Liquid Proust Teas

I’m an outlier here, but I don’t think this is a very good tea. It reminds me a lot of Mandala’s milk oolong, which whipped me through the same excited-then-disappointed loop: both are quite vegetal, grassy, threatening astringency. The condensed milk and bakery notes are apparent on the nose, but the base doesn’t gather, doesn’t intensify, doesn’t help sustain those flavors through the sip. There’s no center.

I’ll take this to work. When all I can really manage to appreciate is the “oolong note” or “sheng note” of an otherwise meh tea, I do delight in those broad strokes.

This all said, this tea has made me feel VERY grateful that many of my first touches with “archetype teas” were from amazing vendors that really chose stand-out examples. How sad would it be to think I didn’t like milk oolong after a miss like this? Very! I’m specifically thinking of What-Cha’s milk oolong after this session… sofa king good. Aged oolong from Global Tea Hut is another that comes to mind.

Thanks Derk!

Insanely fruity for flash steeps gong fu. I’ve been letting it sit no more than 10 seconds in the first few rounds and letting it sing. 4th round, I just let it sit for about am minute.

I’m not sure how to describe this one other than fruity, tannic, and a little bit of mineral and malt. Like everyone else, this definitely leans more in black categories of notes, but it’s also got the florals of the Dancong. The texture and the brewed leaves kinda look like a Laoshan Black, and even some Himalayan Oolongs. Reminds me of hibiscus a little bit-not the tea version-the other flower that is named that. I do get pineapple and banana for sure, but I kept on getting a red fruit in the taste too. It’s like the sweetness in a strawberry or raspberry right before they go tart. Better yet, cherry in smell and taste. Now that I looked at the note on the page, I can’t not think of it. It tastes like yellow cherries and red cherries.

I would have gotten a decent sample of this when I was first getting into teas, yet I’m really happy that I only had a single sample. It’s got the butteriness that I associate yellow teas with, and it’s fruity like some blacks and oolongs. The tannin is actually welcomed, thought it can be a little bit too much tannin for me sometimes. Longer steeps brought out more cherry and more malt and tannin. Shorter steeps was definitelty the way to go for me. This is a nice break from the usual black and oolong I drink.

Edited to add:

After trying this western instead of gongfu, I can say this is most likely an aged Taiwanese red tea. Really nice chocolate and cherry-scented tobacco aroma with that wintergreen character present in Ruby 18s. Much more interesting gongfu!

What a ride! Is it an aged raw tea? Is it an old oxidized white? Is it a sun-dried red? Is it a GABA oolong or simply an oolong? The only thing I can feel confident declaring is that I have no idea how this tea was processed! Is it a forgotten relic, stashed away in some dark corner for years? Is it an experiment gone wrong, or rather oh-so-right? Like the Indonesian Yellow that Liquid Proust sells, this tea defies all preconceived notions of any specific processing. Most of the material is one leaf picking like Baozhong oolong and it’s well oxidized.

Taste- and aromawise, it starts out with humid aged nutty and forest floor notes, then moves to barnyard and mushroom, then to something almost malty, then to something lighter and fruitier like pear, then to pure watermelon-cucumber and yellow cherry with light grape skin tannins.

Several characteristics are apparent throughout all steeps: a welcome sweetness, a refreshing wintergreen-type quality, seamless transitions, an inability to be oversteeped and a complete lack of bitterness no matter what temperature water is used.

So much complexity wrapped up in ridiculous longevity. Did I mention watermelon?!!

Thank you for sharing, beerandbeancurd, you lovely creature.

Tobacco off the dry chunk; creaminess on the nose and the sip right from the get-go (I did a 30 second first steep in lieu of a rinse). Even by long-steep number three, the broth is still on the red side — no deep-dark shou blackness here. Creamy wet wood and leather; no bitter paper edge, which I’m always on the lookout for in these wet-piled babies.

Camphor and just a whiff of basement developed on the wet leaf that wasn’t coming through in the broth, so I lowered my water ratio and let steeps go longer. Showed up a little in the sip.

This is nice. Comforting. Might recommend it to folks ready to stick a toe in the shou-pond. Toes in shous, yuk yuk yuk.

I’m not sure I concur with LP’s “burly” assessment, but I concede it could be my present mind/body/surround-state. I will save the rest for further-future visits. For now, it is a bit smoky and I do enjoy what I’m getting from it. I wouldn’t necessarily call it bitter or sweet, but there is a lot to find here and I can at least generically say it’s good. I do wish it had a bit more longevity, but eh.

Warm leaf smells like yardwork — trimming greenery, pulling weeds — and all the dirt and sweat that implies. Smell on the liquor hung out in bread/grain territory, though I didn’t get those notes anywhere else in the session. Taste moves through dirt, mulch, moss, forest floor, quiet floral, cut grass, wet grass… beets, seaweed, wet herbs, fresh minerals, zucchini water… wet wood, wet leaves, raw cacao… finishes out at malt, plant matter, dirt, and some fainnnnt betel nut.

