Arbor Teas
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This cute little tuo is my go-to drink right now. The cakes are generally well packed but still pretty easy to break apart and smell delightfully like, well, pussy. The steam coming off the pour smells even better, like fresh dewy moss and sweet malt. The flavor is rich, changing and maturing as the soup cools; stonefruits and warm bread and a nice backdrop of damp deciduous forest, maybe bamboo? It’s mouthfilling with a gentle astringency.
I like to break this over a bed of Arbor’s Makaibari Oolong right now, which adds astringency and hay notes and I think they compliment each other well.
Flavors: Apricot, Malt, Moss, Mushrooms, Petrichor
Preparation
I’ve waited a while to review this – never felt like I was getting the brew just right based on other’s feedback. Today, think I nailed it, partly because I let a 62% humidipack sit in with this. Should preface by saying I live in the desert, so relative humidity is very low here.
Western style – hot taste and smell of barley and faint raw pistachios. Flavor follows along on the same notes with a thin mouthfeel that becomes more astringent as it cools. Lemon zest notes that others have mentioned come forward as it cools, as does a general vegetal taste and a dry dustiness and hay. About a halfway through the cup I’m a bit bored.
Flavors: Dust, Hay, Lemon Zest, Nuts, Roasted Barley, Vegetal
Preparation
Nice to see someone else is using humidifier packets in their tea. It’s not quite desert here but the relative humidity stays around 20-25% in my house. I added Boveda packs to my tea boxes about a year ago and I think it’s helping my tea stay delicious. I put in Boveda Butler hygrometers too so I can easily check if I need new packs or to air out the boxes for a while or anything.
This is the kind of hard-hitting tea knowledge that gets me moist! I’ve been using Boveda packs for cigars and cannabis for a long time now and have humidity levels from 62-72. Going to play around with what works best for what teas but I think I’m going high humid in the puer and lighter in other stuff to start. I think the salt-based chem of these is perfect for tea – I’ve never noticed any taste effect from the packs but I give almost every tea a quick bath before steeping as well. ShuPu gets more bath time.
One more thing – you can revive Boveda packs in a ziplock with a paper towel soaked in distilled water. This trick works indefinitely.
I’m repeating myself here since I just this evening commented on another Steepster’s storage:
I’m too lazy to bother with humidity packs and techno-hygrometers. My smaller crocks are airtight, the large ones meant for kraut are covered with loose-fitting terracotta saucers that I keep damp with distilled water, monitored with a basic hygrometer-thermometer. My storage isn’t intended to age sheng pu’er, but to keep it at adequate moisture levels during our long, dry summers.
Oh man I’m too lazy for all that terra cotta business and my crocks are busy w the sourdoughs but that sounds medium-pimpin
I have the big 65% packs in my pu-erh and pressed white tea boxes but my humidity readings are usually a bit lower than that. I don’t think my Sterilite storage bins with gasket in the lid are completely airtight so that might be why it’s usually closer to 60%. I haven’t noticed that the packs leave any taste on the teas either but I don’t have them in direct contact with the tea leaves. I haven’t had to revive a pack yet but good to know it works.
It’s simple for me since I keep my large crocks stacked at the foot of my bed. Basically when I put clean sheets on the bed, I touch the terracotta. Dry? Pull out the gallon from under the bed and splash.
Guh, sourdough, drool. Haven’t tended to that in a while. Ever ferment teff for injera?
DrowningMySorrows – that seems like a good humidity to me! Cheers and happy brewin!
derk – love me some sourdough bread, I’m eating some toast n eggs right now with a fantastic cup of Ancient Green Tuo from Arbor. I nailed this brew and am getting some incredible returning sweetness. Cannot wait (he said mistakenly) for my first order of W2T to get in!!
Have fun exploring white2tea! His teas’ character seem to draw out my inner writer. Looking forward to your experiences :)
Holy crap me also!! I get the feeling like it’s going to be a while, or maybe I convinced myself of that, but in any case I hedged my bets with two sheng cakes from Crimson Lotus’ Seattle inventory to ‘hold me over’. :D
Chris – both of my White2Tea orders took about a month to arrive. Not sure when you ordered or how much Chinese New Year is slowing things down this year but it might not take too long for your teas to arrive. My Yunnan Sourcing orders took much longer, 2-3 months I think…it felt like forever.
Which teas did you get from Crimson Lotus? I haven’t tried any of their stuff yet but I’ve been contemplating an order.
DMS – I ordered right at the end of Jan and figured the New Year was probably going to be a month-long holiday but who knows? I will continue to wait ‘patiently’. ;) Two-three months is pretty bananas.
From CLT I ended up getting 2019 Low Rider and 2019 Radio KXQM. Oolong Owl’s write up of Low Rider being an oolong-lover’s sheng sold me and derk’s review of the 2018 KXQM sounded really intriguing. Honestly, probably could have tried anything in their Seattle stock and loved it. :)
Jasmine teas all taste the same to me and this is no different. Dark. Floral. Brisk. Nothing new. Nothing different. And not for me.
Check out my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2019/01/25/jasmine-from-arbor-teas/
I got this in my Sips By box and was thrilled, as it’s been on my wishlist here for like 5 years. I just never got around to trying it.
And it’s exactly what I was afraid of. Another reputable tea company trying to create Thai Tea naturally. The spices just never come out recognizable. All I can taste in this is very loud cardamom and maybe a tiny bit of vanilla. It’s unfortunately nothing like what you would get in a Thai restaurant.
Also, I want to mention that this tea is super granulated and fine, so your spoon is going to get a dense, hefty amount. I know this is to keep it from being watered down too much by the milk, but it’s still something to consider during preparation.
Flavors: Cardamom, Vanilla
This was a sipdown from yesterday, but I thought I’d write a proper review of it now that I remembered to look on the empty bag and find which company it was from.
I’m a very big kukicha fan (and houjicha too) because I love the sweet, woody, toasted grain flavour. This wasn’t a great kukicha as a few of the cups were bitter. It was about 50/50 on the bitter vs not bitter over the 6 or so cups I made. I still enjoyed it, but do remember this needs a higher steep temperature. Steeping at lower temps (80-90 C) will get you weak flavoured tea or tea with flavour that is bitter. Go with more leaf, hot water, and a moderate steep time for the best flavour.
Flavors: Earth, Roasted Barley, Toasted Rice, Wood
I love houjicha! I have never tried kukicha, does it have a similar flavor profile to houjicha? I am going to have to try some sometime!
I’m the opposite as I’ve only tried Kukicha and loved it.
This kukicha was the stems mixed with sencha, but most kukicha I have tried (and enjoyed the most) were stems only. Houjicha is the roasted leaves and kukicha is the roasted stems. They share a lot of the same flavours. Kukicha is lower in caffeine because the stems contain almost no caffeine (plants make caffeine in leaves to discourage insects and herbivores, but few insects eat the tougher stem tissue.)
Houjicha is definitely one of my favorite teas, I have a friend who introduced me to it who is a big fan and neither of us have tried kukicha. Seems like we are going to have to change that at some point! Sounds like a good fit! I’m very intrigued.
The smell of this mixture is so comforting, like a potpourri that I had as a child. The taste is more mild than I expected from the description. I certainly didn’t get a “wham” of chili. There is a small buzz of it as an aftertaste, if anything. I can imagine this may be pleasant iced.
