2007 White2Tea Repave

This is the final tea I have left from the last Here’s Hoping Teabox, which made it rounds shortly after I joined Steepster back in 2017. Can’t believe it took me this long to go through all the samples I’d stashed from that box, but here we are. Thank you to tea-sipper for organizing that box all those years ago, and to anyone that contributed tea to it. As a fledgling tea-drinker at the time, it was one of my first exposures to tea outside of grocery store teabags and a few bags of loose leaf I’d picked up on a vacation.

For the sipdown prompt, “an earthy tea.”

100ml (shiboridashi) | 4.4g | 205F | Rinse/10s/13s/16s/19s/22s/25s/28s/31s

The wet leaf smells of sour melon rind, rotting autumn leaves, and tobacco smoke. The tea steeped into a striking bright reddish-orange color, and smells like black licorice… a fennel/anise spiciness with an undertone of smoke. The first few sips even tasted a bit like licorice, but then a strong bitter note that tastes like dissolved Advil settles on the back of my tongue and after that I just taste marshy earth, wet leaves, and smoke… characteristics I’m not fond of, which is why I rarely opt for a pu’erh session. The second infusion wasn’t quite as abrasive, and actually wasn’t too bad if I focused in on the black licorice tones. Halfway into the session I was starting to taste some sweeter golden raisin notes as well as a dry grass vegetal note with far less bitterness in the aftertaste than early in the session, but my empty stomach was also starting to feel a bit woozy from the tea so I had to add some toast to the session. Late session brought out some white grapes and cucumber.

Overall, not a bad visit with Poochie Gamora.

I don’t really understand the high score for this tea. I bought a sample from my recent w2t order, and I was simply not impressed. Weak flavour and thin complexity, with weak texture and chaqi. There really isn’t anything to shout for this tea, maybe other than a decent aroma. It’s treading the border between plain mediocre and not so good tea. Not recommended.

Judging by my sample these are quite lightly pressed cakes. I just pulled it apart by hand and used 7 g in a 130 ml gaiwan. I got somewhere between 12 and 15 steeps split between two sessions. I always seem to lose the count, maybe I should start taking notes. Started with a quick rinse and a 10s first steep slowly increasing up to minute and a half for the last. Liquor is dark golden, amber, with a slight reddish hue.

The taste has the generic sheng vibe as expected. Some woody notes, a bit of bitterness, some flowers. What I liked about this tea are the fruity notes and the way they come and go and transform into one another. I got white grapes, plums, apricots, peaches, strawberry jam. Good stuff.

Meet one of my alter-egos, Poochie Gamora.

She’s a widow, living alone in the dank pine-paneled trailer of her deceased husband (21 years her senior, he died of lung cancer last year God bless his soul). A cougar now, at least she likes to think she is, but she’s showing signs of age. I’d call her a catch but she does the catching. She wears a long, thick-pile leopard print robe that she bought at Neiman Marcus in Houston, 1968. Permanently embedded in the plush is the scent of Chanel No. 5. Underneath is a silk camisole and garter belt, and in the top of her hose on her right leg she carries a small flask of peaty Laphroaig (she’s finishing off her deceased husband’s stockpile) of which she takes the occasional swig. On the coffee table, she has an open pack of Benson and Hedges menthols sitting next to a full ashtray and a pot of coffee she brewed this morning. It’s weak, can’t taste the coffee, but it’s bitter as hell. A crystal bowl contains a few Werther’s hard candies and apricot and strawberry bonbons, of which she ate one of each earlier. Stacked around the dank trailer are boxes containing decades-worth of newspapers and books, musty and yellowing in their age. It’s the end of a cool autumn Texas night and she’s lounging open-robed on her velour couch, with the taste of chipped ham and cream cheese still in her mouth. She’s fading in… and fading out.

Goodbye, Repave.

This is my first time sharing tasting notes… bear with me… or don’t.

Let me preface with – this was the first tea that spent time in my pumador before I drank it. I was having so much fun taking the cake apart (since it was not crumbly and flaky), that I put quite a bit more leaf in my gaiwan than I normally would have.

Early steeps, all 5 seconds or less: I taste paper matches, newsprint and tobacco. strong returning sweetness, like pure sugar. first time I have experienced it like this so sweet so quickly. pleasant mouth-drying astringency.

Start to feel the tea in my 5th steep. tingling on my scalp – warmth in my cheeks near my nose, heavy warmth in the center of my chest. dry/astringent/ paper like aspects of the taste are starting to fade, but the tobacco taste (along with a mild tongue numbing sensation) and the sweetness are in full force.

~Took a break after 5, chest feeling a bit tight, and I am at work! also, I like to walk around when my tea-high kicks in so I can better explore how it feels in my body.

