Featured & New Tasting Notes

I tried this with hubby last night. I did a rinse of about 5 seconds and then kept this tea at 30 second steeps based on the description.

The first steeps were grassy and had a little “bite”, but not unpleasantly so. It was the same sort I get from Chun Mee, which usually finishes with a late rising sweet note. Hubby said he didn’t notice it, but most reviewers on here mention it and I definitely got it in the first four steeps.

The fifth and sixth steeps were sweeter, lacked the bite, and became ever so slightly creamy. These were my favorite steeps of the evening. Strangely, the sweet aftertaste came in here instead of on the early steeps where I expected it, and it was light and fleeting.

If you like sheng with a little muscle but no real violent tendencies, this could be a hit!

This cold brew was so limey you’d have never know that Stacy blended it in the states…

That’s a bad pun and I know it.

But seriously; it was the most delicious it’s tasted in a long time! Fresh lime with a bit of a peel/zest notes and a lovely damp earthiness. Just a pinch of berry thrown into the mix. Refreshing and delicious! Why can’t every brew of this come out this way?

It felt like… The moment before it rains?

New oolong players, Taiwan Sourcing!

First to review this it seems…

Pretty dark roast, this oolong surprisingly does not overwhelm with “roastiness”, no burnt taste.

The first note I got was cannabis… How do I know what cannabis tastes like? Well…i’ll leave that to your imagination ;-)

Eucalyptus follows….A fresh mouthfeel.

Dried fruit sweetness as well. A caramel feel, thickness in the mouth.

It rendered many steeps.

The liquor is this amazing amber bronze color, it does wear its name pretty well.

A beautiful tea.

I must say I’m very impressed with the quality I have found in Taiwan Sourcing products so far. With Scott Wilson (Yunnan Sourcing) behind it, why am I not surprised?

Good luck to them! I’m officially a fan :-)

https://instagram.com/p/4Koykpwh7u/

https://instagram.com/p/4KpzQRwh-O/

This is a true old arbor gushu puerh tea with a predominantly Yiwu floral flavor and a Menghai base flavor. Leaves and stems are large and thick and this tea steeps fifteen times or more. I used 5 grams of leaf in about 75-100 ml water, and this was too much for me due to a powerful head effect similar to what I experience with hydrocodone. Two cups and I was sweating, foggy headed, and heart palpitations, and had to sleep it off a couple times. Younger people might not need the nap, but one other person has confirmed the painkiller effect to me on his sample.

This tier of tea has layers of things to taste.I got mostly the floral Yiwu, some bitterness and astringency, along with hot pepper, grapes, aspirin, Chinese medicine, Apple vinegar and I don’t mean in a sour way, more that flavor of apples fermenting in wood casks. I’m certain as I continue to drink this tea I will find even more things to taste. The tea seems more bassy than last year’s, a bit more base than bud which to me adds more of those darker notes and rounds out the profile nicely. The painkiller effect is new, I’m certain that it wasn’t in last year’s edition.

I checked with TwoDog and he said the tea is the same arbor as last year, just different leaf of course. This cake would be interesting to see a Chinese medicine doctor try and learn about how it might be used as medicine. I hope to get a full cake myself. This is the best quality, highest tier of puerh tea we can acquire in the west. The best tea, period. I will never find better in my life than this.

A cautionary note for drinkers with heart issues, I believe I would be fine with a dosage of 3G/100ml but no more. You can read more on my blog http://deathbytea.blogspot.com and also take note of the reader comment who experienced a similar effect.

Thank you Rishi for the sample. I had this in a tea bag that was a free sample from Midwest Tea Fest. I won’t give a proper full review with elaborate Gongfu tasting notes (since it’s in a tea bag), but I think that when you’re looking at bagged green teas, this is a great one. The leaves are whole and the flavor is that of authentic Chinese green tea. It’s very vegetal and green tasting with some classic hints of green bean that you’ll sense in a lot of Chinese greens. I don’t typically buy bagged teas, so it’s not one I’d buy again, but It was nice and light, fresh tasting. I’d say this one veers more toward grassy and leafy than toward nutty or earthy, on the green tea flavor spectrum. It’s a good product for a person who likes tea bags… and it came in the nice pyramid shaped mesh tea bag to really give the leaves room to open and expand, which is helpful to the overall flavor. Thanks for the sample, Rishi Tea!

