white2tea

Solid for 6 steeps. This tea coats my mouth with an oily texture and relaxes my mind. Nothing unpleasant. I may buy a cake or two. For the price, I recommend anyone at least try it. Will be $6 well spent.

So I received this tea as a freebie with my white2tea order. The little cubes are nicely compressed. They are not as tightly compressed as I thought. I gave it two 3 second rinses and it was already breaking up. I gave this 5 steeps starting with 10 seconds and adding 5 seconds with each steep. It was very light colored the first steep but really darken at the second steep. Still pretty dark at the 5th steep. It is a sweet shou. I also get a taste of dirt. As if I would have taken a hand full of dirt and stuffed my mouth. And surprisingly, it is great. Overall a great little shou. I used four grams for 100 ml.

This was such a pleasant roast. The dry leaf consists of long crimson and dark brown leaves. The give off a very fragrant char and fruit aroma. I placed a generous amount into my warmed gaiwan and gave them a shake. The aroma was even deeper than the Tree counterpart. The scent was like raisins and roasted peaches. It was a deep ember like scent. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The taste is wonderful. The liquor is a lot lighter than I anticipated. This roast tea is not overwhelming charred. There is still a lot of green and sweet character still in this brew. The flavor is not as complex as Qilan Trees, but it is still very potent. The aroma began as a roast and ash, but it formed into plums and sweet nickel. The tea has a very rocky flavor. The taste is full of minerals and covered with sweet peach. The best part of this tea is simply the aroma. My tea room has a lingering rocky and fruit aroma that continues to stay put. I’ve even washed and put all my teaware away, and the scent still stays. Personally, the Qilan Trees is my favorite, but this is a beautifully roasted oolong that I will certainty treasure.

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https://instagram.com/p/7tQVa2zGUQ/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

This is everything you want in a light roast oolong. The dry leaf consists of long beautiful strands of a dark green tea. They carry a lingering sweet and tangy aroma. I placed a good amount in a warmed gaiwan (barely fit) and gave it a shake. The scent could not be contained in the gaiwan. I could smell a warm wood, grape, and fruit scent wafting from my gaiwan, and I haven’t even lifted the lid. I knew that this would be a treat. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The scent began sweet and herbal. It gave off the feeling of juice and thirst quencing. The brew was a tarnished bronze, and it refracted the light quite well. The taste was spectacular. It was smooth and ever changing in the mouth. It combined well with the different aromas. The flavor reminds me of a spring TGY mixed with Baozhong. It was a delicious remedy. The aroma then deepened and spread out with more mineral and stone fruits. The flavor followed. The taste became subtle yet stern. This brew was more earthy, like shale and nickel, yet it was covered with a forest tone. The tea kept consistently dark and flavored well throughout steeping. I was able to pull at least 8 or 9 steeping sessions, which is a lot for a roasted oolong. The end of the session left my teacup with a slight golden liquor that tasted of mineral and nectar. This was a wonderful tea, and I’m happy to have more to share.

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This is going to be my first time trying to write any sort of tasting notes so please go easy on me! ;~;

I tried brewing this in a relatively new little yixing pot that I got for roasted oolongs. I stuffed it as full of leaves as I could get it, which came out to around 6.5g. After doing a quick rinse and getting the pot warm, I started with really short steeps lasting only around 1 second or so for the first few infusions, then gradually started to add more time later.

The dry leaf smells a lot like honey, with a little bit of floral and charcoal behind it. The paper that came with this month’s teas mentioned a cannabis smell, which the wet leaf does remind me of, but again with the same charcoal and floral smells with it.

The tea itself has a fairly thick mouthfeel to it which I found pleasant. The first thing I tasted was a roasty flavor which then gave way to stone fruits and some sweetness. The mineraly rock taste normal for yancha is present in the back of the mouth and is very noticeable when swallowing. The first few infusions have a really strong, fruity aftertaste that I loved, and it lasted pretty long.

In later infusions, the roasted taste at the start became less noticeable and the other flavors started to feel really well balanced and smooth. Usually I find the rock taste in yancha to be a bit rough, but not at all with this tea. The aftertaste also started to taste sweeter and not as fruity.

