Chayo Tea

I bought this tea in early 2016. I’d only found the Dong Pian harvest of Four Seasons oolong in a few places, and wanted to see if it was different. ($20 for 75 g also sounded good.) And then, I let it sit—for two years.

I opened the vacuum-sealed package a couple weeks ago. The smaller-than-usual winter petals gave off a sweet, floral aroma. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The first steep has notes of orchids, other flowers, nuts, cream, and grass, and the second adds a touch of veggies, arugula, and citrus. The vegetal and floral notes dominate the next few steeps, and though the tea starts out sweet, it doesn’t stay this way for long. By steep six, it’s entirely green and vegetal. I steeped it out, but it was basically over by this point.

I’m not sure if the tea aged badly or whether it was short lived to begin with, but compared to other offerings from this company, it didn’t perform well. It’s a decent daily drinker, but I don’t think I’ll buy more.

Had this tea for the second time today.

First time was grandpa style. It was amazing, but I wanted to try it gongfu style before making my final verdict.

This tea is amazing. I tasted the typical buttery notes of green oolong, but I also detected coconut flavors for the first time in my tea drinking journey.

I see that it’s already sold out on the website. Good thing I bought it in bulk!

So the one I ordered at the end of last year was a 1973 Wenshan Baozhong and that is what’s written on the tea I received. However, since it’s no longer on the site and I can’t verify one way or the other I will leave my review here.
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Dry leaves smell of petrichor, clay, old leaves and a hit of coffee.
Wet leaves smell of old wet winter leaves, clay, with a note of prunes.
This is the darkest rinse I’ve ever seen!

Steep/Time: Notes
1/5s: Very, very smooth. Sweet with old leaves and clay. Reminiscent of shou puer, but very, very clean.

2/5s: Sweet, smooth, tastes of wet winter leaves. (Think of the smell of a pile of leaves you find buried under snow). No bitterness or astringency to speak of.

3/10s: Sames previous. Picking up a bit more of that petrichor/mineral note. Not at all overwhelming. Perhaps the tiniest bit of astringency in the finish.

4/12s: I’m actually enjoying this petrichor/mineral note. It’s that smell of newly fallen rain on hot stone, with wet leaves. It’s sweet and smooth. Wasn’t sure in the previous steep, but this tea does indeed have a bit of gentle cha qi.

5/18s: Speeding up time between steeps definitely kicks up the qi. Sweet, smooth.

6/25s: Same

7/30s: The sweetness is blossoming more. Not as much wet old leaf taste in this steep. Just sweet smoothness and petrichor.

8-14/?s: These I just let sit and pour and sip and sip and sip. Same taste profile as steep 7 for the most part.

I just moved the leaves to my larger oolong pot (250mL) it just struck me that the smell I’m describing as petrichor is the aroma of a genuine yixing teapot after its seasoning boil. The smell of wet stone earth. :) I’ll drink to that!

15/???s: I let this steep through my meeting and man is this good! Tastes like a really clean shou puer with that oddly pleasant petrichor/mineral note a bit more subdued.

16/???s: This has to be what the original creators of shou puer were hoping to create. Really, really good!

Such a Great tea.

A nice smooth somewhat oily soup with a burgundy colour and a very nice and smooth mouthfeel with a hint of astringency in it.

A sandy sort of claylike taste with a minerally metallic sort of astringency that doesn’t quite dry the moth but is rather smooth and is a bit rounded of by a sweetness that increases with steepings.

There is a hint of wood that is both wet like the smell of a carr yet dry like a piece of wood that has floated ashore on a beach and dried in the sun.

Reminds me of sitting and watching the sun set in the eaarly autumn on a cliff near a small lake with a cuneiformous forest in the back, a small sandy beach to the side below the cliff that has some birches growing near a grassy patch with their leaves rustling in the wind.

An amazing tea.

A nice and fresh taste that is towards mint, eucalyptus and slate and a soup that is a bit oily and very lovely in the mouth with a bit of a sweetnes that rounds off the minty – eucalyptusy taste making the tea very smooth and pleasant. The later steepings of this tea is just amazing as it becomes increasingly smooth and the sweetnes comes forward a bit more and rounds of the taste very well with an excellent mouthfeel.

Reminds me of an sitting in a herb garden during a lovely sunny autumn late afternoon with the faint smell of leaves burning in the distance and the air is starting to get a bit chilly as the sun falls towards the horizon but still shines in my face.

This tea is amazeballs. It’s unusual and brilliant. Flavorwise, cowsdef’s review hits it spot on, so if you want to know more about specific flavors, read that review. If you love aged oolong and you haven’t tried this one yet, you really should.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJoA1TbgtsT/?taken-by=curlygc

Today’s afternoon tea comes from Chayo Tea who I’ve been observing through Facebook. I finally placed an order last months for some oolongs since I was running low, but I knew this would be a hard thing to review. For me, oolong is the best variation of tea and it is also one that many places are selling great quality of if you know where and how to look.

This dong ding shows no signs of anything special when you look at it and smell it; this can be said for the brewed liquid as well.

The texture is in the middle which is awesome because that low key walnut that was overly roasted over wood isn’t just a thin dry spell throughout your mouth. The taste has no machine processing notes that I can find which is nice because it tells me through taste that it was roasted either with skills or a lot of observance.

The end notes are dry which kind of sucks, but it happens a lot with roasted oolongs. What is nice about this tea is the mild warmth and the moderate level of qi that comes through after a few steeps.
If there was no texture to it this wouldn’t be all that well, but with the texture and the feels it is a pleasant drink.
p.s. the mouth coating of this is fantastic

For my 50th review(yay! Halfway to my goal :D), we’ll be doing a 25 year old Wenshan Baozhong, this is my second time drinking this one, and it’s a very unexpected tea;

The dry leaf smells exactly like a rainforest! Which is really cool, I’ve never experienced this before in a tea

The tea begins very reminiscent of the rainforest, but earthier and with cocoa notes which get stronger during the first few steeps, minerals,

It’s very sweet and actually quite creamy, the rainforestyness fades quite a bit in the middle, and astringency comes in pretty strongly, there’s a hint of sourness, also some vanilla, still a bit of chocolate and a lot of earthy, woody, rainforest.

As the session goes on, it actually seems to be getting darker and earthier, it’s very rich and decadent, a bit of grape comes in after a while. The flavour lasts for very long time, strong and dark for well, I’ve done over 1.5L and it’s still going great, but I’m about to run out the door so there’s no time for more just yet, I’ll continue the session tonight :) lovely tea

I definitely now need to try a fresh Wenshan Baozhong, I’ve never had one, at least just to compare