Bitterleaf Teas

I don’t recall ever having a yellow tea before. This is really delicious. Like buttered sweet corn. Very easy to drink. The information Bitterleaf provided on how this is processed is also quite interesting:

The process of men huang involves wrapping the leaves in cloth or paper (in this tea’s case, paper) and allowing them to sit, facilitating further non-enzymatic oxidation. This labour intensive step is what produces this tea’s yellow colour and smooth, sweet character, while at the same time diminishing bitterness and vegetal qualities.

Interesting, but ultimately not for me. Slightly herbal with a really strong flavor of wet wood or mulch.

A good example of one of my favourite areas, but also not exceptional.

The aroma is sweet, floral and fruity. The taste is more bitter, sour, and mineral on the other hand. The tea is very bright at the moment with notes of rapeseed and green apples.

Sipdown 1 – 2025

Finished this off this morning. Chain drinking cups of tea and worrying about the surrounding fires. Luckily we are not in immediate danger, but watching so many communities around us burn is pretty devastating. I hope everyone in the LA area is staying safe.

Interestingly, I’m getting all 3 components (chocolate, flower, peach) from this tea. The peach is mainly in the aroma, with the flavor being balanced between the bold chocolate and subtle floral aspects. Quite tasty.

Gongfu!

Enjoyed this session paired with some sweet and tangy apricots. It’s a beautifully soft and smooth sheng pu’erh with delicate notes of fresh white flowers, peach skins, pear puree, a touch of sweet sake, and a little bit of a greener and herbaceous backend that reminds me ever so slightly of Greek Mountain Tea. Not only was this really complimentary to the apricots, but the huigan is fantastic as well. Though you do have to be careful with the pairing as the fruit can easily take over the tea with its intensity, so tiny nibbles in between steeps is the way to go!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DEK3ouxOw0Y/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDowe8U7f5w&ab_channel=22%C2%BAHalo

Tea Thoughts Winter Countdown: Day 8

I found this very light and bright, with notes of raisin, and not at all astringent. There’s a faint whiff of fishiness if I sniff deeply enough, but not enough to pick up on otherwise.

Gonna cold-brew the leaves overnight and see what I get in the morning!

Day 8 of the Tea Thoughts winter countdown box. Oh, whew, another black tea that doesn’t hurt! This is so much better than I expected it to be, and I know already that my tasting note isn’t going to do it justice. So just know that I found this fairly complex and quite enjoyable. I got three hot Western-style steeps and an overnight cold steep out of it. Rich, cocoa, black bread, almost jammy notes. The cold steep had very similar flavors, just a bit lighter, probably because it was the last steep.

Adventageddon Day 8

Gongfu!

This was the tea from the Tea Thoughts advent today. It’s the first time in this year’s advent the tea has been sourced from another (named) company instead of just ordered in bulk under Nazanin’s brand name – and I was especially excited because it’s a BLT tea that I haven’t tried/don’t own!

I brewed it up in my black tea yixing and it was really delicious. A bit brighter in its top notes with a little bit of a stewed or brandied stonefruit kind of note before transitioning into something a bit more darkly sweet with notes of caramel, pomegranate, and molasses alongside a gently floral undertone. I really enjoyed it quite a bit, though I think I actually preferred the first black tea from Tea Thoughts (the Orchid Jasmine) just a little bit more. Maybe because the tasting notes were a little more “unique” feeling? Overall, though, I feel like Naz has really good taste when it comes to black tea. Or, at the very least, at least tastes similar to my own…

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDVVeu3SUWV/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw3gOEh8vDA&ab_channel=ThatWoman-Topic

Sipdown 2 – 2025

Never quite got along with this tea. Not terrible, just okay. The name certainly doesn’t fit it.

Trying this again and my previous review still stands. Just okay.

A touch of honey, slightly floral. Some hay. Meh, just okay. Might need a longer steep time.

As the vendor description suggests, this tea lands somewhere in between a hong oolong from Taiwan and a wild black tea (e.g. taiwanese Shan Cha). It is more bitter than the former and more fruity than the latter. It also remains interesting for many infusions. Overall, I am quite happy with it, especially for drinking in this late autumn weather.

The aromas are flowery, vegetal, and leathery. The taste is spicy, bitter, floral, sweet, and woody. There are hints of mushrooms, nectarine, later on also malt. The mouthfeel is buttery and gets astringent towards the end of the session. The aftertaste is pungent, fragrant, and biting with a long-lasting sweetness.

Gongfu!

Usually I blind cake Skinny Dip as, even though the source of the material changes frequently, it’s my favorite white tea that Bitterleaf releases. The crisp, cooling vegetal notes are a sweet spot for me when it comes to white tea. But, I have so much white tea I need to sipdown right now that I opted for just a sample this year. I will say, the compressed leaf is beautiful and bud heavy which did make me question my decision just a bit even before my first steep. Once steeped, this tea is sweet and smooth and fully equipped to handle a bit of beating in terms of steeping. I fully let some of the infusions in this session go for close to a minute because I kept getting distracted, and this tea didn’t even bat an eye. There are some vegetal abd grassy notes but mostly I found this session channeling a brown sugar sort of sweetness that is very different from previous years of Skinny Dip. Less pulpy and cooling. It was a very good session, but so much more different that the tasting notes I personally have resonated with in previous years of this tea – so I think, ultimately, I’m happy in my choice to just sample. This will still be very easy to drink through, though!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCcUWDkSwxF/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3B_7xUJUzw&ab_channel=almostmondayVEVO

This white tea has an interesting mix of tangy, tannic, savoury, and foresty flavours, as well as a hint of pastries. The aftertaste is also a bit sour, and the aroma reminds me of sawdust, apricots, sugarcane, and allspice.

