Bitterleaf Teas

Thank the sound fidelity gods for noise canceling headphones! My mom got me a set of fancy Turtle Beach gaming headset for an early birthday present after my usual Xbox headset died, turns out I need an adapter to use them for gaming (oops) but at the moment they make excellent headphones! I am using them to blast Abney Park into my ears to block out the incredibly heinous sound of lawn mowing and leaf blowing outside my window. I swear when I do get around to owning a house there will be no grass, just moss, gravel paths, and garden patches. I truly hate grass.

Today’s tea is seasonally appropriate as the cooler weather (slowly) approaches, Moose Crown 2004 Meng Ku Private Stock Ripe Puer by Bitterleaf Teas! This Shou comes from the same year I escaped High School, so you know it will be good, made from Meng Ku big leaf material and pressed in Meng Hai Facilities. It also has the distinction of being the most expensive Shou on the BLT website at a whopping $0.48 a gram with the total 250g brick being $119.50. Most the hardcore Pu heads won’t balk at that price and will buy a tong to hoard…but I am not a Pu Head, partially because I am a bit on the poor side and that price makes me die inside a bit because I really liked this one! It was love at first sniff, with notes of sweet dates, sweet rice, peat, distant camphor, wet loam, and a touch of wet leather. It is very sweet and earthy without a hint of dirt, it is one of the cleanest smelling Shous I have sniffed with only a hint of leather, which I like. A lot of Shous I have run into have stronger either dry or wet leather and I prefer my leather well used, wet, and light if it is going to be present at all.

My beloved Djinn pot (as I call this peculiar shaped yixing) had the honor of steeping this one up for me, the aroma after a rinse and first steep is flooring, there is just so much going on! Notes of camphor, dates, peat, loam, pine sap, wet pine wood, rice water (as in the exact smell of the starchy rinse water from making sushi rice) molasses, and brown sugar. Oomph, it is like being inundated with sweetness while nesting in a hollowed out log on a summer day in a mountain forest. The liquid of the first steep is surprisingly intense with sweet and starchy notes of rice and molasses, dates and baking cocoa, an earthy finish of peat, loam, pine wood, and molasses. I correctly suspected that this was going to be a crazy session that would stick in my memory for quite a while.

This tea starts dark, even for a first steep Shou, and then by steep two it is an inky void. it is like drinking a thick pile of hot night sky, it is intense! Ok, I am going to be honest, what the color really reminds me of is Nuln Oil that has dried out a bit so is super thick, Nuln Oil is a Shade/Wash type paint I use for painting miniatures and it is one of my favorite things, I call it liquid talent. Enough about color and thickness though, the taste, oh my stars and garters that taste. It is like molasses and dark chocolate, dates and pine wood, and a touch of mineral at the first steep. The second and third steep bring in an intense pine loam taking over for the mineral, with a building camphor that manages to make the tea both warming and cooling at the same time. It was so nice to drink a shou and not get the sweats and hot flashes, because I am weird.

Somehow, by steep four, it manages to be even thicker, I almost feel like I am drinking warm honey with that thickness. The sweetness in both aroma and taste increase as well, stronger date and molasses notes with a creeping rice starchiness that reminds me a bit of mochi. Towards the end of each sip a building dark chocolate (like the really dark stuff) and pine loam creep in with a finish of camphor and lingering wet leather note that only really shows up in the aftertaste. I love how this tea really doesn’t mess with my internal temperature too much.

I didn’t really notice much of a taste change until steep ten, where the earthy notes start to fade and is mostly sweetness and now a touch of malt and woodiness. It lasted a total of fifteen steeps, finishing with distant molasses sweetness and rice starch with a date aftertaste that lingered long after I had finished. Not only did this tea taste good it felt good, it was gently warming similar to a Yancha more than a heat power station that some Shous can be, meaning I could drink this one when it was warm out and not wait til the cold weather. I also find that Shous are either very relaxing putting me into a nice stupor or incredibly energizing, usually the hotter the Qi the more energized I feel. Since this was not overly warming it was more like taking a hot bath before sleep or snuggling under a fuzzy blanket…yeah this is definitely the fuzzy blanket of tea. If it wasn’t for that massive price tag I would buy a tong and make this beast my daily before bed drinker!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/11/bitterleaf-teas-moose-crown-2004-meng.html

A dangerous name for a tea. I’m not quite sure “who made donuts”, but they are highly addictive.

