Norbu Tea

A very good tea from Norbu here, I am definitely getting the evergreen aroma in the dry leaves. I steeped about 5 grams in my 18 oz. teapot and at first I thought that was too much but it seems to be enough now that I’m sipping on the cup.

My tea color is a medium brownish-red and smells quite aromatic. There’s some definite flavor notes you would expect, like notes of malt and chocolate. What’s unusual is the sweeter, floral like finish that seems more darjeeling-esque in nature. It definitely leaves a nice floral taste in your mouth. I am quite liking it! It’s man easy one to sip on plain as well. No bitterness or astringency.

Norbu certainly picks some interesting teas… I hope some other people check them out!

This green tea is exceptionally green. The grass notes was very apparent and the flavor is strong. The second steep was much more suitable for me and I found the flavor to be less overwhelming. It is good, just be ready for a lingering kick!

This tea is very fresh and crisp. You can taste hints of light floralness. It steeps quite well and the leaves look beautiful.

This wild black tea is quite different but in a similar way. It has all the characteristics such as a malty and woody flavor of a good black tea, yet there is something quite different.
When I took my first sip I noticed there was a kick of something I rarely taste in black tea. I can’t quite put my finger on it but it was a good surprise. If you are looking for something different then give this a try.

Sample sipdown of the afternoon. My tastebuds are finally getting back to normal and the numbness is wearing off.

Wuyi oolongs are my absolute favorite type of oolong. I don’t drink them nearly as much as I should, and I have no idea why. It was nice to revisit this today, I had several steeps in my yixing teapot . The aroma is like burnt caramel and the flavor is reminiscent of roasted plums. I really get into roasted teas as I’m also a fan of houijcha. Something about them seems so warming and cozy.

It’s so easy to procrastinate on Steepster but I really must sit down and get my homework finished for writing class!

I decided to try out this sample tea this morning. I am a fan of Tie Lou Hans, I’ve had a few and they usually do not disappoint.

I did a quick rinse of the leaves in my yixing and used around 180F water.

Steep #1: The tea liquor is an amber color and leaves smell very roasted after steeping. I found this cup to contain notes of plum, caramel and mineral with a sweet aftertaste. yummy! I gave this cup to the BF, who wanted one.

Steep #2 – Tea liquor has a delightful aroma of stone fruit. Second cup is similar to the first but I am getting a slight charcoal flavor in the mix. It is very pleasant with a lingering sweetness. Tastes very clean and soft, somehow.

Steep #3 – Similar to #2, sweetness is retreating a slight and mineral is coming forward more. Still quite delicious and going strong. I am noticing a toasted bread quality as well as a few raisin notes. Unlike the other tie lou han I have, this seems to be quite good in terms of resteep ability (note: I ended up steeping it 7 times).

Interesting for those of interested in Buddhism:
“Tie Luo Han (铁罗汉) translates as “Iron Arhat” in English. Luohan/Arhat is a term used in the many schools of Buddhism to denote a saint or a “sage” who has achieved enlightenment and is ready to escape the cycle of Samsara and enter the state of Nirvana. “Tie Luohan” is sometimes translated as “Iron Warrior Monk,” which most likely refers to the monk/spiritual practitioner doing battle with his/her desires to overcome his/her worldly attachments to attain enlightenment, rather than as an actual “war” warrior monk".

Anyway, this is a great example of a wuyi tea. If I was to have one everyday wuyi around, I don’t know if it would be this or a Shui Xian but maybe I can have them all. :-P

I don’t believe I’ve had a Huang Guan Yin before, but I like wuyi oolongs and was looking forward to trying this. Because I was at home today, I decided to do more of a gong fu preparation.

I used my little yixing teapot devoted to wuyi oolongs and did a quick rinse of the leaves.

Steep #1: 30 seconds. I got a very sweet, honey-like tea liquor that’s a medium yellow. I feel like there are some peachy notes in here as well as a slight roastedness. Definitely has a nice lingering aftertaste. Norbu compares it to a graham crackers but it reminds me more of toast with a bit of marmalade. Definitely liking it so far!

