T Shop

Unfortunately, I don’t remember much about this. It was lightly oxidized and lightly roasted. Lots of orchid-grass-marshmallow floral creaminess in the first few steeps, then it turned bitter, tart and brisk.

I’m finally nearly done with the bag. I tried to focus my brewing by only drinking one tea at a time, but there’s probably more interesting teas to experiment with. By the end I was very bored of this tea. It’s on the pricier side of daily drinker, but perfectly acceptable in the sense that the taste profile shifts within a narrow range (sweet hongcha territory) and is never particularly disappointing. However, it’s not enthralling enough for me to want another 56g of it.

some strawberry jam like taste in the malt, and some borderline chocolate notes. this is decent and possibly more exciting? but between this and the oolong, I’d go for the red water oolong which I feel like I liked more.

A great work tea. The taste is more akin to black tea with all the malty notes though, than an oolong. some roasty notes. There can be some occasional sweet potato, vegetal, fruity notes, and overall it can range from soft to toasty depending on ratio and brewing. I liked it! I do have a ton of other teas to make it through, so will not repurchase for now.

this was my work tea for a good week or so. It’s an incredibly aromatic floral bomb and can withstand extended cold brewing, if one is so inclined. I pushed it for 3 days just to see before I was tired and finally tossed it. There’s also honeyed and fruity notes throughout, but those fade after a while. So why the “was”? Something about it is oddly … strong. Part of the problem is that I have no scale at work, so I’ve been guessing and have probably been overdoing it. At any rate, I was feeling a sort of dread continually in the mornings and afternoons and connected it back to this and drinking on anything other than a full stomach. And like any old gen Z loser, I am generally stressed about something or other. But I don’t generally feel strong anxiety that I can’t trace back to anything specific. Excess caffeine always brings jitters and never anxiety. I’m on hiatus with this for the time being.

TShop Old Bush Shui Xian

Read last night that higher end of acceptable TDS (~100) works better for oolong so testing that on a pretty pricey sample… Yancha is a rich man’s game.

My Brita filter needs to be replaced, but TDS readings at about 96 last night when I checked. I would normally brew pricier things with Poland Spring just because I don’t like the tap here, but thought this might be interesting. Also, Nestle is an awful corporation to support, but PS is very affordable for cheap, decent water relative to the other options at the store.

212f, YS 60 mL gaiwan (45 mL functional volume (i.e. volume in cup) normally with ~2.5g of puer), 4.2g

Dry leaf has nice roasted hint and similar in warmed gaiwan. Maybe slight hazelnut chocolate-y aspect. Something bready, maybe creamy about it as well. Or maybe my nose is off since a lot of things have seemed like that lately. Wet leaf is pretty standard for roast, not as sweet as gaiwan lid
Steeps varied; didn’t time

First steep is a sugary taste, as well as the minty/soapy aftertaste that I’ve been associating with these teas, and transitions into something vaguely reminding me of celery sticks, if there was a certain floral aspect tagged on as well. Guess those must be the mineral taste mentioned in the descriptor
2nd: roast is very upfront, mixed aftertaste after like before from celery to crisp sugar to sometimes crushed mint. Decent texture. Something very floral, osmanthus reminiscent tinged medicinal slight bitter in taste. Sweetness in aftertaste lingers on tongue and in throat, with slight floral aspect. If this is an aspect of yanyun, I think this hits it.
3rd: roast less upfront. More obvious floral and slight bitter medicinal aspect. Aftertaste still has the soapy/mint aspect. Slight floral and sweetness in throat, less strong than before, but still lingers.
4th: some roast, a broad sweet floral taste. Lighter aftertaste.
5th: slight sharpness to roast. Sweet taste. Celery and soapy aspect to aftertaste
6th: sweet floral.
7th: longer steep brings out slight sourness and astringency before turning into a minty aftertaste. Stopped here. Will thermos remainder
Cold cup from part of first cup cooled: tastes like chocolate. Not particularly strong in any aspect of aftertaste, only slight crushed mint

Onto Poland spring water. 46 TDS today. Same gaiwan and parameters, maybe .1g less? Scale has been moody lately.