Overall I really enjoyed this tea. Normally I’m not really into Wuyi oolongs, but the past couple months of this tea club have been really great and made me appreciate good yancha a lot more than I used to. Tomorrow I’ll get to trying the other Qilan that came paired with this one and I’ll be able to compare the two!

This was yesterday’s tea, and I suck at doing reviews from memory. I do remember it having a really nice balance of sweet, bitter, and fruity, with some definite apricot notes, and some complexity of flavour. It didn’t change too much as I went through the steepings, just got a bit lighter and more mineral near the end.

I wish there were a way to try all these 2015 W2T samples head-to-head without drowning myself in tea, lol. I don’t think my palate is really good enough to detect any subtleties yet. I’m also being spoiled by the fact that W2T only sells good puer, so I’m probably completely taking for granted the fact that all these young shengs are perfectly drinkable right away.

Today’s tea! 5g in the 100ml gaiwan, 2 rinses (maybe 10-15sec each) and then steeps of 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 20, etc… I started with boiling water but am experimenting with letting it cool down a bit since I’m finding this a bit punchy.

This is a really aromatic tea – you get a lot of interesting scents off the gaiwan lid: old books, tobacco, a bit of smoke. The slightly musty, old books flavour is fading as I progress through the steeps, leaving more sweetness, bitterness, maybe a bit of stewed dried fruit. It does have a slightly viscous quality, coating the mouth and throat, and leaving behind quite a bit of that dry astringent feeling. Lower temperature steeps are smoother and sweeter. It feels warm in the stomach, and it’s kind of making me feel both more alert and sleepy at the same time which makes no sense.

This is good, but I’m finding it to have a bit more bitterness/astringency than I really want. Not enough to make me stop drinking it, mind you. ;) I think next time I’ll either steep with cooler water, or much shorter steeping times, or both.

I LOVE this tea. It’s the dancong of yanchas… which is like two really good things that don’t sound like they’d be great together… but they are. This tea is aromatic during it’s whole life span, but unlike most yanchas I don’t really start enjoying until later steeps cough cough roasty I love this one from the first glass. In fact the first few steeps are my favorite, but I am a fan of the whole journey.

This combines the mineral and fruity flavors of a yancha with the honey floral aroma of a dancong. I never knew yancha could be so overtly aromatic. I’ve honestly never tasted anything quite like this tea.

It’s giving me the yearning for EXCELLENT dancong though… hey maybe now that white 2 tea is based in Guangzhou… here is to hoping for a dancong of this callibre in a club shipment soon.

But yes folks… I’ve never tasted a tea like this before. Get your hands on some! It is really universally appealing and easy to love and would be a great tea to serve to family members and friends to get them coveting some less traditionally served teas in the west.

I haven’t had this tea in a few hours (haha yay tea drunk at home days) so might have to add in some more in depth tasting notes later. But for the 3 times I’ve had this tea so far… I haven’t had a session that wasn’t STELLAR and full of happy tea drunk Phi.

I hope this becomes a yearly offering at white 2 tea! Because I’m sure this stash isn’t going to hold up for long.

This is a tea you start to drink, and after a few glasses you end up doing a double take… What is this fantastic aroma at the back of my throat? Next cup… wow it’s coming from the tea. This tea is a late bloomer. The girl in all the chick flix that the guys don’t notice until her makeover montage.

While the first few steeps didn’t really taste like much, much less special enough to be a cake this expensive… I was shortly blown away. First by the after taste… and soon after the flavor. This tea must have had impeccable storage to maintain it’s leaf character and not just taste like generic aged sheng. This one truely differentiates itself.

What this reminds me of is Tea Urchin’s 2014 Xi Kong, but all grown up. It has that same knock your socks off meadow and honey aroma as that fresh sheng, but more intense and backed by lower bass notes. This has all the wonders of young and middle age sheng at once! And goes forever and ever…

The later steeps are sugared plums. Yumm. This tea just keeps evolving.

This tea has not acquired it’s reputation unduly… but at the same time it is still rather young for people who are into aged tea. This tea is a cougar, she might be 40 but she looks (and dates) in her 20s. It is not too aromatic or gawdy, but after a quick warm bath is gorgeous and perfumed. I can’t stop smelling the gaiwan. It’s like being transported to one of those hill sides covered in flowers from musicals. You can smell the beeswax and flowers, backed by something a little more bitter. I keep humming Brigadoon… and am taken to that land we depicted in a musical in high school.

