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oops… took me so long to get around to reviewing this tea that it’s now sold out, but here goes.
Unsmoked xiao zhong is one of my very favorite kinds of tea, I find it easy to enjoy in all kinds of situations and with all kinds of brewing methods, and this one didn’t disappoint. It was less sweet than I expected, with more of a refreshing pine-needle flavor. Not much texture, but much more subtle and complex flavor than I was expecting for the price.
I really have no idea what the description means by “Xiaozhong technology”. is it a reference to the cultivar? the processing method? we may never know.

I can’t seem to get a handle on this tea. Brewed with boiling water, it was strong and smoky; with cooler water, it came out light and maple-flavored. Either way, I enjoyed it as a morning treat with a dash of oat milk. The overall impression is kind of like English Breakfast with more complexity.

This is the first time I’ve had either a GABA tea or a tea grown in Russia, so I don’t really have any expectations going in. This is apparently a red tea but it almost seems more like a heavily oxidized oolong to me. The wet leaves are a pretty bronze color with an enticing smell of berries and chocolate.
The tea itself tastes ‘brighter’ than I would have expected, a strong fruity flavor with a smooth texture. There’s an odd tangyness that I haven’t come across in black tea, reminds me of pineapple juice. Overall it’s almost too fruity for me, but a nice change once in a while.

This tea brought back a surprisingly strong memory of planting tomato starters in little jars full of potting soil with my dad – the not-unpleasant smell of dirt with a hint of fresh green things. Intensely earthy with a little bit of bittersweetness and a viscous texture, just the thing to round off a heavy meal. I’m not sure I would have liked this when I first started drinking shou, but the taste has grown on me and at this point it’s downright comforting.

I enjoy the Jin Guan Yin cultivar but don’t often see it for sale, so I had to pick this one up. The overall impression is of baked goods, lots of sweet and toasty flavors. Moderate body. This tea lacks the depth and intensity of more expensive yancha I’ve tried, but it still makes a tasty drink that is easy and forgiving to brew. The flavor and texture scream ‘autumn’ to me, I’d drink this one in a thermos while apple-picking.

Purchased as part of Yunnan Sourcing’s aged white tea sampler, but I forgot to take notes on most of the other samples :) This tea is in an interesting place, the liquid is thick and dark but the flavor is still greener than I would expect from something 10 years old. Maybe it’s because this is a bai mu dan and most of the aged white tea I’ve had previously has been gong mei or shou mei grade? I found it a little tricky to brew without getting too bitter, but there’s some nice flavors in there, sweet and vegetal.

A nice pick-me-up this morning. The texture is thin but the taste makes up for it, perfectly balanced between bitter and sweet. The flavor is very much dark chocolate with a little bit of woodiness to it, I’m not getting the fruit flavors that the vendor describes. This tea punches above its weight, it reminds me of much more expensive black teas. Well worth it for anyone who enjoys chocolate notes.

I picked this up after reading about it on the Lazy Literatus’ blog because I was intrigued by a caffeine-free plant with more complex qualities than most herbals. The smell and taste are very fruity, almost too much for my taste. There’s also an interesting undertone of something sharper, maybe mint, almost like some Taiwanese black teas. If I drank this blindfolded I would have thought it was a black tea with added fruit flavor or maybe chrysanthemum flowers. The characteristic bitterness of tea is absent, but it’s still a decently strong and flavorful drink. It’s not replacing my daily drinkers, but I’ll keep this around as an herbal option for the evenings.

Much more like a typical black tea than Leaves of Cha’s other purple offerings. The leaves smell very smoky but the roast doesn’t overwhelm the flavor of the tea at all. There’s a nice strong malty base note that makes it clear this is an assamica varietal, but balanced by fruity overtones.

This tea brews up a beautiful red color with a nice thick texture, but the flavor is disappointingly one-note, overwhelmingly earthy without much else going on. It’s certainly not bad, but at this price point, there’s much more interesting shou available.