Steep #2: 20 seconds. Now the graham cracker flavor is definitely coming to the forefront. Definitely much less mineral-y and plummy than other wuyi teas I’ve had in the past. Still getting lots of honey and orange marmalade notes. Not a trace of bitterness in sight, which is great! I have to say I am finding this quite delicious.

Steep #3: 10 seconds. The lighter steep has brought out some lighter, fruitier notes, more peaches and apples seem to be present as well as a bit of butter. This is one non finicky tea.

Steep #4: Still insanely good although getting a bit lighter in flavor. Like a honey drizzled peach over a graham cracker crust. Heavenly! Flavor is still great.

I happen to like light to medium roasted oolongs and this was definitely a surprise. I was expecting something quite different but the result was great. Gets high marks from me for flavor, resteepability and non-astringent/bitterness.

I did like this quite a bit better than the Fenghuang oolong I had a few days ago. This isn’t as aromatic and flowery, but you can’t have everything in life. I have been fairly impressed with Norbu tea so far.

Final verdict: YUMMM! I’m not sure how this could get any better for me personally, so I’m just going to ahead and give it 100 points.

Tea of the morning – NOM!
This stuff is truly delicious and tastes great either plain or with soymilk. It is such a nice morning tea – see previous notes for more info.

Oh YUM!
This is delicious. Really one of the best black teas I have had in a loooong time. I steeped my cup for around 3 minutes in my infuser mug. I’m not one that normally finds strange and interesting flavors in teas, but this definitely seems unique. I’m getting a delicious load of malt with chocolate-y notes and cinnamon. The finish is mildly pungent but oh, so terrific! I was surprised at how bold and assertive this tea was, but it’s still easy to drink it plain. I am in black tea heaven! Definitely getting more of this ASAP!

Sorry I can’t write more but I’m kind of busy this morning! A+!

Bai Yun is an interesting tea to say the least. This Taiwanese style oolong using Yunnan leaves is exactly the flavor hybrid its name suggests. The translation is ‘white cloud’, although the flavors are far more robust and complex than “fluffy”

I had the pleasure of trying some 2012 Bai Yun in Fengqing although the tea I am drinking now is from Norbu tea. The fresh version was brighter and sweeter with a strong but quick finish, the aroma was also more “tobacco-ed” The 2009 harvest from Norbu is smoother and has a stronger malted body. The ‘09 also has a slight bit more of a menthol undertone similar to Sun Moon Lake #18.

Compared to a tradtional Bai Hao oolong, the Bai Yun leaves are darker, implying higher roast/oxidation level. This could also be attributed to the difference in amount of leaf-hoppers munching on the leaves to potentially create more dark leaves as opposed to the processing alone.

The wet leaves are similar looking to Dian Hong, the milk chocolate/caramel complexion with some whiter tips throughout. The flavor has that sometimes impossible to describe but easy to distinguish Yunnan characteristic. It has a dry and sweet blend (similiar to the april climate in Yunnan) The tea also has that rich honeyed body with some nice lower, back of the tongue notes that I come to expect from a Bai Hao.

Of the cross-bred teas we tried in China, this tea is the one that stands out as special. The Hong Bi Luo was more of a novelty as well as the Sheng/shou blends.

Many teas have come out of blending China leaves with processing methods from other countries, this could be the start of something wonderful, more Chinese Oolongs!

A side note: As my Bai Hao pot takes on more flavors, I enjoy each tea I brew even more than the last. Although I’ve only used it 7 or 8 times, it has already developed a beautiful patina!

I’m up early so I decided to pick this sample at random to try it out this morning, I used about 5 grams of leaf in the gaiwan and did a quick rinse. My first infusion I had to throw away because I accidentally used boiling water. The wet leaves do smell divine. The whole reason I picked this sample was due to the description hot buttered flowers! :)

Second infusion was for 20 seconds at 180 F. I got a light yellow liquid which definitely smells very floral/magnolia like to me. The tea liquor is floral with a honey like sweetness and a tad of bitterness in the finish. hmm. Norbu says to keep decreasing the steeping time and temp. until the bitterness is gone.

