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Order of the Banzhang Zhengshan TF sampler from PJ just arrived yesterday and I’m super excited to try all these teas out. Supposedly, this is a newer, boutique factory that started in 2006.

This tea is pretty bitter for a 15 yo tea. Bitterness is medium with medium-low astringency. Bitterness does ameliorate starting at infusion 6, but the flavor that’s left isn’t phenomenal. Leaves smell of vanilla. Mouthfeel is nothing special.

Not a bad tea, but not very impressed with it either. Not super complex to my palate and tastes more like a 5 yo sheng than a 15 yo one. Perhaps that would make it good for aging, but if I’m not loving the undernotes, I don’t plan on caking it. On to the next sample…

Sample from fresh PS order. While my experience with puerh is not great enough to tell how dry storage vs wet storage should affect the flavor, this does seem like a fairly green tea for its age. Only trace bitterness though does seem to indicate that it has some age. Nice flavor overall.

Mouthfeel is only mildly thick, and even less so for its age. Stopped after infusion 8. I will say that this is the first time I’ve experienced what I assume others refer to as “cha qi,” and it was quite overpowering. Perhaps this also indicates it has some age to it?

That said, if I could sum the flavor of this tea up in one word, it would be “boring.” I wonder if/how much the storage conditions affect this experience. Not bad and pleasant to drink, but not the tea for me in the end. I have heard some people don’t trust PS’s reliability with older cakes such as this one…

Free sample from my last Verdant order. Verdant hit yet another one out of the park. The Li Family deserves an olympic medal for their teas. Absolutely gorgeous!

This varietal of tea is Fei Zi Xiao, named after a premium cultivar of lychees. This name translates as “the concubine smiles.” As the story goes, Emperor Tang Ming Huang of the Tang Dynasty ordered a batch of lychees to be rapidly transported (to keep them from going bad) from southern China to his palace in northern China to be given to his most beloved concubine, Yang Gui Fei. While I have tried many lychee-flavored things, I have not tried an actual lychee (on my bucket list), so take my next statement with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, I can’t claim to get any lychee flavor from this tea, but the lovely peach flavor will do in its stead :).

I’m EXTREMELY impressed with Verdant and they will be my go-to tea source for black teas and dan cong in the future. Also looking forward to trying some of their Chinese greens. From my limited experience with their teas, I am far more impressed with the quality than for other shops that offer such a wide variety, likely because they source from separate small farmers.

Not only is their tea phenomenal, but they obviously care about their customers, as this free sample is of one of their $0.44/g teas, which is exceedingly generous! As much as I love this tea, I don’t think I’ll have it on hand often because of the price (ballin’ on a budget), but I will certainly be ordering more of it from time to time.

Harvest: Spring 2022
Location: Wuyishan

Dry leaf: Dark chocolate, cinnamon, cherry.
Wet leaf: Malt, wheat
Flavor: Peach, sweet, tangy, honey,

Blehhh. Potent in all the wrong ways. 5 flash steeps. First tasted of absolutely nothing. Next 4 were horribly bitter and astringent with no semblance of beauty. Made me feel woozy on the 3rd steep (should’ve stopped then haha).

The 5 points I give it are for the smell of the wet leaf. Many of the notes I get off of teas are not exact matches in taste or smell. This one was absolutely, no doubt, 100%, hands-down dried apricot. No thinking about it it or anything; it was a reflex. Disappointing, then, that the liquor sucked butt.

Another freebie from W2T and the second strike on them for the day. I need a nice sesh of dan cong right about now…

Free mini sample. Initial experience is like licking hot metal. Not my thing. Some of the flavors like citrus and spicy notes are nice, but the metallic taste on the front end masks these desirable flavors.

It doesn’t come off as bitter to me really, although astringency is medium. As a lover of super dry red wine, though, my astringency scale may be a bit askew :).

Stopped after 6 infusions.

Cake batter is a top 3 ice cream flavor for me. This is that flavor in tea form and I love it. This finding is strange to me, as I wouldn’t consider that flavor to be a fermented-type flavor. But hey, I won’t complain :).

Mouthfeel is okay, but slightly disappointing. Nowhere near as flat as brown sugar, but not as full or interesting as a couple of shengs I’ve had either. Somewhat creamy, but not terribly so. Longevity is 12+ infusions.

This tea is certainly appropriately priced and one of W2T’s cheapest. Price and flavor make it tempting. So the question is ultimately: to cake or not to cake? I’ll probably end up getting a cake, tbh. Nothing bad about the mouthfeel, it’s just not a highlight. And the flavor is great.

An okay tea that is aptly named. Some good sweetness from the get-go and nice brown sugar flavor, but doesn’t compare to Cream for me.

Main issue for me is one of complexity. I get some brown sugar and maybe a bit of molasses, but that’s it. Mouthfeel is flat. Aftertaste is minimal to absent. Longevity is similarly disappointing. Even with boiling water and longer infusion intervals (+ 10-15 s), it went weak pretty quickly.

Ultimately, a long ways from cakeworthy.

Picked up a sample of this with my order of my first cake – 2016 Fade! An enjoyable tea with trace bitterness and no astringency. Flavor isn’t terribly complex though, but what flavor there is is nice.

Mouthfeel is surprisingly nice for a young sheng. Feels like it’s a blanket laying across the whole surface of my mouth. Longevity is ~ 17-18 infusions.

Enjoyable tea, but not worth it for the price. Fade is better.

Hmmm this one doesn’t strike me as worth the money at the moment. It’s certainly pleasant to drink. My nose seems to potentially be having an off-day, however. I’ll reserve a final judgment until tasting more of the sample.

Anyways, this is the last of the CLT samples I ordered. It starts off fairly vegetal in flavor and with only medium-low bitterness. Bitterness fades quickly and is replaced by a nice honey and honeydew flavor.

A big positive is that, even though I accidentally oversteeped an infusion by a good bit, it still was not harsh at all and was perhaps even better :).

Mouthfeel is medium-low thickness. Longevity is 12+ infusions.

The leaves look pretty high quality for sure, and it would likely age well. I enjoyed sitting down to this tea today, and am looking forward to be reacquainted with it in the near future.

Last of the 5 samples from Puerhshop. This one was free. Yet another cake under $0.10/g

Basically no bitterness or astringency. Mild sweetness. Initial flavor is bold for a sheng, but I find the complexity, mouthfeel, and longevity lacking. Apparently, Bangdong is a village in Lincang city.

I was really cheering for this tea from the get-go, primarily for two reasons. First, I found an identifiable smell (other than the “smell of sheng” that I can’t classify otherwise) to the wet leaves. Second, the initial 1-3 infusions were quite bold and the flavor was wonderful. Thereafter, the flavor declined steeply, and did not return by infusion 10 even with longer steeps and a temperature bump. I doubt upping the leaf/water ratio would help.

Overall I’m disappointed by this tea, but thankful to have received a free sample. I’m open to changing my opinion when I try the remaining sample again.

Wet leaf: citrus