Ysaurella Send Message

I decide to start my day with a Pu-erh and Nannuoshan 2013, a Mao Cha which seems very appropriate.

I am first impressed by the swollen and the green and brown colours of these long folded leaves .

Let’s leave these beautiful leaves unfold in their bath at 100 ° C.

They unfold perfectly in less than 4 minutes and also reveal their bright green and an incredible length.

This is a spring tea , a Mao Cha is a form of Pu-erh loose leaf, uncompressed cake , which accelerates the aging process.Mao Cha is the stage preceding the compression of the leaves to make a cake.
The liquor is an extremely pale yellow , almost transparent.

Regarding the taste, this Pu-erh is excellent,the liquor is lively , refreshing, fruity. I detect hints of plum and apricot. I have not noticed a strong astringency , just a small touch that accompanies all the tasting, from the beginning to the after taste and brings an undeniable personality to this pretty Pu-erh . I love it.

Gabriele thank you for this beautiful selection.

You can see pics of the dark green leaves here : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/nannuoshan-2013-mao-cha-nannuoshan/

No suspense, I say it right now: I love this black Yunnan tea.

It smells very good : dried fruit and it looks beautiful with its golden tips.
Let’s go for 5 minutes into a boiling water.

The taste is very malty with very present earthy notes, really strong. The nice points with this Dian Hong is its soft, mellow texture and its fruity peach and apricot notes, which downplay the earthy and rocky side.

The fruit soften all the beverage and make this tea almost greedy.

The first steep was a very pleasant one but the second was much lambda without real interest imo and with a lack of body compared to the first one.

I really enjoyed the first steep, this is the main information. I’ll probably buy some of this one.

Pic are available here : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/jin-si-dian-hong-nannuoshan/

I prefer oxidized Oolong , this is one, on paper.

The smell is very herbal , vegetable-y : a bunch of spinach . I do not smell too much roast .

Come on, Tie Guan Yin would magic operates? Pictured without special effects , this tea plays like a diamond …

The liquor smells spinach , too. And the wet leaf is a spinach leaf ! very very well imitated …

The liquor is a translucent pale yellow.

From my taste , oxidation is not the most obvious. This Tie Guan Yin remains much vegetable-y, not very creamy .

Much on the floral and unoxidized side IMO.

This is a good Tie Guan Yin but insufficiently creamy and oxidized to persuade me to buy it and store it in my permanent collection.

Pics are available here (with the diamonds in my tea leaf…:) ) : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/anxi-tie-guan-yin-roasted-nannuoshan/

Nannuoshan is a recent tea company based in Berlin. Gabriele , seen on Steepster , founder of Nannuoshan,adorably sent me some samples to permit me to get an idea of ​​the quality of his teas.

Today I wanted to start the day with a black tea , with this high grade Keemun . I began by not respecting the indications Gabriele gave me … yes … I did not prepare this tea in a Gaiwan , I did not rinse the leaves etc … I prepared my tea Western style but in a Japanese teapot with a big volume. When a tea is good it must be also Western style. This is my first principle anyway.

The leave is thin , thin and curly , almost frothy and swollen. It foolishly smells malt and bitter cocoa.

I respected the recommended temperature and time to maximum infusion.

The liquor is very dark and exhales malt and smoke scents.

Come on, I taste … .I do not know what to expect … this is my first tea from this company .

generous full-bodied,even strong. Clearly a morning tea , very malty , it will awake the most sleepy one without any problem. First : this is on a fine note,light but then the body of the tea is revealed , as its strong notes of cocoa , tobacco and leather. The aftertaste makes a great tribute to smoky notes , frankly smoked.

This is a tea with a strong personality but very easy to drink. A nice selection . I love it .

Pics available here : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/yi-ji-qi-hong-xiang-luo-nannuoshan/

Selected for its fresh orange scent , this blend is also very appealing because of the dry leaf with these generous pieces of orange peel and the red filaments appearance mid flower mid saffron.

I follow the recommendations of The Merry Monk and infuse it 5 minutes at 90 ° c .

The wet leaves have a certain visual elegance.

The attack is fairly neutral , it is an extremely sweet tea without roughness, its texture is not particularly mellow but smooth.

The liquor is of a very dark amber .

The body of this tea is medium, but there is still a certain amount of malt. This base clearly makes a great place to flavours, present without being stuffy. Obviously orange is the star here and it is beautifully enhanced by some vanilla and a touch of spice . The aftertaste is dominated by vanilla , a very sweet vanilla , discrete .

Spice Imperial is a Christmas Tea but it is not one of those teas that exaggerates the flavoring by putting too heavily spices to gatch the spirit of Christmas. We are far from the mastery of Esprit de Noël of Mariage Frères tea but it makes particular tribute to the central figure of Christmas for decades : Orange. As such it is successful . A very discrete Christmas tea and very sympatic.