The tea is a gorgeous loosely compressed mess. The leaves have been settling in my new clay jar for a few weeks, so they’ve had time to stink up the place. I opened the lid to be greeted by a heady floral note, strong grass, and fresh hot maple syrup. This is super dank. I warmed up my shibo and prepared for brewing. The scent of the vibrant leaves opened up into some crystallized brown sugar, oatmeal, and pancakes drowned in maple syrup (maybe breakfast is on my mind). The taste is springy. The brew begins heavy on lemon and acidity. Then, the soup soothes out to a freshly baked apple turnover. The taste is very nice, flaky, and sweet. However, the acidity lingers in the background sparking the taste buds. The aftertaste is thick and long with powdered sugar and fruit. Then, the donut hit me. A smooth cooling sensation that begins around steep two melds with the acidity and rises from the stomach. The process is slow but constant. Suddenly, I experienced an intense pressure on my solar plexus that chilled my lungs. The frost moves up and down my spine bumping into the back of my neck. This tea is a powerhouse. The feeling is electric and uplifting with viscosity whipping the tongue. Lastly, a good note, the brew remains sweet in the forefront throughout the entire session. The dessert taste fades but a stevia succulence persists. A very nice tea. I can see why it has such a price.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMJiQj3AC1a/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Bought a sample of this with my recent order. I did like this tea. It was bittersweet at the start with notes I would describe as bittersweet chocolate without the added sugar. The bitterness steeped out after about six steeps. There was some fermentation flavor to this tea but not a lot. It steeped out after a couple of steeps. Overall I liked this tea. However at the price they charge I’m not sure I would buy it.

I steeped this tea fourteen times in a 150ml gaiwan with 10.2g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min, 2.5 min, and 3 min. The tea was not completely played out at fourteen steeps. I’m sure I could have gotten a few more steeps out of the leaves. This did seem like a high quality tea, I’m just not sure it’s worth the price of around $125. I did enjoy it quite a lot.

First to review :)

The leaf is moderately condensed and consists of quite a few visible shiny buds. I take in a potent floral and super sweet aroma. The scent is so silky it’s almost creamy. The background yields fresh greens, vegetation, and some lily. A very nice beginning to a tea session. I warmed up my pot and placed some inside. The scent continues in the form of strong floral syrup with underlying of dark wet wood and peat moss. This aroma is amazingly sweet and tasty. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The taste begins incredibly thick with a full body of sugar syrupy and fresh fruit. The brew subsides into a lime note with candied sweetness underneath. I thought of sour patch kids as this tea moved forward, for it would begin sour and then cover up with sweet juiciness. A nice viscosity appeared in later steeping with brief astringency that would slowly grow. This tea is characterized as sweet yet aggressive. The qi is powerful and strong armed. I was disoriented quickly into the session. I experienced a great deal of head pressure, fuzziness, tongue numbing, and fizzy flying. I also noticed a prominent cooling sensation stuck in my lungs that actually took my breath away. The brew continues to stay sweet and tasteful throughout the session. The steeped leaves filled my room with a sweet pastry scent. I enjoyed this tea, and I was quite short of breath afterwards. A very nicely done tea.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMO3hoNgdzQ/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

I revisited this tea today after twinofmunin recommended I do so, and I’m glad she did! I was really not a big fan of it the last time I had it (I might have even tried it twice before posting a review), but this session was markedly better. It was still very sweet, but not cloying and not as flat as it felt before. I got much better texture and lingering flavor this time. The tea felt more robust all-around really.

I’m not sure what exactly is different this time. I’ve had the sample open in my pumidor (60-65% rh), and perhaps the tea has just had a bit more time to tighten up. There’s also the chance I just tasted it on an off-day earlier. Regardless, I have upped my score of this tea. It came across as a sweet, thick, pleasant to drink tea, with little to no bitterness or astringency. Very friendly. It’s still not something I feel the need to go grab a cake of, and I still hold by my earlier statement that Bitterleaf’s Smoking Monkey Yiwu is a good deal better.