First steep: roast taste only. Aftertaste is strong sugar, then the crushed mint that I’ve come to be familiar with.

Second steep: also strong roast taste, some sour aspect. This is pathetic. Some of the crushed mint aspect lingers, combining with the roast on the front of the tongue, but nothing like what it was before. Some harsh, acrid aspect.

3rd: Harsh and sharp, flat. Crushed mint dominant on aftertaste. Will stop here and thermos the rest for another day.

I wasn’t able to finish the second session, being thrown off by the extreme difference. This was also more than enough caffeine today, considering that I have to finish up a thermos of yesterday’s shou too. Aside from that, finding that the PS almost completely hollowed out the tea, leaving mainly the roast and a sour ish aspect and crushed mint in aftertaste, with none of the complexity from the tap. This also explains why almost every oolong I’ve taken notes on appears to shift within the same narrow profile (I’ve been using PS for every oolong and most “nicer” teas I took notes for, just to keep things consistent) and also why my notes on some appear to differ from ones I’ve seen people post online for teas from say TXS and ORT. I’m distraught at all the roasted oolongs that I feel like I’ve wasted now… Another lesson to take tasting notes with a grain of salt I guess. Knowing myself, I can almost certainly guarantee that I would’ve grumbled here about this being $2.25/g for the sample if I’d brewed it the way I normally do. Sad, yet lesson learned.

edit: thermos with the partly used leaves from PS water and the spent ones with filtered water. It had a slight sharp bitterness from the roast, reminding me of something like coffee. Some of the aftertaste was intact, though slight. Aroma was nice. So not too much of an exception here; I find that only aged oolongs do well thermos’d.

Thanks Tykal for the sample!

4.9g, 90mL gaiwan, Brita filtered tap.

Overall impressions based on a cursory session. definitely sticky rice in profile, but also something about it has a slight caramel note among the lightly woodsy notes. In one infusion that I smelled the wet leaf, it had a slight smoky sweet woody smell, which I’m pretty sure I still might’ve reasonably mistaken for oolong had I not seen the label. And the classic shou smell does come through eventually, though it’s pretty clean here. for one cup, the empty cup aroma is also surprisingly sweet in a roasted oolong empty cup aroma way. This was kind of boring. Thermos’d after a few steeps.

This tea I have received ages ago from derk, tried once in grandpa style (2 grams); now I decided to gongfu (remaining 4 grams) + 125 ml gaiwan. Thank you! As well SIPDOWN 56.

I preheated the gaiwan prior adding the tea; and then tea produced wonderful aroma of baked sweet potatoes, roasty. The rinse woke up more the roast note; honeyish note, maltiness and floral notes. Sweet somehow. Lovely.

1st steep, 7-8 seconds
Bready, roasty, tea. Bit lighter than I thought. But tasty nonetheless.
2nd steep, 15 seconds
Dried fruits; roasted and still bready. Long mouthfeel. When colder I noriced red berries, especially currants.
3rd steep, 20 seconds
Very similar to second, just more intense. Yum.
4th steep 30 seconds
Nice roasty and round taste, but fruits are gone.
5th steep, 45 seconds
6th steep, 1 minute
Both last steeps were round and roasty, but gone with anything more unique and interesting. But still a very nice and wonderful experience.

Milky, floral. A light oolong, very nice for daily drinking. Keep to short steeps, and it really opens up nicely.

This is more of a black tea in taste regards than an oolong. It’s balled up and has that nice texture, but the tannin power and all that’s going on kind of keeps me from wanting to go back into it. Just a personal preference.

I’m finding that I can tolerate these older shengs, but this is the first one that I actually enjoy.

I would have to agree with Liquid Proust on this tea in that it is quite smoky and smooth. There is a bit of astringency on the back of the palate, but just a tiny bit. There’s just a hint of woodsiness, like cedar?

Leaves my palate all tingly after I swallow!!

This is the smoothest smokey sheng I have ever tasted and probably ever will. The mouth feel after makes me willing to pay $.80 a gram on this as I do with oolongs (and more).