Brewed in zini; I don’t think the clay probably stole much dank, but I’ll try to remember to brew in a gaiwan next time. I notably kept leaving steeps of this sitting forgotten — my generalized distraction aside, this was not much of a lures-me-back kind of experience.

My tea tasting focus and acumen is taking a backseat to the rest of Life right now, but I still want to pop down some initial scribbles to revisit later, upon exhaling and dropping the ol’ shoulders.

This definitely is huang-pian-y, with some sour notes to get through before the sweet and florals come through. The longevity is not quite what I’d expected. Small gaiwan’d it; would like to see what this qi does in larger volumes.

Brewing this up on a lazy Sunday (yet another overcast day in May) while skimming though the “Japanese Family-Style Recipes” cookbook I bought from the used bookstore yesterday. No idea how to brew. Entire 7 grams in pot, 190F, let’s go. 25 seconds.

ok beerandbeancurd, I completely understand your impressions!

Mostly this tastes like sinking my mouth into a heavily varnished wood slab table. An old one. Then I’m hit with a very strong floral quality as if a sakura tree crashed onto this thick wood slab table with its fresh, thick coating of varnish and then quick! – a mouth full of fresh bok choi juices, cucumber, mustard greens, oxalis, stale shiitake broth, burdock root, instant potato flakes, rice in burlap sacks. Weird how it goes from alkaline at the front of the mouth to sourgrass. Weird combination of floral, woody, vegetal, savory elements

Strange.

Kyoto Obubu tea?

Warmed leaves smell, at various points throughout the session, like flan, caramel, cocoa powder. Pours medium tan and graduates to reddish-brown.

Nose starts thin, like a faraway peanut and chocolate bar. Taste also starts thin with some green-noted cacao. Kind of stalls out in medium-black territory, the nose and body never quite catching up to the promise the warm leaves made. Ah, well.

Having a difficult heart day, with fatigue layered on top… this is showing up with strong arms and a fluffy midsection to snuggle into.

I really don’t see myself persuing Yiwu offerings much at all, barring a spectacular recommendation, but I’m not above a little ease now and then.

The second Yiwu I’ve had. They’re easy; I don’t find anything particularly enamoring about them, but I get why some folks might. Bread dough up front, sweet and yeasty. I did feel this gave me some good confirmation of what “Yiwu” implies, and that Taiwan storage is indeed quite neutral — this is very similar to the cheapish 2007 Yiwu cake LP dropped. Some camphor in this slightly older sample, which I don’t think I found in the cake. Makes me want to get that thing crocked and bubbling.

A very innocuous session. Wood and astringency come in at the same time during middle steeps, then it gets a bit fruity later on.

Not feeling too inspired to type up a decent note. Definitely no fault of the tea. It’s a tropical treat with big black tea suede-malt lean but also kind of like a dancong oolong. Feels most similar to an assamica Yunnan yellow tea rather than those from other regions of China. Really complex aromas and textures. It goes and goes… Content to escape in my mind to all the different tropical regions of the world.

Thank you beerandbeancurd. This is lovely.

Hong Kong storage be like AH HERD YOU LIKE BASEMENT SMAK SMAK SMAK SMAK SMAK.

I don’t mind basement, to be honest. I don’t crave it, but I do find it interesting, as it always seems to yield to something curious and a little unpredictable. Here it becomes camphor, deep huigan, some flowers overwintering in the fruit cellar, and dancing astringency. Some cha qi is present, though I’m a bit scattered tonight and not as focused on it as I’d like to be.

Just a little wood, curiously, and no alcohol notes from this barrel-aged beaut. It’s completely satisfying as is… though if I imagine wood resin and booze layered in, my brain does a dreamy drool.

Mixing the last of this with a bit of medium roast Anxi oolong, really just a solid drinker overall. Would buy again.

This oolong toes the line between “green” flavors and roasty sweeter notes. Very balanced, easy to coax flavor out of the leaves but also not upset if you happen to leave it for too long. I have done two gongfu sessions with good results across the board. Great everyday brew that offers a pleasing experience and makes you want to drink more. It’s not the most complex thing in the world but balance makes up for that, I love brewing this at work because I can throw it in a gaiwan and go!

Quite tasty, not going to dive in on a full review just yet but this is easily one of those 80+ point daily drinkers that won’t break the bank! Thanks LP.

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.

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

Warmed leaf: squash and smoked paprika. That’s a new one.

Not much aroma coming off the first steep… zucchini. Bitter and a touch of smoke in the second. Let it steam for a bit. The next few steeps worth of bitterness eventually yield a sweet and juicy cup with little astringency.

I think I’d rather age this than drink past this bitterness every session, but the sweetness is nice and I see why Bulang is such a popular terroir.