Cake Walk Send Message

I was very excited to get an opportunity to try this tea and it did not disappoint. On steeps 1 & 2 I got aromas of sweet tobacco and flavors of cinnamon, star anise and apple cider on the exhale. On steeps 3 & 4 the gaiwan lid had a plummy fragrance and the flavor took on a spicy minerality with some walnut notes. Astringency building a bit, but not overwhelming. I feel heavy and calm, like a soft stone is set between my eyes, and my cheeks have a puckered / pinched uplift as if I bit a lemon. On steeps 5 & 6 the gaiwan lid almost smelled like I was brewing Yancha, and the flavor was similar. Building astringency, light pithy / pecan skin quality – but still totally in check. Qi building…expansive feeling in my lungs, sea legs in my arms and a tingling in my feet and hands similar to what happens after increased oxygen levels from focused breathing. Pressure in my ears and my head feels full of water. Butterflies in my stomach. It seems important to mention, these sensations felt rather pointed and not clumsy. I’ve had similar feels when I have run into a door frame / almost dropped my gaiwan, but this had a lot of clarity in spite of its intensity. Qi is personal and I hesitate to mention it in reviews, but it can be interesting to compare subjective experience. On steeps 7 & 8 I got a lot of cinnamon/camphor, star anise…almost reminding me of Tai Cha #18 (Red Jade) a bit. From here it moved into milder honeyed / plummy wood flavors, but remained very enjoyable. Think I will boil this in a bit. Bless you, LP <3

The secret is out, this tea is lit. After rinsing, I got aromatics of boysenberry / raspberry syrup, stewed stone fruit, hay and a briny minerality that reminded me of fresh seaweed. The body on this is unctuous right out the gate, as oolong drunk said – the broth is there on steep 2. There is a pleasant bitterness that slows you down and allows you to appreciate the lingering aromatics. In early steeps I get fruit & sweetness, but more in how it plays out in the aftertaste. There is a toasty, buttery pastry flavor that I associate with quality daily drinker greens from Korea, like Daejak. Also getting an enjoyable saline quality that I picked up in the nose in these early steeps. This tea gets progressively grassy / hay like as you move through the session. I got little spikes of green apple that came and went around steep 9. Hope to get a cake of this before it sells out <333

This is a delightful young sheng! I don’t have enough experience with aging sheng to imagine how this tea might transform over the years; however, it is an incredibly light and easy drinker for how young it is, so it might not have the oomph to stand the test of time. I got notes of white peach, grape, yam and honey as well as a very crisp cane sugar flavor. The body is velveteen and thick, quickly coating your whole mouth <3 I get heady stone fruit aromatics, but the white peach is all that made it into the cup for me. I generally have a hard time getting into tea / alcohol that doesn’t have a bitter component to push back against sweetness, but all the sugar works for me here! All the characteristic Yiwu qualities are present in this tea. If I decide to beeng this, I will have a hard time not drinking it all young – which might not be such a bad thing ;~)

I admittedly have less experience with aged sheng than young sheng, so I’m in the deep end here ;^) Upon rinsing the tea, I noticed aromatics like sweet tobacco, dry wood, raisin / date and a spicy minerality. As the session progressed, the more youthful aromas started to peek through…stewed peaches, stone fruit and a bit of buttery pastry. The first two steeps have a clean, dry wood flavor. Not super complex, but clean and enjoyable. The more youthful sweetness starts to build later in the session – I am getting a bit of stone fruit flavor along with a cooling sensation and very subtle huigan. This tea is either fairly simple, or it is difficult for me to unpack all its complexity, but I do like it. The astringency throughout the whole session was very drying and intense. Definitely a tea to take it slow with. The qi was moderately intense and very enjoyable. I don’t think if I would go for a beeng of this, but glad to have tried it! I highly recommend their Whatever ’95 ripe puerh, going to get a brick of this as soon as possible :~)

A very striking and unique tea. Dill aromatics are the most evident throughout every steep – I enjoyed this a lot, but it certainly wouldn’t be for everyone. Spending more time with the tea I noticed green almond, green apple and a deep minerality. There’s almost no astringency to speak of, but on later / longer steeps there is a mouthwatering sensation and a mild astringency comparable to Sichuan or white pepper. It feels like there’s a lot more to unpack here – florality, paper / balsa and other fruit notes!

a lovely & very novel tea to me. this tea is definitely mood specific & not a daily drinker, but I enjoyed it a lot. in early steeps I couldn’t push through the white grape juice and douglas fir notes I was getting, but as it opened up I noticed camphor, marzipan and subtle lemon oil. the mouth feel is intensely silky and enveloping and is accompanied by a swell in sweetness reminiscent of stevia. it’s impossible to oversteep at this temperature, almost 0 bitterness. I almost find the sweetness + lack of astringency puts this tea out of my comfort zone :~P Not rating this, because this tea is at odds with me but isn’t necessarily bad.