Trying another Bitterleaf Sample! This tea is quite sweet. Unfortunately, that was about all it was. The dry leaf smelled like candy, and the flavor lived up to that aroma. The whole session was about the same except for some bitterness in the first few steeps. A light vegetal or greener floral flavor (slightly bitter in first 3-4 steeps) with a sugar sweet finish. It was pleasantly thick for steeps 3-6 or so. I didn’t notice any qi from drinking this one, even on an empty stomach.

I wouldn’t describe this tea as nasty or unpleasant, it’s simply boring. Between Bitterleaf’s two budget cakes this year (The two Year of the Monkey cakes) the smoking monkey Yiwu blows this one completely out of the water.

This was an excellent tea. I got very little in the way of earthy notes from it. It had nearly cleared. I did get some sweet notes. One note that I can best describe as sweet bamboo shoots emerged in steep three and lasted a few steeps. Not sure what to call the notes that emerged after this. This was not what I would call a chocolaty shou. It was quite good. I steeped it twelve times and I had to stop myself from continuing because I had already had too much caffeine. I just went out on a limb and bought the whole 1 kg brick on this one and it was worth it.

I steeped this twelve times with a 150ml gaiwan and 11.1g leaf in boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min.

I’ve been meaning to get to this sample sooner than later, but considering the large amount of samples already building in my cupboard, I haven’t had the chance to sit down for a session with this one until last night/today. Plus, I’ve been bad at noting everything I drink, so the reviews are lacking considering the tea being consumed on a daily basis. However, it is my goal to take the time eventually to backlog everything that I have been drinking, and get those reviews out there.
Now, back to this tea….
I must note that I was unsure about this tea after steep 2 & 3, considering there were so many bitter notes to the tea, that it was almost unpalatable. Fortunately, because the first steep was so sweet & floral, I knew that there’d be potential for the tea to improve as time went on. After steeps 2 & 3, the tea started to round up with the floral notes again. This had lasted a few steeps in, at which point, there was a slight peachy profile during steep # 7. This hadn’t lasted as long as I had hoped, but the consistency with the floral notes had remained throughout the session—which made me happy.

I hadn’t noted anything else about the profile, other than it had lasted 16 total steeps. I’ve been wanting something good to drink, and had found a majority of the teas I had started, weren’t exactly the teas I had wanted. The Hummingbird was pleasantly delightful, and had satisfied the necessary needs for a quality & delicious tea. I was happy that the session continued for as long as it had, too.

A very thick and hard brick of tea; this is truly a diamond cutter. The leaves give off an aroma of grape seed, oat, granola, some fig, as well as some other dark heavy fruits. I break off a piece and take in the aroma of heavy wood. I warmed up my pot and placed the chunk inside. The scent is pushed up into thick honey aroma along with some grape jam. The brick carries signs of some age, but due to compression it has some time to go. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. I lift the lid after the first steep and identify the sweet and syrupy scent. The brew begins sweet yet rustic; a mild astringency lingers in the cup. I taste a lot of heaviness on the earth tones, and I suppose this what they meant when the referred to Shou in the description. The flavor moves into heavy muddled flavors. This was an odd tea. I couldn’t identify too much. I note astringent, earthy, dark wood, some fruit, and odd. The qi was very heady; I felt as though I would tip over. I thought this to be a very cloudy brew. Personally, I wouldn’t prefer this tea; however, it is a decent aged tea for the price. I could see some people enjoying this tea, but I don’t think its for me.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BH7fE7JA-Qy/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