Pics are available here, the blend is really lovely : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/spice-imperial-lindfield/

It’s a foggy day and I had to go to the balcony to take pictures of this tea for my blog to achieve sufficient light. So tasting it now is what I really desserve because it ’s chilly this morning.

This is an Oolong , result of a swap with Jillian. The Tao of Tea is another company I did not know before.

The smell is slightly roasted but nothing truly exceptional.

The tea is steeping for 5 minutes and the leaves unfold a little but not that much. The liquor is of a beautiful amber .

The taste is rather disappointing , slightly roasted , slightly woody but nothing transcendent. Correct.

This is so a sympathic Oolong but I do not really want to redo a second teapot now .

It’s a tea I ‘ll take to the office on Monday , it will be perfect there, I’ll drink it without too much attention.

Pics are available here : http://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/black-dragon-oolong-the-tao-of-tea/

Here I am to enjoy a big red Robe. Its leaves are long and have an incredible volume .

The smell is forested, mostly wooded . This type of tea is very famous and is even extremely famous but I read anything and everything about it ( picked by monkeys wearing red dresses in honor of the emperor, tea trees dressed with a red dress honoured by the emperor to thank this tea to have healed the mother of the Emperor … ) I cannot tell why this tea is called like that but it grows well on Mount Wuyi and that’s the point.

A translucent orange liquor is obtained.

A the first sip , my olfactory impression is confirmed , I have the impression of riding into a forest : moss, mushrooms , bark, wet earth , nuts … that’s what this tea reminds me immediately.

Mushroom is for me the most prominent flavour followed by wood. This tea also has a mineral note , some rock-y taste , which must be explained by its origin.

Some cocoa notes are also present . The texture is very light, very refreshing , and while cooling I begin to detect a little fruity note .

This tea is complex. I imagine it must be very suitable for Gong Fu Cha session and reveals incredible flavors in short, multiple infusions. But … it is already very good Western style .

You can see pics of my session with this roasted Oolong here : http://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2014/12/31/fujian-da-hong-pao-big-red-robe-wuyi-rock-oolong-tea-teavivre/

Ah a good Dan Cong, this is really a great pleasure in the morning too.

This one has lovely long dry leaves and some of them are even incredibly long and folden. This tea looks really like a black tea but from my experience some excellent Taiwanese Oolongs are looking like that.

This is a really strange tea, quite difficult to understand. The dry leaf’s smell is quite malted, woody with touches of fruit. Despite an infusion of 5 minutes into a boiling water, the leaves are still folden.

The colour of the liquor is very pale vs the darkness of the dry leaf, it’s a pale golden brown.

The body is light. This is a very reffined tea, more subtle than most of the Dan Cong I tasted until now.

The dominant notes are fruit, peach mainly but not only as raisin reveals its presence in a supportive role. A little woody taste is there as well. And a touch, but just a touch of honey.

Surprising tea. A little too light bodied regarding my expectations but the taste is there. I’m going to play around a little because it is an extremely complex tea and it doesn’t reveal the same aromas , depending of the infusion and the temperature of the liquor.

You can see pics of my sesion with this beautiful tea here in a new blue glass cup purchased at Mariage Frères : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/guang-dong-phoenix-dan-cong-oolong-tea-teavivre/

Another tea arriving from Canada thanks to Jillian .

A not so very black leaf escapes from the lovely tiny gold package, it is curly , fragrant and it really suggests the very best.

I respect strictly Aura Teas statements in terms of temperature, but I choose to brew this tea Western way for 5 minutes.

The leaf really reveals its darkness when wet . It unfolds quite well but the second infusion will be necessary to fully unfold it apparently.

The infusion is of a beautiful brown amber . A strong smell of honey and fruit comes from the infusion . I’m in heaven . I can already see the best in terms of taste .

This tea is absolutely delicious ,a lot of honey , strong fruit : apricots, peaches , almost candied fruit. The texture is light bodied, it slightly envelops the palate, it’s fresh.

He has also a long finish . This tea is eminently done for me, totally my type. Jillian thank you , you could not make me happier than this type of tea .

You can see pics of my session of this tea in my new red ceramic teapot here : http://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/formosa-natural-wuhe-honey-black-tea-aura-teas/

This is a joyful flavoured tea . It has a black tea base , basic but correct, which welcomes and accommodate burlat cherry, black scrumptious .

Normally the dry leaf is mixed with pretty pink flowers but for today they decided to remain in the bottom of my box.

Just by opening the tea box , waoooh what an heady scent of beautiful ripe and sweet cherry … .I want to prepare a full teapot , let’s go.

The cut sheet swells a bit , not so much.

The liquor is of a black / dark red, deep .

For once the cherry keeps its promises in a tea : a real cherry, natural , fleshy, voluptuous , generous . A cherry “forbidden fruit” , not a cherry blossom with just a little cherry fruit.

And for once it is a black tea base and not a green one… Frankly thank you Betjeman & Barton. And congrats.

You can see pics of my session with this tea here : http://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/cerise-noire-betjeman-barton/