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The first thing that stood out to me about this tea was the very fresh and green aroma of the dry leaf. The dry tea leaves are flat and needle light and appear to be all buds which show signs of opening up slightly when brewed. The taste overall is is light and sweet with flavor notes that are a tad fruity and woody but not grassy. A taste which is fairly consistent with what I remember bamboo tasting like so it is not by any means a stretch to call this a bamboo leaf green tea even though I’m confident that it lacks any bamboo. The tea also has fairly good multiple infusions for a green tea. As expected the first two infusions were clearly the best and the third was still very good. The fourth infusion started to go down hill but was still fair before the tea died on the fifth infusion.

The first round I initially confused the rinse water with tea and it was a very musty brew that was best fit for being dumped out upon the ground. The first real infusion after the double rinse had a medium body with an earthy edge to it. Not that much more to say about this brew as the earthy edge is the only thing really worth mentioning as if this brick were to mellow out more with age I think it would go downhill as it lacks any apparent depth. Overall I tend to avoid earthy puerhs which I typically bash as musty but I must admit that with a proper rinse this is one of the very few good earthy puerhs that I have experienced and one that the price is right as I have to admit that it is better than some of the bad cakes that I’ve had. Still in the end the brick is no value as its quality is still too low to result in a high level of enjoyment.

Brewed in a gaiwan, I found the Yunnan Silver Thread has some complex flavors in it. My first impression was wanting to day that it was light and sweet almost like white tea but then I picked up on the richer fruity taste that was also in the mix.

I brewed this tea in a gaiwan and got 3 infusions with fairly good results, although the 3rd brew was not that good. The tea has a medium light body with a sweetish flavor to the brew with a few fruity overtones.

This is excellent and as the vendor’s note states, you can taste that it is starting to age.

Pretty smooth, touch of sharpness in aftertaste somewhat like a darjeeling, but smoother. Good flavor, all-around good tea.

This tea had a nice minty aroma and tasted like chocolate/carob and sweet in the first 2 infusions. It was boring by the 3rd infusion, tasting like little. I had to stress the tea with long infusions to get any flavor, and it did have some bitterness and astringency when pushed, but not much mouthfeel or aftertaste. The leaf quality was surprisingly poor upon examination, its broken leaves looking a step above tuocha grade material. Nothing I’d purchase again.

Despite an orange liquor (5 years age doing this, or ?), the flavor and bitterness taste like traditional big factory sheng, in a dependable and comforting way: punchy, floral, bitter, and a tad smoky, I think this tuo’s flavor will go somewhere with more age. I lament at its dry storage and am curious how one of these aged in Guangzhou might taste.

More deep orange-gold in color than pale, but I suppose that will fade on later steepings – still, a lovely color. Definitely getting the fruity/muscatel flavor, and maybe a bit of amaretto nuttiness as well as the roastiness of a Formosa. Good, but not my favorite oolong

3oz cup… this is my last!:( Had the 1st infusion (20 sec) w/ a chicken in peanut sauce tv dinner.

My daily cuppa pu erh. 2g/2oz water. 15 sec rinse, 20 sec 1st infusion.

I have a major sweet/chai tooth both plain and w/ milk (chai), but after drinking chocolate and a dirty chai misto, my stomach is begging for something lighter. It just can’t handle those teas all day. I can’t believe I’m making pu erh as a palate cleanser and stomach settler!

I have 7oz of this left, so I decided to make a 2oz cup.

2oz water just under boiling water/2g leaf. Rinsed for 15 sec. then 20 sec 1st steep. A 2oz cup is hard because it’s hard to heat such a small amount of water. I don’t think I got the water quite hot enough because the liquor is extremely light. Lighter than most white teas even. Still very good though. Very light and sweet taste. Carolyn suggested increasing the steeping time for additional infusions, which I did last time, but since she suggested keeping it the same for cooked pu erhs I’ll try that this time and see what happens.:)

I checked carefully and there’s no mold so I decided to continue what I started last nite. 4th infusion, 50sec. Oh so sweet!:)

My 1st raw pu erh! Thanks to Carolyn:)

Parameters and Preparation:
>It came in a one cup serving (she gave me 2) and she said to make a 6oz cup, but since it weighs 5g I decided to make a 5oz cup.
>Rinsed it by pouring 5oz just shy of boiling water (Carolyn suggests boiling) over the leaves, letting it sit for 15sec, decanting, then dumping the water.
>1st infusion is 5oz just shy of boiling water steeped for 20 sec (Carolyn suggests boiling again).

