Tea Urchin

I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of the ‘sticky rice’ taste, but regardless, this was a pleasant afternoon tea session, with many steepings. I’ve been out of town for most of the past 2 weeks & my garden is insanely overgrown & in need of attention. I had planned to head out there, but a downpour informed me that I would not be doing so, and so it’s tea & harp playing, all for me!

This is clean, with that shiny & bright feeling, as if a group of brass players were all playing, using mutes. Yup…that pretty much describes it. Also, the taste of olive leaf. There’s more, but there are no words to give. Thanks to Stephanie for the sample :)
Sipdown! 267

My god,

First thanks to the awesome Phi for giving me a sample of this one.

Here is the best example I can come up with this tea, this is the bastard child between
a very sweet yiwu AND a menhai production like the New Amerikah 2. It’s not bitter
per my standard but I do not find the NA2 to be too too bitter which is to say that
I love my teas VERY punchy.

The energy that goes out of this tea is awesome, deep relaxed calm that help me
to focus. I paired this tea with some solo piano jazz and it was perfect!

I will definitvely consider a cake of it at some point!
Cheers

Early spring material from Wan Gong (high altitude Yiwu village located near Gua Feng Zhai) which is supplemented by 10% from LBZ and Bing Dao. The cake itself is beautiful – beautiful whole leaves which have been well handled and carefully processed. Smooth and sweet from the first sip with a light buttery mouthfeel. In later steepings the bitterness increases but certainly not in an unpleasant way. There is a lingering sweet aftertaste to remind one that this is primarily YiWu area material. Nice mellowing Qi hits after the third cup. These leaves are excellent and the tea offers a very appealing mix of sweet and bitter. The tea is a winner and I definitely must give it a high recommendation. Note: I was fortunate enough to purchase one of the last 200g pressings of this cake which reduced my cost. I just checked the website and it seems they are now selling only the 357g cakes.

Thank you for the sample Phi!

Wow, a sheng with a creamy vanilla note! Very interesting! I wasn’t sure I was going to like this tea at first. My first steep started a little bland, second was creamy vanilla pudding and third started to develop a caramel note :)

Very interesting and tasty but again not something I will end up purchasing. Hurray for TeaFriend samples <3

Young and punchy.. This is too bitter for me to enjoy right now. I’m partial to middle aged sheng unless it’s a young jingmai.

Thank you for the sample Phi!

I’ve never had a sheng quite like this. Extremely floral, with notes of hay and honey and sunshine. The florals are different than the florals I get from other young sheng. I picture the flowers in my head and they are blue and purple instead of white and yellow. (I know that is a little odd.) Pretty thick liquor too. Not quite sweet, but not bitter either. An enigma! Very tasty. Totally up my alley and I want to drink more but not for this price.

Very clean shu, light fermentation, no off flavors.. Very thick, dark, and creamy in texture, color, and taste. Notes of wood, mushroom in the early steeps. Tea is very dark from steeps 2-8, lightening after. The later steeps become clearer, the flavor developing a caramelized sweetness. Overall, a full mouthfeel over 12 steeps, and a delicious way to get into ripe puerh without any potentially off-putting flavors. Definitely on the short list for “really good shupu.” At $60 for a 400g cake, this is a steal – definitely a daily drinker and accessible to new shupu drinkers.

This beauty isn’t the boisterous loud beauty that it’s sister bulang is… you need a lot of time and focus to really open Yiwu Beauty up. This is one of those rare teas that is best long after you think it’s a goner. A phoenix.

The initial steeps are kinda sugary generic yiwu, and around the time you think it is losing flavor… those later long soaks all of the sudden that sugar dusted yiwu is combine with deep fruit flavors. These later soaks is where it really shines.

While I wish the initial steeps were more boisterous and thick, this tea is worth taking the time and patience to get to know, because once she opens up she is a beauty.

Not something that I really enjoyed.. The rinse tasted like if you roasted baked beans over a campfire and could bottle that up in a taste-able form.. But then the steeps were super bitter to me at 195F. After a few steeps, nothing really changed, so I went to 175 and it was mellow and a little sweet. Too finicky for my tastes.

This tea is deceiving, since the taste is of a much older sheng. The aging has been accelerated and it shows in the very shou-like qualities. Notes of smoke, wood.. The first steep tasted like it was aged in an oak cask or something. Very enjoyable, but not my favorite either.