3rd steep: 10 seconds at 175F. Definitely better. Agree about the thick almost oily feeling in the mouth (a bit buttery) which is reminiscent of a Taiwan high mountain oolong or something, bitterness is mostly gone at this point. A bit of nuttiness, a mere trace of astringency.

4th steep: 15 seconds at 175. Still nice. Still very flowery and smooth and I am still getting a trace of astringency but nothing overwhelming. A slight bittersweetness.

As you an imagine when you are keeping the steeping times this short you would be able to gets LOTS of infusions out of this tea. In order to make it more practical for me to do so I’d need a hot water heater set at 175 degrees all day, no wonder those are so popular.

This tea was nice, not so finicky once I figured out what my steeping parameters should be, but that did take a bit of trial and error. I’m quite new to these Fenghuang oolongs right now so I don’t have much to compare it to. From what I’ve been reading, bitterness is often a characteristic of these teas which is a bit unfortunate (for me). I didn’t love this but will certainly finish off what I have.

This morning I am working on sipping down more samples and so have decided to finish off this 10g sample from Norbu. It looks like this tea is sold out as I don’t see it on their website anymore. Also it looks like Norbu decided to discontinue the 10g samples altogether which is kind of a shame.

Anyway this is enjyoable, a lightly smoked tea with some sweet notes, it also seems somewhat flowery to me today. See previous tasting note for more details.

My order from Norbu Tea arrived and I am thrilled!

As an affordable indulgence, what I got were 10 gram samples, shipping was only $3.00 and super fast from Texas to California. It’s so great being able to try a smaller quantity of tea before you commit to a larger size.

Most of my samples are oolongs which they recommend steeping in a gaiwan, but this one can be steeped Western style so I decided to try it. I’m willing to try any smoked tea and this one sounded so intriguing. Tea smoked over dried sugarcane? Sign me up! When I opened the package the black wiry leaf smelled like roasted chocolate. woooo!

So this got steeped in an infuser mug, their recommendations are for 3-4 minutes and I believe my steeping time approached that. I got a dark amber color of tea and the leaves smell earthy and lightly smoked.

The cup is a dark amber and smells a bit like a lapsang. My first sip of tea is lovely, a sweet infusion that reminds me of caramel and wood. It’s only in the finish of the tea that the delicate smoke becomes subtly apparent, along with a lovely sweetness that is lingering in my mouth. This is also oddly relaxing, or maybe I’m just falling asleep after lunch. ;-)

This reminds me of a really light lapsang in that it has the same tangy sort of barbeque-y element, but since the smoke is very light this would be a great entry into smoky teas for someone who’s afraid of them. :P

Norbu’s note mentions a slight astringency which I am not picking up on too much. Overall this is a really neat tea with a lot of different elements to it and I could certainly see myself ordering the full size. So glad I tried it and can’t wait for the weekend when I can try gonfu’ing my new wuyi and fenghuang oolongs!

p.s. I also got a lighter, but still lovely second steep out of it.

Still haven’t written a proper tasting note on this one, and I’m halfway through the package. I haven’t done a formal tasting, therefore. This tea has wonderful fruity, spicy, earthy notes, takes well to my relatively dilute but today quite careless brewing—light almost fruity/floral infusions followed by oversteeped ones that need a bit of dilution to bring them back from the brink of too strong, without being actually bitter. I don’t have any other wuyi yanchas handy to compare this one to, but I’ll certainly include it in my next order, and do a more formal tasting at that time.

Very good. Definitely get a floral taste. Got two good infusions from 3g in about 250-300ml water.

I didn’t take notes during my first session with this tea—I was too busy doing several other things at the time—but a discussion on another forum about Da Hong Pao came immediately to mind, where someone had said that a good DHP “…should be as crazy as combining hard rock music (intense roasted notes), with gospel (floral finish).” This tea felt just like that—overtones of bittersweet chocolate, earthy/toasty/deep/dark grounding the high fruity/peachy/floral notes. Wonderful stuff, accompanied by many deep happy sighs.

2.2 grams of dark twisted leaves, with little aroma, in a small porcelain gaiwan, with water at 205 degrees for the first set of infusions with about 60-75mL water per infusion.