Steeps 6,7&8 (10, 15, 20 seconds) Mild tobacco/tongue numbing, a slight back of throat tickle, nice viscosity. the aftertaste is sweet like honey, with just a touch of tartness, like fresh white nectarines. feels warm and comfortable in my shoulders.

Steeps 9, 10, … fucked up my steep counter. (first time counting steeps, dont yell at me!) 30 sec, 40 sec, 1 minute… or so… these longer steeps bring back some of the mouth-drying sensations. the sweetness reminds me a little of watermelon. I’m just now starting to sweat a little, definitely energized, and a bit hungry.

Whatever steep I’m on now… I let it steep while I walked around a bit. now I can feel it beneath my shoulder blades… perhaps I’m growing wings. Now it is pure sweetness like a watermelon jolly rancher.

The sweetness lingers in my mouth the entire time I wait for this next steep. this will likely be the last one – I get impatient when the steeps get a few minutes long.

Oooohhhhh! it’s so sweet! I’m going to do just one more.

Still exploring the wonderful world of pu and learning to put what I taste in words so please be gentle on my notes.

I’m using 7 grams of leaf in a 80ml gaiwan with boiling water.

Smell of the dry leaf is musty and average, not as musty as a ripe tea but definitely different than a young sheng.
Wet leaf has more of a tobacco hint, wet wood and a little ash from last night’s cigarette. It is inviting though and not an off-putting smell.
Empty cup and cha hai smell a little vegetal on top.

Taste of the first 3 infusions was quite dry and astringent and not open for loads of other flavours. The following infusions gain more depth giving some raisins and dried dates. Mouthfeel stays rather thin and clean. Some white grape flesh comes through around infusion 6 and 7. Astringency is now pleasing and nice and adds good depth to the tea. Currently steeping for about 40-50 seconds and I’m getting nice corn sweetness and sweet peas throughout the cup. I’m pushing the leafs a little and start getting some raspberry sweet notes. I have to say that I am not noticing smoke flavour in the cup which some others have commented. Steeping the tea for 3 minutes now around the 10th steep (I lost track) and some stone fruits have come into the mix, whilst the tea strength is definitely tapering off quite fast the remaining flavours are like lemonade. After a final powersteep of 10 minutes I call it quits. Cha qui is nothing out of the ordinary with some numbing of the teeth and a little tingle throughout the body, but definitely pleasant.

For a semi-aged sheng I like this tea a lot. And I’m currently seeing if I should buy 1 cake or more to drink more often, but I’m definitely adding this to the collection.

163/365

This is the last of the teas from my first White2Tea order. I can’t remember why I chose this one now, because the majority of the notes seem fairly negative. I’m not a great lover of bitterness in my pu’erh, and particularly not sheng. I must have read something redeeming at some point, though, so I’m going to give it a chance anyway! It’s the oldest of the shengs I selected, so I’m hoping age will be on its side…

I kept the first steep fairly minimal, at around 25 seconds. Fortunately, it’s perfectly smooth with absolutely no bitterness. It doesn’t have a huge amount of flavour; even the usual brassy sourness is missing! It’s lightly creamy, with a very slight edge of honey, and perhaps the tiniest bit of raw wood at the end of the sip. Pleasant, but not particularly arresting.

I left the second steep a little longer, just to see. I’ve found a touch of bitterness, but really no more than that. The flavour this time was unexpectedly smoky, with a woody undertone that’s quite pleasant. I’m surprised how different it was from the first steep, but I’ll probably reduce the time again for my next.

Third steep for 30 seconds, and the bitterness was again absent. I think there’s a fairly fine tipping point with this one; a case of a few seconds perhaps. The smokiness is present a little, but mostly in the background. For the most part, this is back to the smooth, creamy flavour of the first steep. It’s pleasant, but it’s finicky and lighter in flavour than I expected. On this plus side, no characteristic raw sheng flavour!

Third steep was for around 25 seconds; as the leaf unfurls, it obviously brews more quickly. There’s a tiny hint of bitterness, a touch of smoke, but mostly a raw wood flavour. The creaminess has disappeared. I could continue with this one for a while yet, but it’s time to go home! I may save my leaf and resume tomorrow, or I might move on to something else. I have enough left that I can return to this one in the future if I want to.

Found this to be a very uninteresting tea with little flavour beyond the usual sheng bitterness. Not nearly as nice as the Old Bear which has a similar age and price point and a lot more interesting things going on in the flavour.

10 g free sample which I split into two sessions, one after another.

I tend to enjoy maocha so this looser leaf pressing was familiar and so was the brewing.

It was enjoyable quality tea, I would consider buying a cake during their sales as a daily drinker.