This is very complex.. Mildly astringent, for sure. Notes of floral, grassy, and for some reason, I smell roasted peanuts, but I don’t taste it. I really didn’t notice this tea change over time with the steeps. I wouldn’t buy more of this, but it’s still a pleasant experience to be sure.

The eye appeal of this cake is spectacular – great wrapper; nicely processed cake; beautiful whole leaf material (small leaf gushu). XiKong, Manzhuan and Yibang are all located in Mengla County, Xishuangbanna and understandingly their teas share many of the same characteristics. The scent of this cake is a subtle floral (rather like wildflowers). Light gold, clear tea liquor with the delicate scent of sweet floral and a granary sweetness in the taste. Decent mouthfeel with a low level bitterness on the edge of the tongue. The qi begins to make its presence known during the third steep. The mouth feel becomes thicker and pleasantly astringent as the tea session progressed. This most definitely is not a “knock your socks off’ sheng in terms of bold power but rather a delicate, sophisticated sheng that seeks to impress one with its underplayed subtlety (subtle aroma, subtle sweetness, subtle bitterness). The quality of the material is evident from beginning to end. This tea is best enjoyed when you can give it your full attention and drink it slowly so that you can appreciate all aspects of its elegance.

Truly a high grade yancha. Abounds with flowery aromas equaled by the flowery fruity flavors (peony/apricot) with a touch of honey. Used a 120ml yixing pot which rounded the flavors. Lasted quite a long time which shows a supreme example of tea perfection. Felt a nice relaxed comfort all the way through brewing and imbibing. Will be re-ordering in the future as they are out of stock at present. The price is agreeable to the tea’s value. Thanks Tea Urchin

Pleasantly bitter at the first few steeps, eventually mellowing into a honey-like sweetness. Tastes of grass/hay/wood, with a very clean aftertaste. A little bit of orchid/floral taste in there as well. Not the best jingmai that I’ve tried, but a solid sheng.

I should straight up review this tea at some point… it is like bulang light… as in bitterness but some aspects of florals and more subtle notes you don’t normally get from BULANG. Also delicious honey notes. This is one of my favorite teas, and I could drink it everyday… and need to save some to do that once it’s older and less tummy aggravating.

Anyways, when I was trying a sample of w2t’s 2015 colbert… the menghai blends made me think of each other. They have a lot of similarities… so I ended up having a show down between them yesterday. This is that tea drunk rant, after that Game of Thrones finale traumatized me:

For post 13… we have the Song of Water and Fire… The game of bulangs. You win or you doom cart.
To the left is our Geisha Snow, the Tea Urchin 2014 Bulang Beauty. To the right White 2 Tea’s champion: Colbert Targarian.

With a year of experience under her belt Geisha Snow has a much more refined taste. Future citizens of Bulang Shan will have a well rounded mannered experienced leader everyone can love. And at $99 for a full size cake, many more citizens can afford and enjoy her.

Fiesty and freshly plucked from the province of Yunnan comes Colbert Targarian. You can tell by looking at those big strong leaves that they can handle the heat of firey waters. While this champion is still green, the after taste endures. Colbert is a bit fiesty and still has those rough bulang manners. So he is a champion for those who already support Bulang-Shan ’ s claim to the throne, and is unlikely to convert any devotees to the path of Yiwu. Also at $80 for 200 grams, or $151.20 for a full size cake… This is a great leader this year for hard core bulang followers.

Both are great drinks and have show worthy wrappers.

At the end… I preferred Bulang Beauty… which pleased me because I really enjoyed Colbert but I already have a cake of Bulang Beauty to love and cherish. Based on what people say about aging, I’m sure Colbert will age better in the long term. It has a fuller body and bitterness… so if someone had money they should get both and enjoy them one after another :P

Why oh why does this have to be so good?! It has all the nectar notes of GFZ along with something slightly bitter. I’m still trying to place if it is a menghai or mengla type of bitter… I haven’t ever had LBZ straight, but know TU likes to blend with it, and there is a very light almost bulang bitterness… So I’d guess there is some of that in there. Maybe 10% with another 10% of another source, since it isn’t too prominent. The bitterness makes me think of manzhuan, but it doesn’t have the raw sugary after taste manzhuan or other yiwu sources seem to have to me.

The after taste lingers and lingers. This is fabulous ambrosia. I can see why it’s almost sold out.