Dropping the leaf into a preheated gaiwan, some fruity/peachy odors become more noticeable.

Just because I’m a tea-wimp, I started with a 10 second flash infusion just to get a sense of the tea. Even this overly dilute more or less rinse is a little fruity and sweet—peaches and honey. Very nice start.

A more proper 45 second infusion continues the sweet fruitiness, more intense, and very subtle almost grassy undertones without a trace of bitterness.

Another 45 second infusion is similarly sweet, right up front, little different from the previous.

1 minute infusion has a little astringency or spiciness starting to come through as an aftertaste, but the first and middle of each sip/swallow continues to be dominated by sweet and fruity.

1 minute 15 seconds, similar to previous.

90 second infusion, tart, fruity, sweet; spicey/astringent still mostly as aftertaste.

2 minute infusion is rather weak—the leaves appear to be reaching the end. Still sweet, fruity, and the astringency was virtually gone, but the sweetness and fruitiness were less intense.

4 minute infusion (note that the infusion temperature will have dropped quite a bit over 4 minutes in this thin porcelain gaiwan)—definitely the leaves are done. Only faint sweet/fruity/floral traces are left, and the dominant note is astringency/bitterness, although still quite mild.

This is a lovely oolong tea, quite delightful in the early and middle infusions, and brewed at this concentration, it promises improved staying power for multiple infusions if brewed more agressively—the fully hydrated leaves, which remain thin and twisty, occupy only about 25-30% of the volume of the gaiwan. I’ve mostly been brewing similar teas more concentrated, to fill the brewing vessel 1/2-2/3 full or more. At that concentration, this tea compares quite favorably to other ‘commercial’ Dan Cong style oolongs—notable not so much for endless infusions, but for mellow deliciousness that has too often been lacking in similar teas.

I love to play with the seeping time of Ya Bao. I thought that Verdant was the only one to sell this tea, so I was pleased to see that Norbu did At $4.75 for 50g it was hard to pass up. Since this was just picked I can notice differences between this and a more aged Yao Bao like Verdant’s. This has a sweet cedar taste to it. It seems like the aging of this tea brings out more fruit notes.

Wow! Received this as a sample and it is great!. Honey floral notes all around :) Lite astringency on the tongue, but still sweet. Norbu always delights me with a great sample.

It’s my day of delicious, full-bodied oolongs apparently. Golden and rich. Never tasted better.

Still delicious after being in a small plastic bag in my tea cabinet for the past two months.

The dry and damp leaves have a very subtle scent of distant flowers. I kept expecting a bolder aroma, but it’s as though they were content with reserving their floral qualities for the liquor.

Each infusion (I got about 5 before I decided to stop) was roughly the same, but in a fantastic way. I started with 90C water and about 30 seconds, increasing about 15 seconds for each subsequent infusion. The color was dark gold and tan and while the aroma of the cup continued to be light, the taste was full bodied oolong. My taste association with this tea is (at least today) sweet toasted bread and an equally sweet minty quality that confounds my taste logic. It’s not really minty in that sharp way that peppermint has, nor quite the potency of a spearmint (although that’s better). If you’ve ever noticed a minty quality to Tulsi basil, that’s closer to the mark. Anyway, it is very refreshing.

Definitely a a great tea to have on hand.

I infused this in my dark oolong yixing pot.

This was…interesting? I’m not a fan of pickled anything but this was actually not half bad. It was surprisingly mellow with a mild citrus tang at the end of each sip. The smell of the wet leaves was a bit of a turn off though.

This was one of my favorites from my Steepster Select box last fall. This is, simply put, a delicious Tie Guan Yin. The flavor is sweet, floral, smooth, just slightly grassy and creamy. There is no aftertaste; no bitterness. Underneath the floral oolong flavors is a basic “tea” flavor similar to a high quality white tea. It’s fascinating the way the flavors seem to be almost “layered” in this tea. Anyway, it’s such a wonderfully good-tasting tea that I’m going to have to seek it out and buy some more. I’m not usually a huge Tie Guan Yin fan, but I could drink this every day.