612 Tasting Notes
This hou kui’s leaves are even longer than Teavivre’s (for some reason the pic both here on Steepster and on the vendor website is wrong; it’s a duplicate photo of one of their other green teas), so long and straight and flat they came in their own special packaging and much like dried spaghetti wouldn’t fit in the tea pot until hot water softened it! Awesome. The way HKs look just tickles me.
This is silky smooth, buttery with a wonderful balance between savory satisfaction and gentle sweetness. The texture is really the star here; I love it. So far so good with hou kuis!
Preparation
This is light and sweet with the first steep, nice but not remarkable, but the second steep has much more flavor and aroma, a sort of springy, musky scent. The third was better still, with an almost lime-y tang. Nice stuff.
Preparation
This tastes more like I assumed keemun would taste when I first tried it in spring—smoky (though less so than most lapsang souchongs I’ve had), strong, and bittersweet in a way that evokes dark chocolate, a little like an assam mixed with an LS. The ones I tried earlier (from Teavivre and Harney if I recall) were lighter, less smoky, and sweeter, much more chocolate than smoke. This would make a welcome eye opener. I especially like the dry and brewing aroma.
Preparation
Had this last night on my mad tear to finish BB in time for the finale this Sunday. It’s much like the other Kusmis I’ve had in that the aroma and flavor is there, but it’s much subtler than you might expect from other companies’ flavors. This can be a positive or a negative depending. In this case, with a floral, I like it; I wouldn’t want to be hit over the head with flowers or feel like I’m smelling perfume, and I don’t. It’s a more delicate and fresh violet than that. Still not sure I’m sold on the black tea bases Kusmi uses, but they’re not awful either.
Preparation
So it seems I’m a big sucker for coconut bao zhongs/pouchongs as I love this in a guilty pleasure lap-it-up kind of way exactly as I did for Golden Moon’s. I think I possibly prefer Golden Moon’s slightly—should do a side-by-side at some point perhaps—but they’re both tasty treats. This one seems slightly sweeter/dessert-ier maybe while Golden Moon’s tastes more like fresh coconut water. I’d definitely reorder either.
Preparation
Seems another case of, “really nice, but Butiki’s has an edge, not that I’d say no to either if offered of course”. I really like paper wrapped oolongs it seems, which is kind of surprising given I usually shy away from delicate “girly” floral teas in favor of smoky or roasty or thick ones. Definitely wouldn’t satisfy one of my classic “jonesing for strong black tea” moods, but on a sunny work afternoon as a little light lovely breather I welcome these kinds of oolongs.
Preparation
Still more sampling from Nicole’s great giveaway. Thanks Nicole!
Tastes so much like Laoshan Black—which means it’s delicious, but maybe for me redundant, esp. considering how forgiving and flexible LB already is.
Preparation
That was what I landed on as well :)
I was JUST browsing the other reviews after I posted and saw that you said so and was like “yay I’m not the only one” ha!
Wow! I thought they tasted completely different!
Well, I have a really subtaster palate I’m pretty sure. I figure there’s tons of stuff flying right over me I miss. Whoosh. Ah well. (:
And to clarify, I don’t think they taste identical…just similar enough I think I could get away with just LB.
I found it really similar to LB as well, still a good tea but wouldn’t bother reordering.
Floral, relatively light, and fruity sweet with a little tang at the edges. Nice stuff. Not as climactically sexy as the early spring batch—egads, what could be?! A gongfu session of that gave me a glowy buzz for the entire rest of the day, ha—but I like how this is a zesty-floral, more subdued but still beautiful thing, the ideal denouement.
Preparation
5/5, definitely one of the best oolongs I’ve tried
This sample’s courtesy the generous Nicole—thank you so much! :D
I swear, the He family/Laoshan village can do no wrong. I’ve never had a bad tea from Verdant, and the very few that haven’t completely amazed me (but were fine, mind) have always been from a different source than the Hes. No matter when or what context I try something with “Laoshan” in the title I end up stilling in wonder. Not an exaggeration.
At first this tea is unbelievably creamy, but then there’s this clean, almost marine-y plant edge to it—fresh cucumber is the closest approximation—and the two together might sound like they’d be weird but it’s great. I’ve been vaguely aware of the notion of categories of oolongs for a while now, particularly green vs. roasted, but this is the first green oolong where the lightbulb just goes off in my head and I’m all “A-HA! It really is the qualities of an oolong, ones I’ve only just begun to grasp (that hard to describe steamy floral aspect and minerality), artfully paired with the qualities of a green tea (that vegetal, planty freshness and bitter-crisp bite)”. I can see why the site description mentions matcha ice cream, the way it has the snap of green tea flavor but the creaminess at the front softens it, makes it very palatable. As the tea cools and the steepings continue, more minerality comes into play but it’s tempered by that sweet, creamy aroma. The soybean aspect floats along for the entire journey, lingering in the wings.