Why does this have to be sold out… come on T Shop, you gave it out to the Kickstarter backers and then tell us it’s sold out… UGHHHHHHHHHH, this is one of the few things I would buy. What a beautiful session this was as the complexity had no rough edges for me to figure out, just smooth smooth smooth smokey sheng; I must add that I’m not even one to like smokey anything.

edit after continuing this session I will have to admit I would probably pay $1.00/g for this stuff, where is it wonderful. Such smooth and great taste each and ever steep.

This is a beautiful vegetal, nutty, and medium-body green tea. Discovered this at my local favorite T Shop, New York City. I was fortunate to buy one of the last stock of the teas. I finished the tea far too fast. Round body mouthful. My tastebuds tries to cling onto the aftertaste upon each swallow.

There is still a tasting of the sanxia offered at T Shop, but not for sale.

This came with one of the three (or four) shipments from the Kickstarter. This is from round one and it’s an absolutely wonderful tea. Talk about vibrant colors and the taste of spring grass with fresh vegetables.

Really good tea, pretty curious on the pricing to compare to Japanese tea as I continue to search for daily drinking greens. Wish I could share some, but I drank all of it quick :)

Exciting news everybody…I am now blogging directly from Taiwan! I moved to Taipei about two months ago, so sorry about the slow pace of my reviews lately. Anyways, on to the tea…

Today’s tea is the Red Water Oolong from T Shop in New York City.

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I should start by saying that T Shop is probably my favorite tea shop in all of New York City. I visited this awesome shop for the first time last June and I immediately fell in love. It is the only specialty tea shop that I have found so far in New York that is able to serve incredibly high quality tea without being overly pretentious about it. When I visited T Shop, I had a Charcoal Roasted Cui Feng and a Dong Ding that were both incredible, the very pinnacle of each of these styles of tea. I hate to sound overly dramatic, but both of these teas were probably up there in the Top 10 best teas I have had in my life.

For some reason that I don’t understand, I didn’t buy either of those teas to take home with me. Perhaps I was scared off because they were quite expensive, but I definitely regret not buying at least an ounce or two try out at home. After speaking with Theresa, the super friendly and knowledgeable owner, I decided on the Red Water Oolong to take home. Theresa and I spent a good bit of time discussing how awesome and perfect Taiwan is, so when she described this tea as a very traditional Taiwanese style tea, I couldn’t say no.

In case you are not familiar, Red Water or 红水 (Hóng Shuǐ) is a very old school style of Taiwanese oolong in which the leaves undergo a much longer oxidation process than most modern Taiwanese oolongs. From what I understand, this tea is usually made in the Lugu region, where Dong Ding is made. I’m not sure if T Shop sources their Red Water oolong from there, but I do know that this tea came from Taiwan. I wish I asked more questions while I had Theresa’s attention. Regardless, I trust her tea sourcing skills and I’m sure this tea is a great example of Hóng Shuǐ oolong.

Dry Leaf

As one would expect from a highly oxidized tea, these leaves are quite dark. There are no broken leaves or dust, even in the bottom of the bag. These leaves definitely have a strong oxidized aroma, but there is also a slight fruity aroma that smells like raisins or prunes perhaps, somewhat similar to the aroma of a Sun Moon Lake style Taiwanese black tea.

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Once I put the leaves into my warmed teapot, the more complex smells came through. A honey sweetness and slight floral quality drifted out of the teapot. The aromas were strong enough that my friend on the other side of the room asked what we were drinking.

In case you like to keep track of these sorts of things, I used 6.5 grams of tea for this review.

Teaware

I broke out my new side-handled teapot for this review. Isn’t she beautiful?

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I bought this pot from a tea ceramicist in Yingge, Taiwan, which is probably the most famous ceramics town in all of Taiwan. As a result, the town is flooded with a ton of crappy ceramics made for tourists, so you have to dig a bit to find the good stuff. Luckily I was with some good tea friends who pointed me in the right direction.