I got this in the mail earlier this week, but haven’t had time to sit down with it yet. I took today off to relax, so it’s a perfect day to spend some time with this tea.

I liked it right off the bat. As the information card notes, it has a sweet tang to it. I decided that this was an apricot sweetness with kind of a sour note, like a sweet and sour flavor. Very interesting! I love when a tea has a unique characteristic that makes me want to come back again. This one has that. The texture is slightly oily, which sounds bad, but it’s kind of how I find good sheng texture thickness. This one isn’t that thick but has that smoothness. It was not hard on my stomach at all, which is also nice. Overall, a very good sheng!

I always hate those long, drawn out posts that go on and on about the different steeps, so I’m going to make this fairly abbreviated and let the pictures speak for themselves.

I gave the pu an initial rinse and dumped it. Then the first steep was 30 seconds. This steep was super dark, a little bitter, notes of leather and tobacco. I decided to dump this one too and go with a shorter steep (15 seconds) this time. The second steep was delicious. Strong dark tea flavor, hints of leather but very pleasant and WHOA is it possible that I already have a tea buzz?

Full review and photos: https://tealover.net/2015/06/special-dark-ripe-puer-2006-mandala-tea/

This sample came to me from MissB, thanks! This tea reminded me a lot of Fauchon’s Chocolate Eclair, but on a black base instead of a dark oolong. A little more robustness to the base, but still a lot of thick milk chocolate flavor and sweetness, presumably from actual chocolate in the blend as well as the cacao nibs I see. This one left some substantial sludge in the bottom of my cup. Nonetheless, still quite tasty. Thanks for sending it along!

It’s been a long time Steepster..I have been pretty busy with life, had a work conference in Toronto last week, lots of events, not much time to have tea, except for a bunch of bagged peppermint last week lol. But I thought I’d log this tea this morning because it’s FRIDAY and I can finally (hopefully) go home and nap and catch up on sleep before my brother’s birthday celebration tonight. This tea is minty and fresh citrus, as usual. Tasty and happy to not have caffeine today, my digestion has been on a rollercoaster from too much eating out the past week and a half…need to eat veggies and avoid tannins for a bit! See previous notes on this tea :)

Oooh, this is tasty. Not quite spicy (heat), more like spicy (flavorful and smooth), with a hint of chocolate and a tiny bit of kick from the … cinnamon? Yes, I like this tea very, very much. Even more so that it came straight from Galway, for less shipping than I ever thought possible.

OH HELL YEAH!
My best friend came over last night and we picked out five pretty high end teas to drink with this included. We only ended up drinking three because we resteeped this tea four different times. This is one sneaky tea,who would of known it was a black tea by tasting it?
Water at 205f poured right over these guys. The lychee is strong and last throughout the steeps.
Now I want to know where I can find me some black pearls without jasmine in them so I can start to play with them.

Oh man this is good!! Another one from the travelling tea box.
At first I was skeptical. Surely this one would be too much for me. But it is super pleasant!
Other reviews are so right. With a splash of milk, it’s just perfect. Spicy, refreshing, and brisk. Quite astringent mind you. My mouth is super dried out feeling.
Still, if I see this in a store, I’m gettin it!!!

Thanks to MissB for this tea! The flavour combination of pineapple, mango, and chili is totally up my alley, and the mango chunks especially caught my eye. But somehow, I barely taste any of these notes in here. Just a hint of generic fruity sweetness but no chili heat or distinguishable mango or pineapple notes. Perhaps it’s an age thing? The base is nice and smooth, however.

Woo, 700th note!

