368 Tasting Notes
If I haven’t already gushed about this tea more than anyone cares to read, that’s an oversight.
Over the past year or so I have tried many other lapsangs because I was convinced it couldn’t just be this one which was so utterly perfect.
Well I was wrong. They’re all either too sharp or too smokey or too bitter or just plain crap. This tea is an absolutely shockingly well balanced cup.
ESPECIALLY if you think you don’t like smokey teas, try this one. I’m so glad to have 200 grams of it back in my pantry.
Preparation
I have this right between the two Yunan/Hunan golden teas I have rated because this tastes far more like a golden needle than a pu-erh. I suspect this is because the aging time is very short.
I really like this tea, and the heart shaped packs are very cute. Just don’t expect it to taste much like a truly aged, fermented pu-erh.
PS: THANK YOU to Chi of Tea for the free samples of this and a few other teas!
Preparation
Do you break apart the heart (since it says it will make a few cups) or is it just that you can resteep it for several cups?
No, we just made a small pot with the whole thing and then re-steeped it a few times.
I almost never make tea one cup at a time.
Ah. That makes sense.
Hence my notoriously bizarre Pyrex™ steeping method.
Having the last of this on this gray, drizzling morning. Apparently, typical Houston winters are like typical Rhode Island autumns. I guess the good news is that this is as bad as it gets and once this passes we’re back into the sunshine, rather than transitioning from this to four months of snow.
I really enjoyed this particular raw pu-erh. But after 200g of it (two orders of 100 at different times) I need a break, and I want to go back to the more mellow, soft flavors of my beloved fermented pu-erhs. A man can only drink so much construction site dust.
See Jim.
See Jim with the last of his prized golden needles.
See Jim steep the golden needles.
See Jim get an urgent business call and forget to set a timer.
See Jim horribly, horribly over steep the tea which he forgot about.
See Jim weep bitter tears into his bitter tea.
Cry Jim, cry.
The more I drink this one, the more I think it is way too sharp. I find myself cutting it with other teas to try to take the edge off.
In other news, I can’t update my profile pic. This has been true for weeks.
Weird. I’ve noticed that the site is very slow to load too. I don’t think they are actively doing any maintenance on the site.
Yes, their focus is on some other project.
I’ve noticed the extreme slowness too. I really thought this site was so cool when it was in its prime. I hate that it’s now on the back burner.
I don’t have any speed problems.
For a long time (like, many months) Twitter had the same problem with photos not uploading.
This bag came from the same small Japanese grocery here in Houston where I got the last big bag of genmai cha. So far, I rank them about equal in terms of flavor. These are pre-sealed bags of tea, after all, and I don’t expect anything exceptional.
I don’t know if there is even such a thing as “serious” genmai cha?
Preparation
We’ve been getting this tea from the bulk dry goods section of the [HEB] Central Market as kind of our go-to decaf for the evenings.
It is a bit too bitter and very prone to over steeping, but it is a perfectly drinkable too-late-to-drink-good-tea-without-losing-sleep beverage. Lime or lemon helps a lot.