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Here’s the backside, in case you are curious. Or is it called the teapot butt? Not sure.

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This teapot was made by a Taiwanese ceramicist who studied in Japan and has a very Japanese influenced style. So I suppose this teapot is sort of a Taiwanese-Japanese fusion design?

The rest of my setup is quite minimalist, but I couldn’t bring over all of my tea equipment with me in my suitcase sadly.

Brewing

I started off the brewing with a quick five second rinse.

For the first steep, I let the tea infuse for about 35 seconds or so before decanting the tea into small cups for the three tea drinkers.

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The first steep is a bit lighter than I anticipated, so I suppose the tea is still opening up at this point. The most noticeable flavor right off the bat is definitely the heavily oxidized flavor. This tea seems to ride the delicate line between a heavily oxidized oolong and a less oxidized black tea.

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This tea really starts to shine during the second and third steeps. As you can see, the tea is significantly darker at this point, almost the color of a Keemun or Sun Moon Lake black tea. The dried fruit notes have fully developed at this point, releasing layers of raisin and plum flavors. While I find many Hóng Shuǐ oolongs to be thin and flat in the mouth, this tea has an incredible deep and rich mouthfeel. The finish is very dark and complex, with a pleasant sweet aftertaste and clean feeling that lingers in the mouth for several minutes.

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This tea is not a simple dark oolong. There are so many flavors and nuances that this tea deserves to be drunk in a quiet and focused setting in order to to appreciate the subtle flavor differences between steeps.

The later steeps (7-9) are where the sweetness of this tea really develops. Each of these later steeps finished off with a deep honey sweetness. These later steeps even have a slight floral finish, which was unexpected. I have never tasted a Hóng Shuǐ oolong that developed into more floral notes at the finish.

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I was amazed by how much life this tea has. I ended up taking the tea leaves in my to-go “grandpa style” tea tumbler after the tenth steep, since this tea definitely still has a lot to give, even though I ran out of time!

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Unlike many darker oolongs, this Hóng Shuǐ is incredibly forgiving. If you leave it in the pot for a few seconds too long, it won’t turn bitter on you. This quality only appears in the highest quality of heavily oxidized oolong, so this tea has definitely been crafted by a true tea master. As a result, this tea is quite nice to drink as a “grandpa style” tea.

Finished Leaf

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Although these tea leaves were not quite done after this review, I made sure to snap a quick photo. I was surprised to see how long these tea leaves are. The leaves were quite curly and wrinkly, almost leathery. This texture is likely a result of the heavy oxidation and rolling process that the Hóng Shuǐ style requires.

Conclusion

Although this style of tea is not usually something that appeals to me, it really hit the spot today. I think that after only two months in Taiwan, I’ve gotten a bit burnt out by the overabundance of the more green, high mountain style oolongs. So this Hóng Shuǐ was a very nice change of pace.

Perhaps most importantly, this tea simply feels nice. My body and mind feel much better after drinking this tea.

This tea also works quite well as a “grandpa style” tea (leaves in a mug, with no filtering) as long as you don’t use too many leaves. I suggest using only eight or nine leaf balls (that sounds weird) for a typical coffee mug.

This tea sells for $18 for 2 ounces, or $40 for 5 ounces, so it is definitely on the more expensive side. T Shop is more expensive than many other tea stores online, but their teas and teawares are some of the highest quality items I have seen. I would probably save these teas for more special occasions due to the higher price, but I know that I will enjoy them immensely.

I don’t know if I will buy this tea again, since I’m usually more into roasted oolongs. But for those of you out there that really like the more heavily oxidized teas, I definitely think you should give this tea a shot. Regardless, I will likely place another order with T Shop in the future, and I will definitely visit the shop as often as possible when I am in New York City.

http://www.tshopny.com/shop/red-water

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. ~ Thich Nat Hahn

T Shop is BY FAR the BEST tea place in all of NYC. Seriously. Ambiance is amazing. Owner is incredibly nice. It almost felt like having tea at home!

This tea was special. I will definitely be posting a longer note when I get the chance…. since I bought some!