Pamela Dean Send Message

I got the unscented version of this flowering tea, and I consider it a good choice, because the flavor is very enjoyable, like a quality tea, and scenting would have changed it. I think the long buds used in this flower are white tea, judging from the taste, liquor color, and steeping performance. Not a hint of astringency or bitterness, and the golden liquor is thick and rich in mouthfeel, aka body. I love a heavy-bodied tea, when the flavor is light.

The pink blossom looks similar to an amaranth flower, but the seller says it’s lychee flower. The pink flower hasn’t risen to the top yet, and watching for it to release is kind of intriguing. Flavor and body maintained through multiple steeps, trailing off at the fourth one. Be sure to use cool enough water for this tea. I poured the water into a 16oz glass pot and waited until it cooled to 175F. I gave the tea flower ball a quick rinse under the faucet and gently placed it on the water. The bloom didn’t sink to the bottom until it had been open a while, but it was worth the wait of a few minutes. I refilled the pot when it was 2/3 empty, letting the hot water run down the side of the pot, so the bloom would be less disturbed. I watched and sipped from this bloom for hours.

It made a good-sized bloom, 3in across. I think this is the best-tasting, sweetest tea I’ve had from a flowering type. I would actually feel good about serving it to a guest. Little to no aroma, but that’s okay in my book, even though I love a good jasmine. It’s just that the scented flowering teas I’ve had didn’t taste so good. I haven’t tried the jasmine-scented version of this bloom which is sold by the same seller. Maybe it could combine the best of all worlds?!

A classic Russian Caravan … black and strong with smoky accents. For those who love a smoky tea, but for whom the blast of smoke of a Lapsang Souchong is too, too much. I love the way the tea taste and the smoky notes arise from the mug, sifting up through the milk and sweetener, lingering on my breath and lifting my spirits. Thanks again to PeteG for this delicious tea!

Thanks to PeteG, who added this to the Traveling Tea Box. So much like a sweet red wine … that’s what i kept thinking as i drank the Sawadee Lychee Black tea. It’s been cold here in Texas, and this wasn’t a wine cooler … it was a wine warmer! The dry tea smelled nice and fruity, just like lychee fruit, in fact. I’ve had 3 other lychee blacks in the past, and none of them had the full-fledged fruitiness of this tea. I drank the whole cup, straight up, as i couldn’t bear to muddle it with milk, and it was sweet enough on its own. This tea got cloudy as it cooled, so that’s something to consider if you’re making iced tea, but i bet it would taste pretty darned good anyway.

This is the best black tea chai I’ve ever tasted. It’s evident in the dry tea that the freshest, highest-quality ingredients have been used. The photo in the listing does not do this tea justice. The spices, of which there are plenty, have been chopped to just the right size to blend in, and the black tea is full-bodied and bold. The blend has significant presence of ginger and black pepper, which is just how I like my chai. Both the fine black tea and the spices shone through the creaminess and sweetness after the addition of soy milk and agave nectar. Thank you, PeteG and Sawadee Tea House, for the deepest-flavored, most stimulating black chai I’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking.

This Pao Blossom is one tea which doesn’t gain much (if anything) from a high tea-to-water ratio. I speak from experience. My first infusion was one minute, much too long for 3.5gm tea to 4oz water, which was a mistake. In all, I steeped it half a dozen times, with florality to spare every time. I think it has something to do with the height of the fragrance note of this flower, by which I mean it resonates at a higher frequency. Aaaah, tea, flowers, and music! To me, pao flower resembles jasmine, but is even more ethereal. It is hard to believe that this tea was scented by mingling with blossoms; I would easier believe that it was sprayed with a pure, organic essential oil from the blossoms … the fragrance is so very strong and/or powerful! I’m considering mixing the tea 50/50 with Shang’s White Peony King, to have more tea with my flowers, and to make it go farther, but first I’ll mix a small sample to see if the ratio is good. This is coming from me, who adores floral teas! The flower is truly exquisite, and I wish everyone could experience it!

I used a bit higher tea-to-water ratio, all 3.5gm of the sample to 6oz water, in an yixing clay pot, and steeped it 5 times … 2, 3, 5, 8, 12 min. While the overweening aroma and taste I got was toasted grain, there was a significant herbaceous component which was hard to define … something like lightly steamed green beans (or green tea?) with a tiny citrus note. While another reviewer reported slight bitterness with no astringency, my take was the opposite … slightly astringent with no bitterness. There was a slight floral note in the first steep or two, but I didn’t identify the fruit and caramel which others have found in this tea. Even at a 12-min steep, it didn’t get bitter. I got a quart of tea from 3.5 grams, and think it would make a refreshing iced tea, especially if you could just steep it for a half hour one time, or overnight. I drank it hot, over an afternoon, with crunchy granola bars. The herbal notes were the most interesting part. A tea I will gladly drink, but not seek out.

