368 Tasting Notes
I have my tea tins in a line in the cabinet and the same variety is in the same spot in “the line up” all the time. This allows me to find tea when not yet awake. :-)
The problem is that if I make a substitution, it is easy to forget.
In the wake of my purchase of Golden Fleece I have been a bit tapped out on Yunnan golden. I need to forget before I can order another dian hong and enjoy it.
Meanwhile, this order of pre-chingming da hong pao is in the tea tin that usually has Yunnan gold in it, and I’ve been avoiding it because I forgot what was in it (the label is on top instead of on the front, which I now know to fix next time I fill it). So, this tea has languished.
I started an argument the last time I said this, but I’m going to say it again anyway. :-)
I really want to enjoy this tea with high quality dim sum. People forget, I think, that “dim sum” is the food, but when you invite people to eat that food, you don’t invite them to “dim sum” you invite them to yum cha — drink tea. The food is an excuse to linger over pots of tea without having to get fussy with gongfu.
There is something about these “in between” oolongs that makes me turn to food thinking that the pairings will help differentiate the various aspects of the tea. Pork fat to bring out the sweetness. Red bean bun to bring out the toasted notes. Shu mai bring out the brothy mouthfeel. Steamed bean curd skin wrapped around savory vegetables brings out the floral notes.
OK… now I have to make plans to yum cha…
Preparation
I am at the end of an emotionally taxing week and I needed an uncomplicated hug.
For me, that’s what shou is all about.
I love that it is good for me, I love that there is so much pedantry and history to learn about pu-erh, but at the end of it all, what I really love about shou is that it is strong, mellow, welcoming and quiet.
Preparation
Was at Field of Greens yesterday and opted to eat next door at the Path of Tea. My companion was excited they had lapsang, and so we got a pot.
Every time I have some other lapsang, I get a craving for my black dragon. I’m on my third steep and every deep sip just envelopes me like a huge from an old friend.
Preparation
I had this yesterday, or was it the day before?
It was fast becoming my go-to tea of choice when at the Path of Tea shop and ordering a pot, so the last time I was in I opted to buy some loose to bring home.
I am slowly but surely falling in love with all these Chinese black teas that have more or less no astringency. It makes me wonder why anyone drinks Assam. I mean, sure, it’s good with ice and lemon, but it certainly isn’t premium tea most of the time.
Something about this tea and others like it always makes me think of premium black strap rum.
Preparation
As is the way in Houston, two weeks of daily rain have given way to crushing humidity and Summer heat. This afternoon I’ll need to go water the garden for the first time since my birthday, and if I can get the back yard mowed today, I’ll officially have the lawn “under control” and out ahead of rain growth for the first time since June.
Liz has been gone for six weeks and I still don’t quite have my life into any kind of new rhythm or routines, yet. Uncertainty about work and the chaos around the house have made it nearly impossible to settle down.
I need pu-erh to soothe the soul.
This leaf still amazes me. Neither the gnarled little nubs of a shou, nor the flat, hard sheng one picks off a brick, this tea looks like a high mountain oolong.
Nor orchids here, though. As Charles says: just SHENG.
Preparation
I brewed up the last of this tea yesterday evening and throughout today.
I’ve been very distractible with work, and the gaiwan has been resulting in a lot of annoyed moments when I reach to find an empty cup. So, I brewed up full pots using quite a lot of leaf. Still more or less instant steep times, as though doing gongfu steeping.
The first three steeps produced a thick, frothing head when strained from the pyrex into the tea pot.
I’m on about my 8th steep at this point which means I’ve made something on the order of two gallons of this tea in the past 24 hours.
I am taking the last of it with me to qigong session in a few minutes.
I certainly hope that da hong of this quality proves to be far less elusive than we currently believe it to be.
Preparation
(I don’t know why I can’t get the image to attach)
Well, it appears I am the first to get to talk about this 2012 pre-chingming da hong pao!
This tea is a real eye opener to the significant differences that time of harvest can make with a tea. After my rinse, when the aroma of the wet leaf reached my nose, I had to run back and double-check the canister. I thought I had the wrong tea! “It smells like tiguanyin” I thought.
An amazing balance is present here between a floral, green oolong, and an amber, roasted one. It really is almost like a blend of da hong pao and tiguanyin. The result really is a “best of both worlds” flavor profile.
Preparation
We’ve been keeping a box of this in the cabinet for a long time now, and I never reviewed it as a hot tea (that I recall), but what I have been doing lately is steeping it cold, and the results are much better than the hot results.
I put 8 bags into a 3 quart vessel with tepid water, and stash it in the fridge over night.
The result is bright and green and that vegetal quality which is so great in expensive green tea and so lousy in cheap green tea is very muted here.
As I drink through the bottle, I keep adding back water (the tea bags are still in there) and I just keep drinking it down until the results seem to be getting thin, at which point I stop adding water. I probably get a gallon or two of green tea out of these 8 bags.
As refreshing as lemonade or sweet tea, but without the sugar, in Houston’s crushing Summer heat and humidity.
Preparation
Sometimes I make this tea, and I stare into the cup, and I think “I wish I could quit you”.
There are days you just don’t understand why you like lapsang. Today is that day.
I love drinking this tea with lots of different steeping techniques because you get a different flavor profile every time. Today is a medium short steep in a big pot, and it couldn’t be more different from recent gongfu steepings. This pot is all sharp edges and bristling questions, like an arson investigator picking his way through the lingering smoke. There are days this is what you want. If today is not that day, I have found that small, very short steeps produce a much rounder, softer cup.
Preparation
I desperately want to try this one, I plan to order a sample when I get more Baker Street Afternoon Blend.
Oh pants. I meant to order that, and completely forgot. There was something else someone had mentioned from Upton I’m realizing I forgot, too.
I haven’t had this tea in a long time, having long ago “upgraded” from this to Upton’s slightly pricier “Wang” offering.
But I’ve learned a lot about pu-erh since then, and I wanted to circle back around and see how this struck me differently, now.
First and formost, gongfu steeping brings out a much broader and brighter access to the “dusty, damp cave” flavor profile of this tea. I’m going to enjoy these leaves.