Silk Road Teas

Produces a very rich dark liquor with a smooth mouthfeel. There’s a lot going on in the flavor of this Pu-er. Almost too much I think. I have a hard time picking out anything unique about this tea, other than it has that usual “barnyard” smell. Flavor is roasty and smooth. I’ve accidentally let this tea brew for over an hour, and it never got bitter. I find that it doesn’t rebrew all that well, not because of bitterness issues, but it’s hard to get a similar strong flavor that comes with the first brew.

Dark fine leaves produce a deep amber soup. Lovely sweet orchid notes. My sample disappeared too quickly.

This is a gorgeous tea with long (1 1/2 to 3") leaf sets. Cups to a pale yellow/green soup with nice thick mouth feel and a fresh, delicate, but noticeably savory (umami) taste. I’m not getting the orchid notes.

I brewed it with warm/hot water (175F?) poured gently over 12 or so leaves placed base down standing straight up in a 4 oz. ball jar. 1st steep (45 sec) was all fresh spring with a bit of mouth puckering. 2nd to 4th steeps with increasing temp and steep times yielding very enjoyable cups. Final steep (#5) with boiling water and drank it right out of the ball jar with the leaves at the bottom.

It’s a delicate tea, and maybe a bit tricky to brew, but has the umami taste of a nice fresh green and the mouth feel of a silver needle white. I’m very satisfied with the purchase.

It smells like water from boiled veggies, like asparagus, chard, and spinach. Not really my favourite tea smell.

My face is probably pretty ridiculous right now. I want to taste this tea, and give it a fair shot, but…

Yeah, ok. It’s green veggies and bean sprouts and it’s SWEET. Weird. I might get through 1/4 of my mug (I steeped it per Silk Road’s normal parameters, which is 1 tsp tea for 2 cups of water).

Umm, thank you, CrowKettle, for sharing this one with me. Definitely not something I’ll be buying myself, but green teas are always worth a try. I’ll be giving the rest of the sample to a friend to try.

I did at least 5 to 7 steepings earlier today with this tea. I decided to finish it off by adding the leaves into my tea tumbler (t free) add a bit of hot water, waited a minute, then topped with ice.

Pretty good! I didn’t add any sugar and the pu’er is light and ends on a sweet note, perfect cold. Hopefully this unclogs up all the excess pizza I ate for lunch. Ugg.

Ty to Meeka for a sample of this from our Steepster meetup!

No steeping instructions, and Silk Road has this tea out of stock so there was no info there! Whatev’s, I can deal with it. 200F, quick steeps via gaiwan. However,my constant trips to the gaiwan is driving my roommates a little annoyed, as they are scrambling around trying to get ready for their LARP trip this weekend.

No fishyness or bitterness, earthy flavor ending with a little sweetness. Early infusions has a dark chocolate note mid sip. What I find interesting is how this tea can be super black in colour, but with taste with a good level of flavor and not blasting pu’er strong!

i love this tea… white in general is just great! crisp and clean like a white tshirt!. it’s light yet bold.. for this brew we only used the sun :) i love sun iced tea in the summer….

Usingng it to make this: http://heartsdelights.blogspot.com/2009/08/oolong-tea-jelly.html

Chilling now, will report on the outcome later…

Received as a gift from our office mates, we love this tea! We’ve been having it almost everyday for the last week. Haven’t come across anyone who has have this tea and didn’t like it (yet).

Brewed in giawan and gaiwan teapot, so our preparation details are not to be trusted.

For me it’s a standard Chinese green. Dry leaf smells great- light, vegetal and the brew is delicious. Great everyday green tea for the green tea fanatics out there.

I was surprised at how much this tasted like a Dragon Well and that the company called for 185F water, but that is what I used. Just for curiosity, I am going to try one at 175F too. It has a toasty, nutty flavor, but for less price, I preferred the Organic Lung Ching (Long Jing – Dragon Well) from this company. I did the first steep for a little over 2 minutes and the second for 3. I probably won’t order again because I just didn’t appreciate the tea better than the $2.25 an ounce Dragon Well organic.

Gaiwan- 6 or 7 cups

This is a pretty good daily tea. I can see me drinking a lot of this in the summer. It’s pretty cheap which is always good. Light, crisp and refreshing if not overly complex. I’m on cup 6 in the first half an hour.

This was bought at a Silk Road tea tasting in Marin. At the tasting this tea was great! He demonstrated a very short steep on this one. About 10-15 seconds. Got home, and of course I can’t get it to steep perfect again. I steeped this for about 40 seconds today. It’s a light green tea with smaller leaves so the crumbs sit in my glass, which I like a lot. Not the best green, but it’s pretty good.

Subtle grassiness. Cough syrupiness. Medium green in color. Not much on the nose. It’s an ok tea to slurp in the afternoon as a little pick-me upper.

I steep this between 20-30 seconds in low temp water. 3-4 minutes below boiling.

I love flowers. Everything about them. Especially the way they smell. I am the guy who literally stops to smell roses…so I am a sucker for good Jasmine. Silk Roads Jasmine pearls have a balanced dry leaf aroma. The Jasmine scent shares the spotlight with a notable “fruity” aroma, like berries or jam. The leaf looks consistent and is really more of a light brown with a striking white stripe that runs along the middle of the pearl. The brown may be due to the fact that Jasmine pearls, while technically green tea, often are slightly oxidized. This helps the tea to absorb the scent of the Jasmine.

The first steep, done with water about 176F, was very light. It tasted like sweet water. Very little aroma in the first cup. On the second steep, I upped the temperature to about 190F (sometimes I forget you can be a bit harder on Chinese greens) and low and behold, I got the depth I was looking for. The jasmine scent was balanced now by a nice “pull” of astringency. The hotter water really brought out the dry taste of the tea. I was trying to taste the actually flavor of the green tea, which is hard to do with so much of what you are getting being Jasmine. The tea itself, even before being scented, is high quality. It had a slight vegetal zing and a savory after taste. Nice.

Ok, so the tea really got interesting after the 2nd steep. The 3rd was the most balanced so far. The leaves, now very open, seemed to really give up the goods. A deep briny liquor and delicate jasmine aroma really worked together. The Jasmine in this tea is not cloying or over sweet as in some lesser quality teas. I liked that the tea and the scent were partners, and not fighting for the spot light. The 4th steep continued the trend and I even drank a 5th too. The color of the liquor was a golden chestnut and the pale green leaves continued to open.

I really enjoyed this…a sophisticated Jasmine pearl is hard to find in the sea of tea thats out there. Try this. You wont be disappointed!

I like this tea, although it’s fairly mild. It has a little bit of the juicy floral flavor I like the best in oolongs of this type, without getting bitter or astringent. It has a lovely sweetness without being cloying. On the other hand, it’s not quite as flavorful as others of its ilk that I like very much. I get four steepings at 195 with out 3-4g in a medium gaiwan from it.

I like wuyi. Vegetal,strong,and affordable everyday.

Not my favorite green tea, but good for everyday use. Very vegetal/savory.