep where I am now. I don’t have time to review the tea after I’m finished, as I’ll be working for the rest of the say.

But it’s super smooth, thick, and with an oily like texture at the top of your mouth. It dried your mouth leaving it with the great taste of aged puer until you’re compelled to take another sip. Hm, as I read above I don’t think I did a good enough job, so let me explain further haha. It has a chocolaty taste to it, like not milk chocolate but like a sweet cacao bean, with a mushroomy taste afterwards, it’s so calming. When I smell the tea the aged puer note is all I smell, but it has a grape taste to it as well. the aged note is such a great compliment to all the flavours I discussed before, it’s like the bitterness that I wish young ripes had.

Well, I think I’ve summarised it pretty well, this ripe or raw, but probably ripe HK stored tea is probably the best go-to tea if you’ve been working hard all week. I’d recommend this tea if you’d love to start off your day great.

Have a great day!

Oh wow, this is a raw? Haha, this tea is just too good.

This tea was amazing!

Sorry in advance for the choppy tasting note.

I don’t remember the specifics but this tea sure did make my day. It has such a clean light flavour, that is not fruity like most ripes. It’s woody, but not bitter at all, with a plum-like background note that is very clean. I notice with regular tea that the aftertaste is very acidic, making you want to rinse your mouth, but this tea left a nice sweet taste that wasn’t acidic long after I finished my session.

It brewed around 12 steeps before it significantly lost its flavour. The depth of flavour and its complexity too are hard to beat, it must be the wild leaf! The flavours here are a bit different, and more unpredictable as compared to normal plantation puer. As well, the cha qi on this is very strong, and it was very uplifting.

This tea is so amazing. It’s just such a solid raw, with so much complexity. However, I don’t think I’d buy 400g of it, that’s just way too much tea, haha.

I was watching Scott’s youtube channel for Yunnan sourcing, and he was sitting out in his garden, and it just made me miss living out in the middle of nowhere again. I would love so much to be sitting out among a whole bunch of trees with no one in sight, and just feel the wind on my face and drink tea. Don’t get me wrong, living in the country was pretty depressing, no friends close by and being the only Muslims in town we got our fair share of prejudice against us. But I would kill to have that peace and tranquillity, and just drink tea outside under a big tree and not be disturbed by a neighbour mowing his lawn, or smell the puffs of smoke of another. and I think that this tea is absolutely perfect for a summer day out in nature. I don’t know how to explain it, but I just know that this tea would compliment a summer outside so well.

Hah, really went off topic with this one.

It’s green, vegetal, bright, more sour than it is bitter, and an overall great tea. The cha qi on this is great too, and the minerality leaves a sweet and sour aftertaste in your mouth.

Very very good tea.

This tea is quite good! When I started with tea, I found that I enjoyed the darker and more predictable tastes of ripe puer. Aswell, I didn’t have patience for bitterness. Only now, am I finding my way back to raws, and really appreciating what they have to offer, but I think it’ll be a little bit before I turn to young raws as a daily drinker, though I’m getting there.

This tea is wonderfull, I’ve never tasted a puer from anywhere other than China, so this was a welcomed change. It doesn’t taste too different to a chinese raw, but I would have had to have drank raw puer for years before I could tell you the actual differences in taste and mouthfeel that I found. However, what I can tell you was that it was a very good tea.

I was reading while drinking this, so I don’t remember many specifics, however, this is a very fruity puer, light, and with a little bit of bitterness. The bitterness in this tea is not unpleasant at all, it’s there and noticable, but works well with the flavours in the tea. The specific fruits, hmm… i’d say a tiny bit of pineapple, mellon as sort of a base note, and just a hint of stone fruits.

This tea was wonderful, and I’m so happy to finally have time to drink tea once more. School is out until the first of january, and since I finished my semester it’s a break without worry, so I’ll deffinately be taking lots of time to catch up on tea and reading, haha.