Surprisingly, this hasn’t been reviewed yet! I’ve always wanted to try this cake – basically cause I think the wrapper is pretty.

Overall, a great example of young bulang. Sharp and bitter with floral notes of orchid and some lingering notes of apple skin. Probably not something I would drink in its young state, but still a solid tea.

Oh wow! This is my favorite Tea Urchin yet… yes I think even better than Bulang Beauty. I almost didn’t want to write this review because it is on sale right now and I don’t have the money for it or shipping.

Per the description you really can smell the caramel while you drink this tea. The taste is a sweet flower and bitter stem sort of mix. This is not subtle or gentle like most of Belle and Eugene’s teas. It is a kick in your face, like the horse on the label suggests.

The after taste lingers and is wonderful and captures more of the caramel. I NEED more of this… one or two cakes assuming it doesn’t sell out before I bring home the bacon! This is so creamy and sharp at the same time. I Love it.

Om nom nom nom nom stumbles off into tea drunk bliss

TL:DR: The most elegant salted caramel you can eat on a diet. Gives you a serious punch in taste and energy. Reminds me of a dessert bulang.

I used to have a bath oil that was suppose to be “Butterfly Nectar” but was a bit sweet and cloying and artificial. This tea is what I bought that hoping it would smell like. A little floral, a little spicey, a little bitter, a little fruit… but all together light and ethereal! You need to pay full attention to the tea to really get all of the notes, and I wasn’t prepared for that on the first steeping. I had to have a lil bit of a heavy hand brewing this, but it is totally worth it.

Wow… and the second time brewing it… (I should note I had a cold for part of it, but was sharing with my sister) I was super surprised how much it blossomed after I would have thought it was long dead. In the late teens early 20s steeps… I am getting serious dark peach notes. And the taste lingers forever. This is the magic of GFZ and why people pay crazy prices… its after taste and steepings that get better and better and longer and longer…

I had to edit this and up my rating. I drank it again and it’s having a super good tea day… I upped the steeping time and leaf ratio… and the fruit is a lot more aggressive in a delicious way! it’s like biting into a peach, and lingers forever.

woof this is a rough and tumble bitter masochistic puer. Strong as can be but still drinkable IMO. If I ever order from tea urchin again I will be sure to grab a cake

I really enjoyed this as the temperature of the water decreased a little bit through the session. It has a great “menthol” taste or cooling sensation, which is something that I haven’t had in puerh before.
Thanks, Stephanie!

annnnd this session was completely different I had shorter steepings which helped the “soapy” taste vanish but the liquor was no longer a darker reddish hue and now it was a deep honey. It didn’t help that I used 3 different types of water (spring, alkaline, filtered tap) in the same session but this time I had none of the dark fruity tastes and mianly just a generic sheng puer slight sweetness.

The only things that have held constant through all steeping of both session is it bubbles every steepings, not tea scum per say but definite bubbles maybe higher sapponin content? and also none of the steepings were ever bitter. Another interesting twist is that I read on yunnan sourcing this area has some “Camellia Taliensis growing in Jing Gu’s red soil has prominent large fat leaves and hairy white buds. Tea from this region is well-known for it’s beautiful appearance, and tea sellers have been know to blend this tea with Yi Wu tea to make it more beautiful and bright in appearance while at the same time bolstering it’s sweetness and thickness.”

so maybe this species has isnt own unique characteristics? and maybe that’s why it’s a cheaper price?

Your what hurts?

Too much confusion drinking this tea. The leaves look very dark and the liqour looked to be from puer at least 3-4 years older??? Every steep baffled me I will have to come back to this one. I can say it was on the dark fruitier end and VERY minerally almost metallic. Strange after every cup my brain couldn’t register anything flavor wise so I slammed cup after cup. I can also be certain it had a Very nice longevity as a result but I would say next time use more leaf but keep flash steepings the whole time longer steeps had a soapy taste. Nice silky feel and thirst quenching rather than throat drying.

?Glad I got a full oz sample no way I can figure this tea out in one go.

Light, no bitterness or astringency what so ever, grassy/sweet hay, slight “grass fed” butter flavor and hint of waffles in the aromatics , lasting flavor and feeling on the outer sides of the tongue.

A great value if lighter grassier teas are your thing not a favorite of mine personally but definitely indicative of older tress from a spring flushing.