Opening the foil pack, vacuum-formed around the tea nuggets, I’m greeted by a fresh, green and fruity scent. Aaaah, the new crop is such a fine event! The rolled-up tea is smaller than other batches of Ali Shan I’ve had, and this is borne out later by the smaller-than-usual wet leaves. I covered the bottom of the glass gaiwan a couple of layers deep in the green half-balls of tea and poured on a little hot water, dumping it immediately for a quick rinse. The first steep astonishes me with its thickness, coating mouth and throat with buttery goodness. I thought I got a whiff of grain, or perhaps popcorn, in there, too. Very tasty. Second steep, sweeter, with intermittent notes of lilac and rose. Good flavor and aroma, even though the liquor of each steep tends quite pale yellow-green. Fourth steep, at 5 min long, the gaiwan is full of leaves and the tea’s full body continues. I’m still drinking greedily, almost hungrily … it’s that satisfying and thirst-quenching … and I did a 5th infusion, too. The rich texture and buttery taste are what make this tea most memorable for me. I’m really enjoying it!

I’ve been exploring puerh teas for a year or so now, and have come to find that the sheng (green or raw) type, initially feared and hated, is now my preference. Raw stuff is a work in progress, full of intrigue and complexity, although often with some bitterness and astringency. Indeed, a sheng which is too mellow early-on may not have enough ‘oomph’ to morph, with age, into something uniquely splendid.

This Yunnan Pu Erh Gold tea is not a sheng. It is a shu (ripe) puerh. Think “shu is through” (fermenting). And what’s more, it’s a shu which has been engineered for the Western palate and gaze: gussied up in gold and toned down in taste, with most of the funky horse stable quality long gone. A year ago, this would have pleased me. Now, I find it plainly boring (although amazingly smooth) like a nondescript, albeit very woody, black tea. Lately, I’m apt to add milk and sugar to hot shu puerh or to have it iced in the afternoon. Really, it’s good, rich, dark, earthy! And I guess it should be considered an accomplishment, because “richly-flavored yet smooth” seems to be the sought-after accolade for a shu puerh.

“Excellent of it’s kind,” rating objectively here. And off goes the rest of my sample, into the TTB, so others can experience the “Perfect Shu.”

I want to encourage others to try sheng (raw/green) puerhs. Beg, borrow or swap, or buy the readily available sample sizes, and don’t start with a banzhang (too strong). PuerShop and JasEtea ship from within the US. YunnanSourcing and others ship all over from China. Use less leaf and cooler water, so the taste won’t shock, in brewing tiny portions. If you don’t like it (yet), stick it in an unglazed clay jar, paper bag or cardboard box (NOT foil or plastic; this tea wants a bit of air) and shove it to the back of the cupboard to age. Try it again in a year or 6 months. I’ve even bought a few small (100 to 200 gram) cakes of compressed sheng puerh, so that even a cranky old crone like me can anticipate turning 75 … ;)

The leaf is small to begin with, and then broken up a bit, so the tea is very fine-grained. The aroma is tobacco shop, or maybe barber shop strop, which i find enticing. Brewed up, the liquor is red jewel tones and winey in the manner of a beaujolais, but not quite as fruity. The smoky finish adds a bit of welcome pungency to a tea which hovers steadfastly balanced between dry and sweet. The only hint of bitterness presents itself as if it’s the very darkest cacao or black pepper. Halfway through the cup, I added soy milk, but it muted the flavors more than I liked. The second steep was almost as good as the first, and I experimented with just a drop of agave nectar in that cup. The slight sweetness elevated the rose and brown sugar notes, and gave a nice variation, I think, on the plain brew. To share the experience of this wonderful Keemun tea, I’m adding this sample tin to the Steepster TTB. Everyone should get to try this at least once!

Having had a better experience than many of my cohorts with this tea, I’ll offer some ideas which might have made the difference. 195F or 200F is too hot for this tea. And it’s so easy to use too much of this tea … consider how dense the dry tea is … probably twice as dense as a non-rolled green leaf. I didn’t weigh it, but I’d guess that a half or 3/4 of a teaspoon of tea would be plenty (2 grams) per each 6oz water. I made a 12oz mug using less than a teaspoon of tea.

Another tip is to pour the water down the side of the steeping vessel, rather directly on the tea … or at least try to pour gently. Pinhead gunpowder is usually made from smaller and more tender leaves than regular gunpowder, and thus is somewhat delicate, like a Japanese green. Also, do not put a lid on while steeping, especially not the first steep … try that with your fussy green teas. It may help.

Green is my least favorite tea type, so I won’t be buying. But when writing these notes, I try to stay objective and be a judge of the tea’s quality, compared to others of it’s type. I’ve had one pinhead gunpowder before this one, and a couple of the regular. The pinheads have been more subtle in both cases than the regular (4-5 mm size).

So, on to this evaluation. Tiny (about 2-3mm) nuggets of shiny, dark green tea — truly a pinhead gunpowder tea. The liquor from them was a clear, radiant gold, and the oft-noted wisp of smokiness was there, too, in the scent and flavor. Thus, gunpowder tends earthier, to me, than a more floral green, like a mao feng. It presented practically nothing in the way of astringency or bitterness to distract me from it’s herbaceous greenness. A bit of artichoke, I think, not particularly sweet or grassy, but nicely juicy. Steeping in a glass mug with glass infuser may have helped preserve it’s pure nature. The second steep at 3 min had more body and wetness than the first, with equal strength. As I finished it, up popped the sun, and voila, it was Thursday!

EDIT: Okay, I went and weighed the tea. A rounded teaspoon is 3.5gm, which is about 50% more tea than needed for 6oz. So it’s not twice as dense … only one and a half times. If a person were to use 2 tsp for a 12oz mug, they would have used enough tea for a 21oz pot.