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A Sheng Olympics sample. :) 7g sample in my 4oz gaiwan, steeping at 90-100C. I started drinking this yesterday… or was it 2 days ago? and now I’m taking it for a few more long steeps before I switch to something else. As I was drinking this earlier, I remember thinking that it would be hard to describe in a tasting note. It’s fairly smooth and clean-tasting, with that “old books” note that I associated with slightly-aged sheng. There’s a bit of pleasant bitterness, balanced against some sugar sweetness especially in the later steeps.

Another one from the Sheng Olympics. :) 4g sample in the gaiwan, trying to only partially-fill (just to cover the leaves). I started with 90C water but upgraded to boiling because it was so smooth and light. This is a lovely easy-drinking fresh sheng. It has a nice balance of sweetness and tanginess, closer to my personal tastes than the Whispering Sunshine I had earlier. Smooth, creamy mouthfeel. A little bit fruity, a lot more crisp vegetables and fresh spring water, reminiscent of a fresh green tea. Very clean and light, stands up to long steeps without becoming unpleasantly bitter. Slight huigan building up after drinking several infusions. Another good one for people who like their sheng puer sweet and smooth. :)

My first sample from the Sheng Olympics! Thanks again to Liquid Proust for organizing that, it’s so great to be able to try all these different shengs. I had this yesterday, so this is from memory. The sample was about 4.5g, and my gaiwan is in the 100-120ml range, so I had to get used to only partially filling the gaiwan in order to get the right tea to water ratio. So originally I thought I was getting such a mild flavour because I was adding too much water, but I think this is actually just a really mild sheng! It’s very easy to drink, quite sweet initially, followed by a light, crisp, vegetal note like cucumbers. The finish has a clean and slightly mineral quality, like fresh mountain spring water. Even after increasing the temperature to boiling, I couldn’t manage to get any bitterness out of these leaves, which I found pretty remarkable for a young sheng. The huigan is there, but very subtle. I liked this tea but find myself wishing for bolder flavour and a bit more bitterness. It would be great for people who like their shengs light and sweet though. :)

Another lovely sample from Wymm Tea. :) 6g in the 4oz gaiwan, 2 rinses with boiling water then steeping at 90deg, quick steeps (5-15sec). I really love the scent of the wet leaves of these past couple of shengs. I can’t really describe what it smells like, but I keep sticking my nose into my gaiwan after pouring to get another whiff of it. Clear light golden liquor, not much aroma to it. Wow, the mouthfeel of this tea is amazingly thick, almost syrupy. Intial steeps were very sweet, like honey-soaked apricots. Then later I started getting a sweet grassy flavour, like fresh hay. You can tell there’s a little bit of age on this, since the flavours are rounder and smoother, less of that bright zippy bitterness you see in the fresher shengs. Just a hint of that leather/old book note, and in later steeps a mineral flavour is really coming out. Nice aftertaste, with a lingering sweetness in the mouth and throat, and a slight drying sensation. I really like this one, the complexity of the flavour is quite lovely.

Finally trying some more of my Wymm Tea samples! 5g sample in my 4oz (ish) gaiwan, steeped at 90 deg – very fast steeps initially, then gradually adding some time. This was a very nice sheng, especially in the earlier steeps. The scent of the wet leaves was this amazing spicy tobacco-y freshness, and the flavour was quite complex, with a really prominent sweetness both in the back of the throat and on the lips. As I kept steeping, more of a grape skin bitterness and astringency came to the forefront. And then it eventually just ended up in bitter greens territory, which is when I lost interest. :)

Like last time, I found I like this one better than the Spring from the same set. Still quite brisk, but a bit smoother and fruitier. Clear light golden liquor, nice mouthfeel, sweetness coating the back of my throat. I think these leaves would go on for longer, but after about… I dunno, 10 steeps?… I’ve lost interest and am ready to move on to something else. :)

Hello, Steepster! I’ve been away for a while. Still drinking some tea, just not as much as before, and not bothering to log it. Anyway, I’ve been getting email notifications about the Sheng Olympics and will hopefully have some lovely sheng in my mailbox soon, so I thought I’d better reaquaint my palate with this kind of tea. Figured I’d start with this one as a bit of a baseline. I steeped 7g in a 4oz gaiwan, with boiling water and quick steeps, foolishly forgetting that cooler water would probably be better. Anyway, it’s quite bitter – not necessarily in a bad way, it didn’t make me stop drinking the tea, but it’s definitely at the upper end of what I consider tolerable in terms of bitterness. To balance that out, there is a lovely throat-coating sweetness that sort of randomly appears while drinking (especially if I clear my throat between sips). I got some apricot in some of the earlier steeps, especially in the aftertaste, but mostly it’s a kind of medicinal vegetal flavour. Quite bold and no-nonsense, so overall I think it worked out reasonably well as a sort of palate-cleanser. What should I try tomorrow? Maybe the autum or huangpian from this collection, or something diferent?

I also had to oversteep this a couple of times before I got it right. 2g of leaf, 10oz of water that boiled and then rested for a bit, 3min steep. This time, there’s a lovely sweetness, a slight fruity tartness, a bit of malt and cocoa. Nice, but apparently a bit finicky. :)

This is the first sheng I’m trying from Mandala. :) I pulled a chunk out of the bag and it weighed 4.5g, and I have a 3oz gaiwan, so I decided to just go for it. I did a long 30sec wash with boiling water and then let the leaves sit for a few min to see if they would loosen up, which they did. It was still mostly in a big chunk, so for my first infusion I did boiling water again and a 15-20sec steep. Yiiikes, very bitter. So I dialed down to 90deg and tried a 10sec steep – still bitter. Then down to 80deg and did a series of 10-15sec steeps. At this point the bitterness was tolerable, but still a bit sharper than with other shengs I’ve tried. In one of the fairly early steeps I got a strong aftertaste of apricot, but that didn’t persist into later steeps. Then I started to lengthen the steeps a bit, and once I was up to 40sec or so, I turned the temperature up to 90deg. Suddenly the bitterness mostly dropped away, and a thick sweetness replaced it! Fascinating. So now I’m sticking with this temp and just adding 10sec or so with each steep. I’m glad I stuck with it. The body feeling with this is warm with an “awake but calm” kind of mental state – very pleasant. I’m glad I have enough in this sample to experiment with it some more, but certainly not feeling the need to run out and buy a cake of it. :)

Oh, yum. You know when a tea just really hits the spot? That was this tea for me, tonight. After sampling a whole bunch of straight black teas in a row, I wanted to try something different and decided on a roasted oolong. This is one from my Zen Tea order that I hadn’t had a chance to try yet. The scent of the dry leaf is sweet and floral and definitely roasted. The liquor is also roasty-toasty and sweet, with an underlying minerality as one would expect from a rock oolong. It’s like… toasted multigrain bread drizzled with honey. So far I’ve steeped it three times: 2min, 3min, and 7 min (I checked after 5min and it seemed light, so I gave it another couple). I’ll probably give it one more ultra-long steep via the “pour boiling water on and then forget about it” method to see if I can wring the last bit of flavour from these leaves. I’m drinking the 3rd steep right now, and it’s noticeably more mineral than the first two, but still very sweet. Nom nom nom.