This tea has quite an aroma. The leaf consists of long light tendrils loosely entwined together in a beautiful mess. I picked up wonderful scents of sweet strawberries, blueberries, apricot, golden sap, and a semi sweet tang in the foundation. A lovely treat for the senses. I warmed my gaiwan up and slipped some inside. The smell expands to crystallized winter honey, ripe apricot, and kumquat. I washed the leaves and prepared for brewing. I regret to inform you that the aromas have enthralled you, but it doesn’t give any more. The brew seems to lead up to a grand finale with its aroma and aesthetic appearance, but it does not deliver the goods when the moment comes to shine. The brew begins raindrop lightly sweet with a slight huigan. The leaves carry a nice body of soft yellow fruits. The background brings up tastes of cedar. The bitterness present will persistently ease in and out along with a companion of astringency. This creates a contrasting palette factor after each sip. Now, to return to my previous point, I am in no way discrediting the tea, but for me it lead up to an empty show. The tea was decent, but it was off-putting or disappointing. The qi was nonexistent. The best I felt was a relaxed buzz. Personally, I drink pu for qi, and this tea did not deliver.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHxpoBRAX5K/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Ok – I almost gave this tea a not so favorable rating, but I gave it another shot. Turns out it’s just a little finicky. As in I had to lower my water temp to 200F and flash steep it for the first 8 or 9 infusions. I don’t want to give the impression that this tea is horrendously bitter or astringent, but I found that when I increased the steep time too quickly, it took on an odd mineral bitterness, which really reminded me of the softened tap water at my house that I don’t use for tea because it overpowers the flavor of the tea. Oddly enough, at lower steep times/temps, that mineral note was still present but came across as more of a sweetness. I’ve never experienced something like that in a tea before. On to the meat of the review – the dry leaf didn’t have much of an aroma, and after a rinse there was a thick and creamy straw aroma with a cooling note on the gaiwan lid.

The first three steeps are decently light with a very minor cooling effect in the mouth – light enough that I suspect I wouldn’t notice it if this tea weren’t called “Mint Condition” with pictures of mints on the packaging. The flavor in these steeps is mostly straw with just a slight bit of mineral sweetness.

After the first three steeps, a light and tasty fruity flavor starts to appear and grow more prominent. It becomes the dominant flavor in the beginning of the sip, followed by the punchy mineral note on the finish – sweet as long as it’s not oversteeped. The body thickens up a little bit, but doesn’t get particularly creamy or viscous. This flavor lasted through around steep 8, when I finally started increasing the time from flash steepings.

The rest of the session was a little more watery tasting, with the mineral note receding some so the light apricot note could shine just a bit more. There was a bit of a nice throat feel with these late steeps that wasn’t present through the rest of this session.

Other than the 24K huangpian (I just don’t like huangpian much) this has probably been my least favorite tea from Bitterleaf so far. That is not to say it’s a bad tea however, just not to my tastes. I find the mineral and fruity combo to be inferior to that of the 2016 Year of the Monkey Yiwu, and the bitterness that it possesses to be inferior to most Bulangs in which I like the bitter notes. The cooling effect is minimal and didn’t add much to my experience with this tea. Maybe it was just the weird association with my nasty tap water – I don’t know. Not bad – but to me there’s much better tea to be had for the money Mint Condition commands.

Having emerged from my Alter Ego session desirous of more, I turned to another Bitterleaf brick – the appropriately named Diamond Cutter. I avoided serious injury when liberating a session’s worth, but this was largely due to good fortune, not good technique. Remember kids – if you’re going to buy old zhuancha, you may be wise to also buy a steel gauntlet or two!

Due to my ineptitude and handling this solid plank o’ tea, there was some dust in my pot – I thought it might enliven the first few steeps in the event that the tight chunks were slow to get going, as Matu has previously reported. This proved utterly correct – the first couple of brews ended up slightly like trying to enjoy a fine Symphony with the bass cranked to max and the volume unnecessarily high. If you do include dust in your brew, heed my advice and select your vessel on rapidity of pour speed. You’re welcome.

After the system shock of those first couple of brews, however, this provided exactly what I was after – a nice woodsy, tobaccoey, satisfying brew. The only shortcoming I can find is that the texture left a bit to be desired – but it is only my first attempt, and some of the weight I measured undoubtedly escaped in the rinse and early steeps due to being powder. It is something to be mindful of if you like a nice coating of motor oil to your brews, however.

If you need a tea in your life that can serve as a nice chaser after the brandy and cigars phase of dinner, this may very well be right up your alley – and doesn’t have the sticker shock that most teas of this sort entail. However, it’s not a tea whose flavor lingers in the manner of EoT’s BingDao Peacock or Bitterleaf’s Mad King, to name just a couple examples.All in all, as seems to be Bitterleaf’s MO, it’s a good tea at a very fine price. Not their best offering, but I’ll be glad to have it whenever it finds its way into my cup. And at the price, I needn’t be stingy on having a session whenever the mood strikes.

And I suspect it may frequently.