This tea is magic. If you don’t watch out you’ll end up in a land far away from where you sit right now. A tingling at the back of my throat beckons me to sing, my whole body is buzzing from where this tea is transporting me.

First steep had a nice floral nose; light straw taste with a stronger undercurrent going into a nice finish. 2nd steep was soft and round. Full flavor almost totally lacking in acid. Later steeps were similar: a smooth mix of straw with a bit of wood and smoke.

I agree with the W2T description that this would be an excellent introduction to Puerh. It is very smooth with almost none of the bitterness, acid, or tannins that some young puerhs show. For a more experienced pu-head, it serves as a pleasant, inexpensive everyday drink.

I’m finally back in town, and that means I can return to my tea table. I have missed my yixing dearly and have been awaiting a nice puerh session. This is the brew that I have chosen.

The cake consists of massive long and slender maocha. The leaves are beautiful strands of tarnished silver and aged bronze. The carry a deep sweet pipe tobacco scent. I placed a generous chunk in my warmed yixing and gave it a shake. The tobacco scent deepened into a more plum and light wood aroma. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The brew starts out as a light jade color, but it deepens to slight gold. The flavor is sweet and syrupy. I was fooled though. The liquor turned on me and went sharp and bitter. My tolerance has diminished since I’ve stepped away, so I was slightly floored by this brew. I stood my ground and continued my brewing. The flavor is a great balance of bitter and sweet. This brew caries a lot of flavor. These flavors being, a slight wood with smoke, some sweet grapes and hay. The huigan is wonderful! It takes a few steeeping to settle, but it follows well throughout brewing. The qi is what had me hooked. It begins a swift and harsh ride. My brain was racing, and my body sweating. Then, it smoothed out, almost instantly, to a light and uplifted consciousness. I loved this brew. The leaves when steeping are a brilliant green, and it kept a consistent golden colour well into brewing. This was magnificent, and it was a great way to resume my puerh journey!

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https://instagram.com/p/7fgRiszGaX/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

I wanted a special treat today so broke out my sample bag. It was disappointing. The first time I had this I absolutely loved it; best tea I’d ever had! Now, it is still good, but seems to have lost a lot of what I loved about it. It may just be that it is in the awkward stage between that fresh young flavor and maturity. Still very good, but just not great.

I decided that I needed a treat for my birthday so opened the sample of last thoughts I bought during the moving day sale.

The tea is amazing. Far and away the best tea I have ever had. The tea equivalent of Ch. Lafitte Rothschild wine.

Where to start? First steep was sweet, smooth, and grassy. Lots of cha qi. Very rich and powerful. Complex. Flavors drift slowly into a very long, lush finish. I’m flying high. Wouldn’t want to drive right now. 3rd steep: Nice nose: wood, with a hint of straw and smoke. Flavor is light straw and wood seems to move around my mouth as it activates different areas. Long finish and huge cha qi. I’m totally out of it after 5-6 ounces. I would need 3 times as much wine to get the same effect. This is more like whiskey.

At this point I took a break because I was afraid it was unsafe to go up or down stairs if I had any more. 5th, 6th steeps (2 hours later): Smooth and pleasant but not complex as before. Toasty nose. Rich toast/straw flavors, but weaker than before. Less finish. As it cools it devloped more flavor and complexity, displaying a syrupy, viscous texture. Still really powerful qi.

I went back to the tea about 24 hours later. Still gorgeous. Sweet smooth and complex. Silky in the mouth with excellent finish. This may be better than the earlier steeps because it is so well integrated. I’m seriously considering a cake for $439. The biggest problem would be that if I drank this regularly I would have trouble going back to normal teas.

Yum yum yummm. This is so tasty!

So, change of pace from all the W2T shengs I’ve been trying, I decided to brew up the old tea nuggets. :) Roughly 5g of nuggets in my 100ml gaiwan, boiling(ish) water. A 30sec rinse, then I gave the nuggets in the waterless gaiwan a good shake to try to loosen them a little, then another 30sec rinse. Then 20sec steep adding 10sec each time, until I got to 100sec at which point I started adding 20sec at a time. Wheee. :) Does anybody else use www.steep.it to time their tea steeping sometimes?

