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I had a challenging day at work. Came home, looked at my tea stash and thought – I don’t want to make a decision. So I reached into my sample box and randomly pulled one out. When I saw this, my first reaction was ugggggg, and my second was – at least it came from Garret. For those that don’t really know me, let me explain. I want to like sheng, really I do. I keep buying samples, and I keep trying but it seems that the more I fall in love with shou the more I dislike sheng. The vast majority of the ones that I’ve tried have fallen into two categories – really green and bitter or dirty stagnant swamp water. And then I run into one like this……. if all sheng were like this I would drink more of it.
This is fantastic!!!!!!!!! It tastes like sheng…whatever that taste is….. a little green, a little smokey, a little earthy, clean. This one is darker than most I’ve had. It’s pretty sweet, it’s really good. If anyone out there is like me…..not liking the bitter greenness of sheng, I encourage you to try this.
Thank you so much Garret for including this sample in one of my orders.

Ze_Teamaker was kind enough to send me a sample of this. Thank you so much.
WOW. This is what I’ve been searching for in a moonlight tea. It starts out light, juicy, fruity, a little earthy, and totally amazing. As you steep it, it just keeps getting darker and darker. It’s still a little earthy, and juicy but it’s getting deeper and more savory. I used boiling water and started with flash steeps, still only at 15 sec by steeps 7 and 8. This is a fantastic example of a moonlight tea.

https://instagram.com/p/4NmhcMuE71/?taken-by=dex3657

GCTTB
MMMMMmmmmm this is good. Dry it smells like a rou gui, there is a cinnamon scent to it. Steeped it’s more like burnt sugar and caramel with a bit of woody oolong. For me this is a well balanced, interesting, really nice dark oolong. I like dark roast, but this isn’t really roasty, just heavily oxidized with a hint of burnt. Awesome.

GCTTB
Starting to think my taster is off tonight. Why does this taste like stone fruit, apricot? This is lighter than I think it should be for a Yunnan black, but wow us it sweet. This is more like the Nilgiri I was drinking earlier that a typical Chinese black. There is a hint of chocolate and malt in the scent but it doesn’t seem to be coming through in the taste. I like this but it’s odd.

GCTTB
This tea confuses me. I’m a big bold chocolatety Chinese black tea kind of girl. I don’t normally like the lighter style blacks, and I really don’t like Indian teas. So why do I like this so much?
It’s light, it’s fruity, grapey, winey, sweet, a little astringent – but in this one I find the little astringency balances the sweetness. I’m putting the rest back in the box, but this makes me wonder if I should watch for other teas from this estate.

GCTTB
This is outside my comfort zone, and I was pleasantly surprised. My thoughts are a little different than other reviewers, but I did steep it Western 80C 3min.
No floral, no grass, no vegetal – I thought it was more savory than most green teas I’ve tried. Deeper, darker somehow. It’s still not something that I would stock, but I enjoyed getting to try it.

GCTTB
Monoucha GenMaiCha – Kashima Tea Garden
Considering I don’t drink much green tea, I’m a pretty big fan of genmaicha. This is a really good one. Nice roasty flavor from the rice, just a hint of vegetal in the back. It’s a bit sweet, not at all bitter, and there’s lots of flavor. I reaaly like this.

GCTTB
I’ve had this style of tea before and was excited to try Tao’s version of it. I did rinse, and I did keep the steep times pretty short, but there is still something in here I dont like. One of my teacfreinds suggested another one tasted like the chemicals in her father’s wood working shop. I’m thinking that might be a good description of this. It’s woody, its musty, its old, and then something icky. Sorry this one was a miss.

GCTTB
I cold steeped this overnight and the result is fantastic. It’s like lemon candies, a little sweet a little tart, but really good.

I had tried this earlier using my prefered moonlight 80C water temp. It was nice a little sweet, a little hay like, maybe some honey. Of the moonlight cakes I bought, this was my favorite.
conversation was happening today regarding the best way to steep moonlight and OMGsrsly said….. boiling water, flash steeps. Really? OK I never use boiling water and certainly not on a white tea, but I respect her opinion so I tried this tonight using her method. Wow, I was wrong. This method takes this tea to another level. It really brings out the honey notes, there is some subtle fruit notes in the earlier steeps. Later steeps and this is becoming more like a black. The changes in the steeps is more pronounced. I need to revisit some of the other moonlights in my collection.
Tea friends are the best, thank you so much for making me try this. :)