This curious little parcel inhabits the uncanny valley of the tea spectrum. It’s a huangpian, but it does not have the relaxing nature of 24K, being a punchier example of the style. However, it doesn’t quite have the full spectrum of nuances that a normal leaf tea would (hopefully) entail.

The result is a very fine drink that I have no idea when I would choose to reach for. 24K could be splwndid when wanting tea in a late session, as at least to me it’s very soothing and unlikely to keep me up. A tea as robust as Alter Ego would be better during the day – but it just doesn’t have the flair I want from my limited availability of full-on gongfu sessions.

I may try this Western (gasp!) as a work tea… but being a brick, it’ll require prep ahead of time, which doesn’t generally fit the nature of my work day tea sessions.

A fine brew… but a square peg to my proverbial round hole.

I promise never to refer to my round hole henceforth. My apologies.

Blind bought a cake of this because BULAAANG! It’s pretty nice, and a good price for what it is. Leaf smells smoky and a little bit floral. The first two steeps feature a pretty prominent campfire smoky note and a plummy fruitiness. Baking spices mingle with the plum note as well. It is decently thick in body. The flavor becomes sharper and a little astringent in the next few steeps, though the smoke dies down here. The tea produces a very notable throat feeling for a few steeps – like the feeling when you have phlegm in the back of your throat, but you can’t cough it up sorta. These steeps are all intense, punchy, strong in flavor.

Around steep 5 or 6, the fruit note morphs into a cherry flavor and the tea picks up a slight wood note. It also loses a good bit of strength and body, a trend which continues through to the end of the session, around 11 steeps.

9 Years of age has done much to soften what must have been a kick-you-in-the-teeth kind of tea in its youth, but this still has a good bit of bite to it. I attribute this to its Bulang character and the small material. It gets going quickly, brews strong and hard for a half dozen steeps, and then starts to peter out. Good for when you don’t want an epic-length session but want a tea with a bit of age on it. Not regretting the cake purchase at all.

This tea was decent after I figured out the ideal way for me to brew it. I haven’t had particularly great experiences with huangpian puerh yet, and this tea wasn’t really a step in a new direction in that regard. I was able to enjoy it after I learned that it’s a wussy lil tea that wants to be babied. At my normal sheng parameters, it got sour-ish and rough, as most huangpian do for me. I instead used 200F water and kept steep times below 20s for the whole session.

Doing the session differently was allowed me to avoid most of the rougher flavors that have made me dislike other huangpian I’ve tried. This tea’s aroma was wonderful – sweet and floral. I tasted notes of honey with a floral backbone for the most part in this tea. Towards the end of my first session, the sour notes in this tea died down a bit and took on almost a fruity character, like white grapes, and the tea developed a bit of a straw taste. Using cooler water and shorter times, I also got some starchy notes, almost like potatoes or unsalted french fries (yes, I know french fries are made of potatoes).

So this tea, while not my favorite, is not a bad tea. It was alright once I figured out how I prefer to brew it, but not one that I would need to order more of.

For a key to my rating scale, check out my bio.

Not my go-to tea (I prefer completely pure, unflavored teas), but stuffing Xinhui mandarins with pu’er tea and allowing the combination to age is a traditional practice and results in a very comforting tea. The shu pu’er picks up a very interesting citrus / menthol / medicinal note from the aged mandarin peel which actually offsets and compliments the chocolatey richness of the base tea quite nicely (to be expected I guess). A very comforting, smooth, and mellow brew.

For a key to my rating scale, check out my bio.

Another awesome value from Bitterleaf ($0.10/g). Very, very floral (as an Yiwu should be), with a really aromatic 回甘 (sweet finish) that is quite persistent and develops nicely. Slight mineral astringency but no bitterness overall. Very smooth for such a young tea.

For a key to my rating scale, check out my bio.

A really nice example of 陳韻 (“aged appeal”, or the smooth, mellow texture that is created as a result of aging) in pu’er. Not a particularly sweet pu’er, but absolutely no bitterness and incredibly smooth. The flavor is like dried Chinese dates and molasses. A subtle aged Bai Mu Dan flavor (like dried lavender stems) is revealed in the finish. Very subtle but lingering 回甘 (sweet finish). A relatively pricey tea, but very pleasant to drink – smooth, understated, and very comforting.

For a key to my rating scale, check out my bio.