Anyway, this is sweet and creamy and pretty much delicious. I got a bit of cocoa 4 or 5 steeps in, but mostly this has raisin, prune, date notes for me. At one point it reminded me of a good dark fruitcake, you know, with lots of molasses and real dried fruit? It’s not overly complex, it doesn’t have a crazy texture or surprising aftertaste, I just keep drinking it as fast as I can brew it because it’s so darn tasty! Also, I might be just exhausted because I’ve had a long day, but I had to go lie down after about 6 steeps. ;)

Working through my W2T samples. :) So, the Poundcake I had yesterday was lots of big loose leaves, whereas this one is mostly just a single tightly-packed chunk, so I got a chance to use my puer pick again, yay! 5g in my 100ml gaiwan, started with a quick rinse, then 10, 15, 20, 25… etc (roughly – I’m never very exact with the timing). I boiled the water to begin with, and then just kept using it without reheating, so each steep was about 5 degrees cooler, until I got down to 80 deg or so, then heated to 90 deg after that… which actually worked pretty well.

Anyway. This tea is pretty good, but… not super interesting? I don’t know, I think I tend toward teas that are really aromatic or flavourful, and this isn’t either of those things. It is pretty nice, and I can see how it would be recommended as a good starter sheng. My favourite thing so far is how, after like 5 infusions, every time I clear my throat I get this really intense sweetness in the back of my throat. What is that? It has happened with other W2T shengs as well. Anyway, good tea but it’s not changing my life or anything. ;)

I have nothing new or insightful to say about this, just that I’ve been drinking it all day, and it’s lovely. :)

I figured I had better try my 25g sample of this in case I feel the need to immediately buy a cake of it. (Note to self: you do NOT actually need any more tea!)

The scent of the dry leaf when I opened up the package was really remarkable – very sweet and slightly floral/vegetal. I put 5g in my 100ml gaiwan, did one quick rinse, and then steeps of 10, 15, 20, 20, 25, 30… seconds. I started out with boiling water, and then dropped down to 80-90deg water a few steeps in when it started to get a bit bitter on me.

The first infusion was really light, flavour-wise, but had a lovely texture: fresh, crisp, clean. The next few infusions developed some stronger flavours – a bit vegetal, a bit of apricot, a bit of that zingy fresh sheng flavour – but maintained that sense of airy expansiveness in my mouth/head. Once I dropped the temperature, it settled down into a sweeter flavour and thicker mouthfeel, with a sweet coating building up on the back of my throat. The body feeling for me is warm and mellow, and I’m starting to feel a bit hungry.

This is pretty tasty, but I’m not convinced I need to aquire a cake of it (thank goodness). I’ll have to try the rest of my spring 2015 samples first and see how they all compare. :)

This Sunday afternoon is being spent with a sample that I received from TwoDog. Thank you, and sorry I have taken so long to get to it. I often find myself not trying new teas because I don’t feel I have the time to do justice to them, and this one has fallen into that category until now. I still don’t have time to focus solely on the tea but I am managing to enjoy it just the same.

The dry leaf is loose and easily taken apart. It smells warm and has an apricot-sweetness to the aroma. The liquor smells light, floral and fruity. It tastes smooth with a tiny hint of astringency at the back of the throat. There is honeysuckle sweetness that is pleasant and continues into the aftertaste with a spicy sparkle.

The way one enjoys tea seems to depend so much on one’s mood. This is just the right tea for this moment. At $122 per 200g beeng, I cannot afford to buy more of it, but I am really pleased to have had the chance to try it.

Received this in my first tea club shipment from White2Tea. My initial notes from first session:

Dry leaf- whole leaf, brown with some lighter fuzzy leaf. Not much aroma.

Wet leaf aroma – earthy, camphor, menthol, evergreen

Liquor – nice medium to light brown, mostly clear

Mouthfeel – active mouthfeel in the back of throat and tongue, thick

Taste – earthy, mushroom, woody, walnuts. Reminds me of the real late steeps of one of my Xiaguan shous. Tastes like some kind of candy that I’m having trouble remembering— Necco Wafers perhaps? Later steeps reveal sweeter berry flavors

Aftertaste – not real prominent, but woody and sweet gingerbread.

