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A flavored tea I actually kinda dig. The base stands up to the flavoring nicely, with plenty of depth, and the flavoring manages to come down and meld with the tea. I tried to grandpa this today, but it brews too fast for my taste and gets tannic — lasts a long time, though! I’ll stick to western!

Malty, bright, citrus, honey. Gaiwan. Delicious and a solid tea, even if my black tea preferences skew a bit more chocolate/smooth/smoky/berry/roasty (… so everything except bright and citrusy, lol).

Okay. I know it’s good that I’m not loving every sheng that comes near my mouth; I am on a journey to find things I love and notsomuch. The challenge then becomes, I guess, figuring out what to ascribe the duds to.

Certainly one starts with the tea itself… assuming the terroir/cultivar provenance is genuine. Then storage, I’d think, as long as it’s identifiable and able to be assessed separately… and then age, perhaps the most variable but also the easiest to reconcile.

I almost wrote this sheng off, which is why my mind started reeling on these questions. It took a couple steeps to get the musk of storage off, a couple more to get past some bitter-full-stop mouth punches, and finally: turned up some classic fruit.

Certainly this can be ascribed to the tea? I wouldn’t be opposed to drinking more Mansa and having my mind changed, but this is potentially another that I’m not keen on steeping through to find some mild pleasure.

Hm hm hm.

I keep having the thought that I’d like a big map to start visualizing all these terroirs and storage locales… wonder if anyone’s conjured that up on the internets yet.

Roasted this in the oven today, using the parameters linked below, and stopped at “light roasted.” Tastes much more roasty than the light-roast version that What-Cha already offers — and with less gorgeousness happening — but I have another 50g to fiddle with.

That said: it’s better. And I expect it might rest and get better-better. No caramel or other sweet notes, but some nice rounding that it was otherwise missing.

Fun experiment.

https://ineedcoffee.com/home-roasting-oolong-tea/

Starts doughy; progresses to flat and unremarkable, except to note its black-like tannins. Meh.

I didn’t rinse this because it looked so clean (famous last words, lol). When I tasted the first ~30sec steep, I was struck by a vanilla-floral note that I haven’t yet tasted in a sheng. It was gone after that first infusion, but it was delicious and pungent. Following steeps are fairly straightforward apricot/sweet/astringent, but the balance is such that it just feels of a higher quality than some I’ve been sampling lately. The apricot is pronounced, the sweetness lingers, the astringency dances and cools. Barely-whispers of floral and camphor. Mouthfeel is thick and coating, just lovely. Orange liquor. Minimal bitterness. Mild cha qi. I’ll try my next session in a clay pot. If I were ready to start aging cakes, I’d consider this one… I’m interested to see where it goes from here.

I’ve really been impressed with Teavivre so far, I gotta say.

Okay, that… is a nice Earl Grey. There are some tiny tippy light notes like lemon and florals that play through the tannin and malt of the base, which holds its own but really does let the bergamot shine. I’m not sure anything can trump Whispering Pines’ Earl Gold Reserve for me now that it’s touched the wrinkles of my soul, but this is truly a nice — classic, traditional — cuppa. 3 good western steeps from 3g in 8oz, but the bergamot was pretty well gone by the third.

My curiosity piqued, I then followed Eric1665’s example and put the other 3g on the stove to see what magic there was to make. Malt came through like whoaaaa — toasty pumpernickel bread and umami roasted nuts. Like a whole different tea. I do think it killed the bergamot, though. Oopy dadie.

Thanks, derk!

I’m a sucker for the sticky rice flavor of nuo mi xiang thrown into just about anything. These are cozy and creamy and sensuous; some herbal greenery pokes in here and there. Short steeps of 15-20 seconds keep the shou light and balanced with the herb (longer steeps get a little bitter and disjointed). I must be at 10-12 steeps as I write this, and the herb is persisting right along with the shou — perfection.

The ~6g disc looked very compressed coming out of the foil wrapper, but it bubbled and let water in during a 15sec rinse. After a patient 20 minutes, I opened my gaiwan and found a poofy pile of leaves waiting to make magic happen. :D

The handy little discs make me want to consider this for travel, but the need for babysitting short steeps ruins that dream. I am still turning over a plan for overseas steeping… I sure don’t want to have a vacation full of tea ‘meh’, but I also want to be reasonable with gear. I generally pack ultralight (<25L for 2-3 weeks), and absolutely don’t want to change that. A new field of study and research awaits…