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[Spring 2018 harvest]

I got this tea as a free sample with my latest TS order and kept it sealed until today. I found it to be a very flavour focused tea with good complexity and a very long aftertaste, but lacking body.

The dry leaves exude aromas of baked apple, various flowers, cookie dough, and citrus fruits. The wet leaves have a meadow-like floral complexity and a much sweeter smell with notes of fenugreek, prickly pear, and popcorn.

The taste has a lot going on too. The profile is savoury, sour and floral. In the beginning, I get notes of fenugreek, grass, walnut skin, plant roots and a slightly metallic, sour finish. There are many other flavours appearing later, kumquat and cabbage to name a few. The aftertaste is also very floral, but much more sweet. One extra flavour I notice there is the one of coriander leaves.

An interesting concept, blending white and black tea. It tastes more or less how you’d expect, but the progression of flavours is interesting, with more of a dianhong character early on and aged white notes being prevalent in later steeps.

Aromas of the tea are predominately sweet and woody, just like the flavour profile in the mouth in fact. There are notes of autumn leaf pile, oak wood, and orange blossoms. The taste hits flavours like stonefruits, chocolate, and fermented fruits. There is a nice sourness developing in late infusions. Aftertaste is long and cooling and overwhelmingly sweet. It has notes of apricots and various spices, as well as a slightly metallic tone and a tingling sensation in the throat. The mouthfeel is not very memorable, but decent. It is drying, smooth, and somewhat soft. I can feel there is a decent amount of caffeine in the tea, but the feeling is not too rushy thankfully.

Another one of Scott’s shou blends I really like, it has all the qualities I expect from these. The aroma is a mix of fruits (blueberries, blackberries), fresh seafood (calamari) and cooked meat. The first thing I notice is when drinking the tea is its extremely lubricating and oily mouthfeel that makes me salivate. It is also decently thick and a touch chalky. Taste-wise, it is a very smooth and woody tea. It is more savoury than sweet. Among the flavours I get are those of fireplace, coffee, and blue grapes. The aftertaste is more sweet and earthy and balances out the profile nicely. There is a sort of expansive camphor-like fragrance, nutty flavour and hints of sourness, shades of which are noticeable in the liquor itself as well actually.

In the middle of the session, the profile has some bitterness as well, which is nice. Overall, I would describe the tea as a fruity and woody one with little sweetness and camphor-like aftertaste.

This FF Darjeeling smells a lot like dried herbs. It has aromas of courgette flowers, grass, hay, thyme, citrus zest and there is also a subtle sweet spiciness in the dry leaf scent. When wet, further notes of garden peas, acacia flowers, and sage emerge.

The taste is savoury and slightly bitter with a lemon sourness in the finish. There are flavours of green wood, courgette, clear smoke, orchid, sweet grass and others. Aftertaste is also somewhat vegetal and floral, but much more on the sweeter rather than sour & bitter side of the spectrum. I get hints of various spices, vanilla, and cocoa powder, among other fleeting flavours.

Overall, I find the tea to be quite balanced and dynamic at the same time, which is not that common. It is worth noting that it is very much on the green side with little oxidation, even for a FF Darjeeling.

This tea reminds me of W2T’s Arbor Red, but it’s not as dynamic and complex I think, but with a stronger huigan. In any case, it’s one of the better black teas I have tried for sure. At less than half the price of Arbor Red, it is probably a better value too.

Dry leaves smell sweet and earthy with notes of tomato vine and wooden furniture. Once wet, the aroma changes to a mix of honey and malt. The taste has a strong woody character complemented by decent minerality in later infusions. It is a very clean tasting tea, but that also means lack of complexity. There is a lot of sweetness, a light bitterness and some citrusy quality here and there. One point where the tea really shines is the aftertaste, which is pungent and very long lasting with a strong huigan. It is also somewhat more fruity overall. The body is medium to full, with a creamy, bubbly, and silky mouthfeel. Another thing worth noting is that this tea, more than any black tea I can remember, made me sweat a bit.

Thanks tperez for the sample!

I find this tea to be fairly underwhelming, and I can’t quite find that much to write home about, even though nothing is off per se. It has aromas of cannabis and custard, complemented by vegetable compost and mushrooms later throughout the session. At the beginning, the taste is hay-like with a tart finish. The astringency is strong, but not overpowering. Later I notice further notes of dry grass, medium roast coffee, and mushrooms.

I’d say the body is fairly light and the liquor has a distinctively oily mouthfeel. There is also a kind of warming sensation spreading through my body after drinking the tea.

After a very nice South Indian lunch I made today, I felt like having a darker Taiwanese oolong, so this sample I have from derk came handy :)
Even better, this turns out to be the best Hong Shui I have tried thus far.

The tea smells of cocoa and peach cake. It has a very interesting tart and metallic quality on top of the expected notes of rock sugar and stonefruits. There is a strong lemon flavour too. The liquor is silky and medium bodied, but not coating, an intriguing texture. After swallowing, it leaves my mouth salivating for a while, which enhances the aftertaste. I can also see some strange mix of warming and cooling effects like derk noted. Overall, the tea enhances my perceptions and makes me more focused, which is good, because I should get back to work now :)

Song pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8b4-6E8zjA

Today I revisit this tea, about one year after my first session with it and three years after being produced. The smell is similar as I remember it from the past, but I notice some smokiness, similar to that of the 2014 Dehong Ye Sheng Cha I drank recently. In fact, even in the taste I can see a lot of similarity. I found the taste to be somewhat more savoury today and not as bitter as a year ago. Another new aspect is a camphor like quality of the aftertaste, which seems to be generally more pungent and herbaceous/medicinal.

I am generally happy about how the tea is developing, although I had to fight some mould recently after being away from home and this one was one of the more affected teas. Still, I only had to throw out a few grams.

hm, I haven’t had a Dan Cong in a while. This one is a fairly fruity one. Dry leaves smell of peach pits and lychee. It is very strong and perfume like. The wet leaf aroma has various notes including nail polish, beeswax, honey, wood, pumpkin and fermented fruits.

There is a strong woody flavour in the taste as well. It is complemented by a mix of sweet and bitter ones and a sour finish. In the first half of the session, there is barely any astringency. I find the taste is very well balanced. There is an interesting nuttiness as well, maybe closest to walnuts. The aftertaste is cooling and shows flavours of dry grass, honey, perfume, malt and a lager like bitterness.

The liquor rolls down the tongue very easily, but leaves a sharp, biting, and slightly numbing feeling behind. It is a very subtly interesting mouthfeel.

I had an interesting side by side comparison today, involving this tea and the 2014 vintage thereof. There is a striking difference between these two teas, despite the mere 4 years of (mostly Kunming) aging difference between them.

The 2018 tea is one of the most bitter teas I know. All the other flavours are hidden behind the bitterness and it takes a very long time until it transforms into sweetness. It has some sugar, fruit, and tart notes here and there, but it’s not an even battle. The aromas in this tea are reminiscent of wood, fresh hay and/or grass compost, with some smokiness appearing in the middle of the session.

The 2014 version, on the other hand, has lost much of the bitterness. It is a smoky, farm-like, and savoury tea with a very tart finish and notes of camphor and apple skins. Its mouthfeel is thicker than in the younger tea. The liquor is more slick and active in the mouth. As for the smell, it is quite pungent and smoky with notes of barn and brewed coffee.