Rinse water: I’m shocked at how light this is compared to the rinse water of my cooked pu erh experiences! Looks more like a white tea than the black I compared the cooked pu erh to.

1st infusion: Liquor is nearly identical to the rinse water. The aroma is earthy, but also light and sweet. Looks more like a white or green tea. There’s a lot going on in the flavor… the sweetness that showed up in later infusions of the cooked pu erh is present right away. It doesn’t taste anything like a black tea, more of a green. It’s light and sweet, yet a bit earthy… and even a little bit bitter. It reminds me of Kukicha.

Conclusions: Very different from cooked pu erhs, although I don’t like it any less or more. Just as complex as cooked pu erh even though it’s lighter. If cooked pu erh can be compared to a black tea, this can be compared to a white, green, or green oolong.

This is very nice. It has a sweet honey melon flavor. The liquor is pale yellow moving to golden as the tea resteeps. I’ve resteeped it several times and each time the sweetness and fruitiness are more pronounced. Sometimes it is more like honey. Sometimes the flavor is fruitier.

Update: Apparently 12 resteeps are enough to overwhelm the leaves. My twelfth re-steep was listless and barely flavored. So I’m moving on to another raw puerh.

Yesterday was such a great adventure that I feel that I should be a bit more adventurous in my morning tea choice. So I’m trying this Tanyang Gongfu black, which is quite a pretty tea with small twisted leaves and little golden tips mixed throughout.

Later on I’ll be doing more puerh exploration with my new Xiying tea pot which I seasoned day before yesterday. More on that later today.

In the meantime this tea is quite nice. It has a very sweet fragrance with notes of a very light fruitiness and a slight coconut or vanilla note. It brews up into a reddish brown liquor with some slight murkiness. A slight bitterness and astringency mars the sweetness of the tea but it is otherwise a fairly nice black tea with complex notes of fruit, cocoa, raisins and something else I can’t identify. It gets sweeter as it cools.

This brews up into a beautiful golden liquid that smells sweet with notes of guava and honey. The taste is true to the smell. It is sweet and tasty with subtle notes of fruit.

I dressed in my favorite bellydance cover-up, a flowing velvet affair with beads and gold embroidery, turned on an episode of Firefly (Trash) with a tea scene with Inara and then rinsed and steeped the Imperial Concubine tea and served it alongside two pieces of rose Turkish delight.

The tea begins with a musky sweet aroma with notes of honey and apricot and has a light, smooth taste. The second steeping adds a very slight smoky note with an apricot fragrance and taste. The third and fourth steeping develop the sweet apricot and honey taste further. It is a nice tea.

I began with a steeping time of 45 seconds and increased it over the period of re-steeps ending with the fourth steep of 2 minutes.

A very similar tea to my favorites: The Simple Leaf’s Dawn and Golden Moon’s Sinharaja. The leaves look different, though. Where Dawn and Sinharaja have mono-colored leaves, these are variegated with shades of olive green, chocolate brown, yellow, and gold. The fragrance is redolent of cocoa, raisins, and sweet tea. The color of the liquor is reddish brown (and it actually darkened as it sat once I removed the leaves).

It has the same strong tea and cocoa taste I love but with a tad more astringency. It is a very good tea.

As the title to aptly describes this Pu-Erh, ‘Imperial’ – if I could drink a queen it would be this tea, regal yet-very commoner, the flowery, leather, fruitiness is the crown jewel bouquet of fine wine. If I had no friends…then, this would be my best.

If I can only have a minute taste of heaven this is it! When it comes to Pu Erh. Red-Copper-Golden hue with a sweet earthiness thru and thru with a slight lingering acidity. Very rounded mouth finish. Yes…Yes…Yes…
Health & Happiness in 2010!

Finishing up the last of my sample from Auggy. This one still doesn’t taste like an oolong to me but I’m a little sad to see it go. It brews up super dark for an oolong, but the taste is mellow and not bitter at all.

Anyone else in the US up for a tea swap? I have several greens and a few others that need a happy new home.

Here’s another oolong that doesn’t taste oolong-y to me. I think it tastes just like a light to medium body black tea. I taste an earthy, rich and lightly smokey tea. I usually do not eat while I am drinking tea, but this one would pair well with several dishes. Kind of a basic black tea taste…but I like it.