2015 Milk, Cream, and Alcohol

Dry leaf: A hint of mint, smoke, tart dried fruit, honey. Pretty loose cake material. Leaf in a warm clay pot had a slight vegetal and dankness to it.

Taste: Good sweetness, fruity with honey, a little tartness. Very full, smooth, slick mouthfeel 3rd steep on.

Liquor: Bright, beautiful, golden yellow.

Spent leaf: Olive to dark olive. No discolorations. Leaves were in decent condition.

Vessel: 125ml clay pot

The flavor and body were light on the 1st and 2nd steeps but had a nice honey aroma and a mouthwatering effect. Body and flavor really pick up at the 3rd steep and the liquor is a bright golden yellow. I got a tiny hint of mint at the beginning, but mostly a honey sweetness and tart dried fruit. I very much enjoyed the mouthfeel. Nice and creamy with a tiny touch of roughness on the tongue.

Overall, the mouthfeel was what really carried this tea for me. It was so nice you just wanted to keep on going with it.

Update 03/13/17 – The tea has rested a couple of weeks and I upped my leaf ratio. No more astringency and a nice honey sweetness is coming out. Upped my rating & updated notes! For me this was a lesson in letting the tea rest a bit.

This was my other Saturday day, another one with a fairly sweet fragrance coming off the dry leaves, which were loose in the sample bag. They took on a freshly fired aroma (if that makes any sense) upon being woken by water. The wash comes out a light amber and I give it a taste. It has a super light hint of sour fruit flavor.

Once I get into proper steeps, this tea becomes warm, buttery fruit, like the filling of a pie. Easy to drink. Tastes good. Affordable.

This is one that I have almost exclusively at work, grandpa-style, but after having had White2tea’s 2016 Prolaxicorvatin, I decided to break this one out today in the gaiwan. The comparison wasn’t as straightforward as I’d have thought: this one operates in a much higher register, with almost all the flavor concentrated on front of the mouth bitterness. There’s some finish in the back of the throat, but most everything lingers, again, in the front of the mouth. I’m mostly getting sharper pine flavors from this, rather than some of the lower, slightly fruity bitterness from some of the other Menghai teas I’ve had; this combines with the mouthfeel to offer something of a soapy impression on the early steeps, which, despite the sound of it, is actually pretty enjoyable. I also got taken by surprise on some actual qi in the early steeps, though this didn’t last terribly long. The durability is so-so, and the taste gets pretty hollow in later steeps.

If this reminds me of anything, it’s probably a Dayi 7542 that I picked up from Yunnan Sourcing, although this doesn’t have quite the menthol character that that one does. In fact, I’ve had the back to back at work a couple of times and had to concentrate a little to tell the difference. If you’re into the bitter side of young sheng (and I am), you’ll probably like this one. It’s not the most complex tea out there, but it’s enjoyable for a workhorse, daily drinker.

On initial steeping wet leaves have a subtle aroma of tobacco and peat smoke. This bears out in the flavor of early steeps, but goes away quickly. Early steeps needed to remain short to avoid bitterness, but with steeps kept short was very pleasant. Mouthfeel is creamy and smooth, especially on the early steeps. Later a slightly citrusy, fruity tang creeps in.

I enjoyed this tea and would consider getting more.

I’ve been drinking this one every day. It’s good enough for that, having a sort of generic young sheng flavor of sugar cane with floral scent. It might be on the bitter side for beginning beginners. I find it good for around 8-10 steeps, which is actually a good thing in that I don’t have to feel guilty for not devoting my whole attention to it over 15-20.

Drinking this sample I got with my W2T order. I’ve had it twice, both with 3.4g in a 60mL gaiwan. First with boiling water, second with 200 degree. I think I preferred it with 200 degree, but both were good and it merits further experimentation. With boiling, the tea got bitter pretty quickly and that bitterness was intense and pronounced for about 4 steeps. With cooler water, the bitterness crept up more slowly, but lasted longer – almost the entire session – but at a level I found pleasant. It kind of made my lips/tongue feel tingly. I think this bitterness might be accompanying a bit of a tobacco flavor. Towards the end of each session, but more with the lower temp (possibly just because I drank more steeps), the tea started to get a bit of a mouth-drying effect going, but I don’t think it was intolerable or anything. The taste made up for it.

In both sessions, the tea had a sweet and fruity finish. The cooler temperature session lasted longer before the tea died. It yielded many mildly bitter steeps with good sweetness and a pretty creamy body. The boiling session finished with some mostly sweet steeps, but not as many.

I may pick up a cake of this with my next W2T order, mainly because it’s relatively inexpensive and quite tasty.

Awesome little cake from White2Tea. One of my first cakes, and I’ve played around with this one more than any other puer. I’ve learned more about brewing young sheng from this cake than I thought possible.
Quite a bit going on with this one for what it is: a solid bang for your buck. The two main components I get depending on how I’m steeping/the number of steeps I’ve done are a strong vegetal/bean flavor and a distinct sweetness later on. Definitely touchy in early steeps and will get bitter quick if you’re not watching the temp of your water.

Resuming notes from the Pu TTB!

Light and green with notes of sugarcane, tobacco, corn, and a slight smokey gasoline note. Later steeps get thick and sweet, slightly spicy and herbaceous. This tea was very comparable to Menghai Dayi cakes and Yunnan Sourcing’s Impressions cake; solid, quality tea for daily drinking. Comparably I’d say a 7542 is the most bitter/powerful, YS Imprressions most flavorful, while the MC&A had the best body/thickness.

I’m not sure if this is one of the W2T shengs I’m supposed to review for the pu ttb, or if it was from a swap. Anyway, 4g into my 75ml yixing. Water just off boil. It starts out incredibly light, bordering on weak, but then the bitter, gut busting florals crash the party and by steep seven I am done. I did try water at a full boil to see if it would make a difference, and it didn’t seem to… the tea just got more bitter and mouth-puckering with each successive steep. I’ll take Little Walk over MCA for an easy drinking, affordable everyday young sheng any day. This one is just not my cuppa.

Pulled this out tonight for the first time. Broke off 10 grams for 160 ml. This tea is very weak and the first couple of steeps. Does get a little stronger the next few steeps but there really isn’t much to this tea. A bit of astrigency but that’s it. I was waiting for it to open up and give off something. Anything. It never did. Went through 10 steeps. I purchased a whole bing and I will drink it all up but it is not something I will be purchasing again.