I bought this from the Toronto Tea Festival about 5 months ago and haven’t added it to the database until now.

A few nights ago I steeped it in a gaiwan at 80C. Didn’t keep track of the steep length, but the tea was fairly neutral tasting, though as I went on it became more astringent and drying. I’d love to try steeping this with hotter water to see if develops the sweet, syrupy nature that made me buy this tea when I sampled it at the festival.

Maybe it’s my unrefined palette, but I’m having a hard time discriminating among the three Upton Keemuns I have recently sampled: Mao Feng, Mao Feng Superior and the Hao-Ya B. This one might have a little more body and a more prominent burgundy flavor but all three are smooth and fairly light with a nice sparkle in the cup.

dexter sent me this to try and today i tried to compare it with the 2014 version. I’m glad i have a little more to try this again because this was fairly flat and tasteless today compared to the 2014 version (which imo was a little less awesome than 2013). i’m going to withhold my rating until i have a chance to try this again….plus it’ll give me time to convince dexter to try it as well :)

Another sample from Lala (thank you!) which is also another SIPDOWN!!!

I’m pretty sure i’m reviewing this in the right place since it looked like a black and not a honeybush. Drank this one hot with added creamer. I enjoyed this better than butter beer. Since I added the creamer, I did get that feeling of ‘float’ taste and definitely got the root beer. Wouldn’t mind revisiting this one iced, but alas, my sample has been used up.

Thanks for sharing, Lala!

I’m on my fourth steep of this now (160F/3min), and I swear the hay note has transformed into coconut. The kind of sugary coconut you might get from the Hawaiian McDonald’s Haupia Pies. I liked the hay honey-jam of the first couple steeps but baked/fried coconut cream is a special class of friend.

Thanks, OMGsrsly, for bringing this over for me to try!

iZombie seasoned finaled recently and I miss it already. It has been renewed for season 2, if you care. So today I am having some Zombie Pearls. This is an awesome tea. Not just because I like playing with the name or the unusual look of the pearls. The flavor jumps out of the cup at you. For a white tea it is pretty assertive. Today I am getting wheat and corn. Tiny amount of bite but no bitterness. Love it.

GCTTB
This is a really well balanced blend. It’s not anyone of the three. Light, fruity, touch of astringency but thick mouth feel and tons of flavor. Really like this one.

My sweetie is out of town this weekend and I am tempted to just stay at home and drink tea! I haven’t done that for a while. I definitely plan to have a few sessions with some of my yixings.

I love a good assam in the morning. This came from Marzipan tea lover and is really hitting the spot on this foggy morning. It has a nice, malty heft without being muddy or flat. I am picking up a slight fruit or wine type of note. I definitely would recommend drinking this with milk. Mine was good with Silk Soymilk! I found I didn’t need to add sugar to this. Would consider having this around as sort of a standard every day assam. But I do like my old stand-by, which is the Organic assam from Harney & Sons.

thanks again Marzipan!

dropping the rating on this one a little. 2014 harvest and i am not a fan. it’s been a struggle to work my way through drinking this 2oz and there’s still a bunch left. It’s just not the same tea that it was in 2013.

Had this one on the porch with toast and honey. Now we are getting ready to go to a friend’s house to fish in their pond. A few weeks ago that would have been impossible for me.

Think I need to get some vanilla beans or something to give the rest of this some extra kick. There is nothing wrong with it but once you experience better, it is harder to settle, especially when better is already setting unopened in your collection.

Well hello there, tisane-I-ordered-months-ago-but-kept-stalling-on-trying. I knew I was off to a good start when I opened the bag and a cloud of blueberry filled the kitchen. It gets me in blueberry-jam-making mode, and clearly excessive hyphen usage.

This makes such a scrumptious, non-complicated, juicy cold brew. The liquor is ridiculously red but the hibiscus isn’t crazy. I’d say the blueberry and hibiscus are 50/50 but the latter is gentler and not as tart and rambunctious as it sometimes can be. I can this making excellent popsicles.