121 Tasting Notes

Back on this great tea again this morning. It remains a lovely, easy drinking sheng puerh. I find it to be a really lovely breakfast drink (and it went very well with my lovely apricot custard danish…!). It always seems to just out-last me, too, steeping on and on with loads of flavour and presence.

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I finally cracked open my brick of this lovely sheng a few days ago, after several years of it sitting happy and tightly wrapped in my sheng-box.

The leaves smell really quite lovely and the brick is nice and easy to prize apart into good chunks for the pot. It has that lovely forest aroma that sheng puerhs usually do, with a slightly musty undertone.

The brew is absolutely delicious. It’s sweet and refreshing on the palette, with lovely notes of honey and marmalade. It steeps out well, producing a golden-brown/light orange tea. It never becomes too astringent or bitter but has enough body and character to make it an interesting brew.

Flavors: Forest Floor, Honey, Orange

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C

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Brewed up about half of my remaining supply of this lovely black tea yesterday. My boyfriend and I shared the steeps and it remains as lovely as it always did. Lots of sweetness, smoke-tinged flavours, and lovely sweet, biscuity notes. It drank merrily for 2-3 steeps in my teapot before I had to take a break.

The rest is still sitting in my lovely little acorn teapot, so maybe I’ll try to steep it out this afternoon.

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100

At least, I have finished my supply of Autumn Tieguanyin. I think that this is probably the first time since I joined Steepster (all of those years ago!!) that I don’t have a bag or two of this tea lying around in my house.

It’s just an exceptional tea. It has a fantastic, rich aroma full of jasmine, floral notes that is just as delicious on the palette. It has that glorious thick, buttery texture and, as always with these lovely oolongs, just steeps on and on for ages.

Absolutely delicious. I’ll be picking up some more when I finally put my next Verdant order in. Goodness knows it’s been long enough!

Nattie

I still have an unopened bag of this hanging out in my tea cupboard, heh ^^

Nattie

By the way – do you remember if you sent me some sticky rice tuo from Tao Tea Leaf? I drank the last one a couple of days ago, and when I came to write it up it wasn’t on my spreadsheet so I didn’t know who sent it. Looked like your handwriting though?

Red Fennekin

Oh quite possibly! I’m not sure I’d remember if it was me or not at this point though hahaha. Did you enjoy it? I definitely enjoyed the ones I had :D

Nattie

Yeah I was a little fuzzy on the memory too, but the handwriting was super neat so I thought maybe you :’) Yeah I did! It was actually perfect for the day I was having, curled up with a book watching the rain outside. Bliss. (:

Red Fennekin

Ah, that sounds like a really lovely tea session :-) Very snug!

Nattie

It was heaven!

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Another favourite of mine finally sipped down; this delicious ooling will always have a place either in my cupboard or on my wishlist! Verdant’s tieguanyins are a joy to drink, producing beautifully buttery, jasmine scented cupfuls, time after time.

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Another much beloved tea that I’ve been (very!) slowly drinking through my supply of.

It’s such a delicious, steady drink throughout a long session, gradually revealing it’s lovely buttery flavours, with underlying hints of that mature, smoke-adjacement note coming through. Delicious. I still have enough for at least a few more long sessions and I’ll treasure it whilst I do!

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So it turns out this is the Puerh that I’ve been merrily sipping away at for most of this year!

It’s really very delicious. Full of stone fruit, honeyed flavours that interplay with that lovely, sweet, sheng bitterness/edge. It’s a real delight to drink, producing cup after cup of lovely amber tea, and has gotten me nicely through this rather busy spring!

Flavors: Apricot, Honey, Stonefruit

Nattie

Do you like sun cha? I have a good few oz left of a 1989 suncha from Butiki. It’s really good but I don’t drink it often. Was thinking I could send you some if you liked it.

Red Fennekin

You know, I honestly don’t know if I ever tried it :o I’m looking back through my notes and I don’t think I ever reviewed it before. Maybe our second little tea-swap can finally happen – I think I probably still have some other bags of Butiki goodness that I’d be happy to share!

Nattie

I’m happy to send you some, I think you might really like it (: I’ll drop you a message!

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100

A sipdown I thought I’d never reach! The Qilan oolong has been one of my favourites for ages and I’ve been drinking my way through the big 100g (!) bag I bought back in 2015. Whenever I wanted a really comforting, easy to drink tea, I reached for this bag and it always delivered intense notes of cinnamon and raisins. It’s such a fascinating drink for a straight-up, unflavoured tea.

The thing that always gets me, though, is the vaguely cannabinoid smell of the wet leaves. I just can’t figure this tea out. The dry leaves have such a strong smell of raisins and the liquor tastes so powerfully of cinnamon and raisins, yet the wet leaves has such an odd, pungent, skunky smell.

Ah well; the conclusion is still the same: this is a really, really delicious tea that I’m sad to be out of. Another one to add to the list to rebuy, I reckon, once my cupboard generates some space…!

Flavors: Cinnamon, Raisins

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Another sheng puerh sipdown from a few days ago. Looking back, I clearly wasn’t too sure about this tea when I first got the back. On this final drink, I enjoyed the experience much more – so, either it mellowed out with age as I’d hoped or I’ve just gotten used to it’s slightly wild flavour profile…

Whatever the case, it was a really lovely session with these long, twisted, emerald green leaves. They steeped out beautifully over many infusions (we were probably drinking it for at least 10). No idea if Brenden still stocks or blends Arbor Mist but, if he does, I may well treat myself to a new bag once I’ve chipped a bit further away through my old collection…!

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Yet another of my Spring 2020 clearance sipdowns!

This is a really lovely, quite special sheng puerh. I wish I’d bought a little cake of it, back in 2016 when I got the tea club delivery of it. The leafs smelled great, with those notes of forest floor and gentle floral undertones.

I brewed it up in my little flat Yixing pot and probably got through a good 8-10 infusions with it. The early steepings were rich in woody, herbal notes, with a clear honey-note that faded into a more muscular forest-floor flavour in the mid-steepings. As we carried on drinking, the honey note seemed to gently re-emerge and the tea continued to produce refreshing, slightly minerally, herbaceous cupfuls.

Flavors: Forest Floor, Herbaceous, Honey

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 15 sec

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Bio

Junior doctor and casual tea-drinker.

It’s been a busy few years for me – I’ve graduated from med school and I’m now working full time as a junior doctor in a small UK hospital. I’ve returned Steepster to continue to learn, take recommendations and share my experiences :-)

I remain particularly keen to try lots of new teas, especially Pu Erhs and Oolongs!

I’m also happy to swap, particularly within the UK! If you see anything in my cupboard that you wanna try, please don’t be afraid to ask! Most of them I have at least 25 g of, so a 5 g sample or so will be no trouble :-)

Location

London/Manchester, UK

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