Cooling effect

I need to drink this one again, but I can definitely see buying more of this, especially for the price!

Dry – Bittersweet richness but mostly juicy bittersweet and tart fruit notes and a dried fruit sweetness.
Wet – Bitter, bittersweet greener notes, sweet fruity notes (crips), thickness, honey and floral notes with some bitter sweet richness.
Liquor – Golden to amber

First steeps are Bitter, fruity-floral and sort of woody up front that develop a slightly drying sensation combined with good thick/olive oil sensation. The liquor becomes smoother going down transitioning to a sweeter dried fruit and floral note that lingers.

Initial mid steeps are initially bitter tobbacco(green) into a bittersweet fruity and floral that transitions to the thicker/oily and sweeter notes. The drying sensation is more astringent now, but it is still smooth as it goes down. The huigan is fast, sweet, fruity and floral that lingers.

Later mid steeps are initially bitter tobacco(green) but it takes a more medicinal side of the spectrum. The notes then transition to a bittersweet medicinal, fruity and floral notes with some of that oily sensation. The huigan is sweet with plenty of fruity and floral notes.

Final steeps are very similar than before but you can detect the medicinal and floral notes starting to fade first. Even when more notes have faded in later steeps you still get a good huigan, but by the 10-11th steep it might be too weak to say is still there.

Final Notes
Very good! I was surprised because even though I’ve had other thick bulangs, this one is more of a YiWu type thickness that olive oil note and sensation to it; I’m more used to a creamy sensation or that thick sensations that borderlines numbing. The tea holds good but balanced bitterness and the huigan lingers in the mouth and slightly on the throat.

Water just off the boil. Two 5 second rinses. Then a 5 second steep and adding 10-15 seconds for each successive steep.

Every time I drink this tea I like it more and more. I prefer my puerh raw and young. This is raw with a bit of age. This is a tea that is selling me more and more on the concept of aged puerh.

There are some slight smokey notes in the initial steepings that are quite pleasant. While they unfortunately go away the later steepings are no less full body. And with an extra 5 seconds here or there it can be quite thick. An underlying sweetness slowly builds, but never becomes too prominent.

Another gongfu session of this from last night.

I followed the advice mrmopar gave after my previous session and stuck with shorter steeps at a lower temperature this time around. 6.5g of leaf in a gaiwan with 90C water and steeps ranging from 5-30 seconds.

Mrmopar was right – brewing at a lower temperature with short steeps does get rid of a lot of that bitterness. I think I’ll stick to 90C as my default temperature for young shengs from now on.

How was this tea based on these new steeping parameters? Fruity, vegetal, with a typical “sheng” tart flavour. It kind of reminded me of vanilla yogurt. No smoke. Some astringency on later steeps as it coated my tongue. However, near the end of the session I was developing a headache and I felt bloated from having over a litre of liquid in my belly.

This wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’ve been quite as seduced by this poundcake as other Steeptsterites. Considering that Paul from White2Tea has announced he only has about 100 cakes of this left in his new warehouse, I’m happy to let others have their chance with it.

In the meantime, I used up about half of the free sample I got from the W2T sale. I’m going to send the rest off to Ubacat, since she expressed some interest in it.

Gongfu session!

I haven’t had any puerh in a while, so I was excited to try this. My first impression is somewhat positive, but I was paying attention to all of the previous notes talking about how vanilla/sweet this was, so I was unexpected when the bitterness started to show up on the third steep.

I brewed 6g in my gaiwan using water just off the boil. Had a BIIIIG teapot on hand (probably about 5 cups) but I think I only did about 10 steeps. 5-second rinse, then 10/15/20/20/25/30 – after that I didn’t keep track as much.

The first steep was fairly neutral tasting, but the second steep was more fruity and I got tart hints of apricot. The third steep was where the bitterness started coming in, and around steep 5/6 I started feeling this menthol/eucalyptus/tingling feeling in my throat.

I think that if I squint I can kinda taste the vanilla/honey/cake notes that other people here have mentioned, but I’m not quite there yet. I think I’m going to let this sit a bit more before I have it again.

On the plus side, there were HUGE leaves and buds in my brew! I even took a photo: https://instagram.com/p/7JlgnfxIea/