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I got this one as a sample from a tea friend, who also happened to have done the art for this tea. Thanks, Steph!

My notes weren’t too in depth, but this was an easy drinker. Clean fermentation, earthy with a sweetness that built gradually throughout the session. I’m still working on my depth when it comes to analyzing shou, but I think this one is worth a try for fans of ripes!

Apparently I drank this. I didn’t take notes. This will serve as my note to drink it again and actually pay attention.

Got in on a split of this a couple months back. The bit I received isn’t particularly compressed, and after a rest and sniffing several times since then, I don’t get too much of a scent off the dry leaf. Once wet, however, the leaves give off a smoky aroma with a light sweetness.

This tea steeps out to a golden color and—again, since I had nowhere for wash water (and this tea is one of the pricier ones I’ve tried)—I drank the wash. There wasn’t much flavor there but it didn’t give a distinct huigan, smoothness and a light hint of dustiness.

This ended up being a very easy to drink tea for me, with a flavor profile that remained fairly consistent. I didn’t get much qi from it, but I will look forward to exploring this one further, for sure!

Don’t remember much about this session, but I took notes.

I drank the rinse due to having nowhere to toss rinse water, but it didn’t have much taste to it. Once wet, the leaves had a fruity, slightly smoky aroma, and in the first proper steep the liquor a light gold color. Fruitiness began to emerge a couple of steeps in, with a fruity aroma clinging to the cup and a creamy aftertaste lingering in the mouth.

All in all, I enjoyed this one and I think it’s worth a try, but it didn’t engage me enough to consider purchasing more.

Back to catching up on the backlog of notes stored in email drafts and on my phone. No longer have any clue when exactly I drank a lot of these, but that’s not the important part!

I picked up a sample of this as part of my last order on a tea friend’s recommendation, as I have recently discovered that I really enjoy bing dao material. Used 6 grams of leaf, which had a honey and beeswax aroma while dry and a stewed fruit aroma once wet.

The liquor had a slightly dusty aroma to it, but the flavor wasn’t dusty at all. This tea is smooth and tastes of a blend of honey and sweet cream, with a hint of something else. I got nothing but enjoyment out of this session, and would really like to cake this tea someday, tea fund allowing!

Steeped up the last of my sample of this up while playing Breath of the Wild the weekend it came out. Bad idea. I totally forgot about the tea and oversteeped it for like an hour, and this was while leafing pretty heavy! I still drank it, though, and flash steeped it more afterward.

Glad I did decide to cake it.

I still have a lot of notes to catch up on. Been drinking Moondance a lot lately and enjoying a variety of different experiences with it. I’ve had a total of three “distinct” sessions with it over the past two weeks. More if you count reusing the same leaves on a later day.

When started, Moondance is so nice and smooth, with a melon fruity flavor accompanied by light malt. Sometimes it is sweet enough that it truly tastes like sugar or honey has been mixed in, and that sweetness lingers in the back of the throat. It tends to be accompanied by complementary hay notes at this point, and really has a good amount of depth.

After being left to oxidize the flavor ends up transforming in a number of ways. This last session, I revisited the leaves a few times over a few days, and today the resulting brew was very reminiscent of an Assam black.

I thought drinking this hei cha when I was sick would be a good idea. I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It tasted like dust. :(

But it’s not the tea’s fault.

Drank a bit of this recently for the first time in a while. Very easy drinking, simple to enjoy. Nice, thick, smooth and soothing with a long-lasting session.