Happy 2023! I apologize for my long hiatus from Steepster. It’s certainly been a while.
Here’s another entry in my attempt to drink all the unroasted teas from Wang’s catalogue. Shan Cha is difficult to find, and to my knowledge, this is my second one after the excellent What-Cha version. Thanks to Wang Family Tea for the generous 25 g sample! I believe this is from 2021 and is the non-competition version. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus a few uncounted steeps.
The dry aroma is of apricots, rose, raisins, and autumn leaves. The first steep has notes of rose, dried apricots, raisins, autumn leaves, cream, malt, wood, and tannins. The stonefruit and rose are rather lovely! The next steep adds a bit of blackberry and more sweet rose and apricot over the malty, woody, tannic base. The next couple steeps are similar, with the addition of honey, grass, and clove. Steeps five and six are less strong on the apricot, but still have lots of rose and raisin. The tannins assert themselves increasingly strongly in the next few steeps, though the apricot and especially the rose continue to make this tea worth drinking. The final steeps are full of malt, tannins, earth, minerals, honey, and wood.
This is a lovely fruity, floral tea that I enjoyed just a little bit less than the What-Cha version. The tannins could get aggressive, both in my preferred shorter steeps and in the longer ones that Wang suggests on their website. I did, however, purchase the competition version of this tea from 2022, so we’ll see how it compares.
Flavors: Apricot, Autumn Leaf Pile, Blackberry, Clove, Cream, Dried Fruit, Earth, Grass, Honey, Malt, Mineral, Raisins, Rose, Tannin, Wood
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Hello! Good to see you back. So far, every review of Wang Family Tea I’ve read has been very positive. Bumping them up a notch on the “to investigate” list.
I’d definitely check them out if you like Taiwanese tea. They have clean, straightforward flavours and their teas tend not to be bitter/astringent. I think they also have inexpensive shipping in the U.S.
They’re shipping is free for orders $50 and up. I think my shipping was between $5-7 for a smaller order, but I usually get 50$ orders from them because I love Taiwanese teas and get from them in bulk.
Hello! Good to see you back. So far, every review of Wang Family Tea I’ve read has been very positive. Bumping them up a notch on the “to investigate” list.
I’d definitely check them out if you like Taiwanese tea. They have clean, straightforward flavours and their teas tend not to be bitter/astringent. I think they also have inexpensive shipping in the U.S.
They’re shipping is free for orders $50 and up. I think my shipping was between $5-7 for a smaller order, but I usually get 50$ orders from them because I love Taiwanese teas and get from them in bulk.