This tea is quite oxidized for a fresh white tea, surely partly as a result of being pressed into balls. These are pretty tight and take a long time to open, it’s definitely not a tea for a quick session. Additionally, it also has a lot of staying power. A great tea for autumn vibes I would say :)

I think this is the right listing. I have a little white Bitterleaf Teas envelope that I labeled “tieguanyin, fall picking, fall countdown 2024 #4.” It’s definitely from the most recent Tea Thoughts countdown box, but I can’t find the document with detailed info now and I did not label it clearly enough before putting it away. I could just ask Nazanin – she’s been super helpful in the past when this has happened before – but I think she’s gearing up for the holiday sales and this doesn’t seem worth wasting her time with right now. So I’m going with my best guess and a giant asterisk on this tasting note.
As for the tea itself, it’s not what I’ve come to expect from a tieguanyin! No roastiness or minerality at all. Instead, this is very creamy and buttery, green and gently floral. If I were guessing, I’d think this was a milk oolong, not a tieguanyin!

Gongfu!

Enjoyed this session alongside some perfectly sweet and juicy cherries! The last time I steeped this tea up I found it to be quite earthy and shou pu’erh forward, but with some brighter top notes of cherries and that’s really what inspired this tea and fruit pairing. I was curious if leaning into those stone fruit notes would lift the black tea a bit more to the forefront to create some more balance. It didn’t quite work out that way as the thick and smooth notes of the pu’erh are still the strongest note across the session. Brothy and slick, with notes of moss and damp soil that caress more subtle notes of dates, carob, and, yes, still that standout bit of cherry. The bit of brightness from the fruit in between steeps was still really lovely though, and I enjoyed this pairing as lot even if it wasn’t transformative in the way I’d initially hoped for.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DEVJ5Y5pqVD/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxkvgprWih0&ab_channel=UCHEYARA

Gongfu!

This has become one of those productions I now look forward to each year, so even though it maybe could have used some resting I was excited to brew it up pretty quickly after getting this recent tea order. Plus, brewing it up in their gorgeous new teacup from the same order just felt right! Though there was a little bit less body and thickness than just steeping a straight shou, I did feel like the tasting notes of this session erred more on the pu’erh side. Very earthy and savory with an overall brothy profile accented with notes of roasted chicory and dandelion roots and a slight, unsweet note of cocoa. Though, there was one steep with a very bright cherry-like top note that felt a bit like the black tea pushing its way to the forefront, as if clawing its way up from the gnarled roots and mud of an overgrown forest.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCSeK0ESMls/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62RvnXZgHwQ&ab_channel=CosmoSheldrake

Gongfu!

Brewed up some of this shou nuggets paired with some blackberries. I went with extra long steeps for this session since I knew this tea could take it, and the resulting brew was thick, slick, syrupy and sweet. Notes of dates, carob and fig really stood out to me in this session with undertones of cocoa, molasses, and fresh garden soil. All the good, ‘sweet browns’ essentially. And well paired with the blackberries which were melt in your mouth ripe, and sweet in a whole different, but deeply complimentary, kind of way.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCaF2k6SCn5/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baQ4RDYcDC8&ab_channel=IndoorCreature-Topic

Gongfu!

I got some teamail from Bitterleaf earlier this week with some new teacups and a few samples of some new 2024 pressings, and this is the first chance I’ve really had to dig into those samples and brew up a session. I’m starting with the 2018 Legacy shou pu’erh, and on this brisk Autumn afternoon at golden hour it’s a pretty perfect session. The tea is very slick and velvety with a highly approachable, clean earthy and nutty flavour to go alongside its smooth, full body. The top notes have a fleeting moment of bright, fruity sweetness that makes me think of biting into a plump, ripe summer cherry and getting that first second of tartness as the juices explode in your mouth. It’s just a moment, though, and then the cup mellows into coziness. With the nuttier profile and the faintest hint of warming spices, I can’t help but think of something like a pumpkin loaf or some type of spice cake. Very moist, and just a little bit sweet!!

I very nearly blind caked this tea, but decided against it since I went pretty hard with W2T’s Shulloween release. However, based on this session, I don’t think I would have regretted it if I had made that decision…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCKkBltypih/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aysjmAT8Isc&ab_channel=RainbowKittenSurprise

A bit better than I originally rated this. Working on drinking through it at work.

Another very easy to drink, delicious tea from Bitterleaf. This is rather mild, with a touch of tropical fruit. Slightly floral.

Tasty. Easy to drink, super floral. Lots of honey.