white2tea

Wow. Tea club treated us well this month. This mushroom is awesome in every way. It’s very drinkable now, with very little astringency unless over-steeped. Early steeps are fruity and sweet balanced well with a twinge of young tea astringency. The net effect is a sweet citrus fruit, like a sweet orange/grapefruit. Later steeps are creamy, sweeter, and still a little citrus-y. Reminds me of a dreamsicle. It’s great and I’m hoping there are more of these going up for sale soon because I’d love to hoard it.

I had my first session with the ’shroom yesterday. I love the shape and the wrapper. I totally played Super Mario growing up. So fun!

I was eating apricots before I drank the first infusion, and the first sips of the tea totally made me salivate, making my mouth flood with juice. It was also a bit smoky. In the second steep, I noticed a spinach note that continued throughout my session. I’m not a huge fan of that note…as you probably have noticed I don’t drink much green tea, which tends to taste like spinach….but it didn’t bother me. There was a really nice thick, silky mouthfeel, especially in earlier infusions that kind of stole the show. I drank a lot of infusions. I totally thought I was going to stop until the next day, but after a break with some snacks, I returned to the tea to find it sweeten up nicely. I definitely felt a caffeine energy from this tea, but it didn’t kill my stomach, which is a plus! Overall, it’s a good tea, which is good, because I have 250g of it!

This was unexpected. I normally prefer more robust and smoky/savory aged raw puerh, so the first time I tried this I was really surprised. I had no idea that such young raw puerh could be so smooth, sweet and mild. It’s just so tasty and sweet, like the name implies. It’s very balancing too, as far as energy. I like to drink it in the afternoons when I am trying to keep the caffeine to a minimum. I’m not sure if it actually has less caffeine or if it’s just a perception but I feel like I can keep drinking it with minimal caffeine effects. Could be other things in the tea (GABA, theanine?) just balancing out the caffeine. Either way, I’ve really been enjoying this and I’ll be sad when its gone. I want to drink it every day.

I did at least 11 steeps of this (I always lose count, but I used up 35oz of water).. I’m feeling jingmai. Not exactly jingmai, mind you, but it’s what my mind thinks of when tasting this. There’s a soft bitterness, not punchy, and plays well with the innate sweetness of the tea. A soft floral/fruit note, syrupy, and a full mouthfeel. Not a tea drunk tea for me, but overall, very enjoyable. This could be the one that I order another cake of.

I got this one as a 10 gram sample in the white2tea July 2015 tea club shipment. It’s Yiwu so naturally milder in flavor, and slightly sweet. But a little one-dimensional to me. Good age – seems humid stored? I’m relatively new to the world of raw puerh so bear with me. The thing that strikes me most about this tea is the qi. I started feeling it creep up on the second steep and started sweating on my 4th cup. Possibly the strongest qi I’ve felt from a tea yet. Very nice. I would drink this tea primarily for the feeling, though the taste certainly isn’t bad. It just doesn’t have a lot of nuance to it.

Finally got around to trying this last night.. I tried some from the gourd instead of the cake, so I might get different flavors when I try the cake at some point. The steeps are nice and sweet, creamy, and a little fruity.. I noticed at steep six that I got some familiar bulang-type bitterness (which I was told later was actually Manzhuan). This only lasted for the one steep though. Overall, I would use the word “milky” to describe the tea, though not in the way that a jin xuan is milky.

Pu’erh TTB 2015 Tea #11

I made the same mistake with this tea as my first taste note… I didn’t even know I drank this before until I went to add this. http://steepster.com/Proust614/posts/310341#comments
Tea addict problems: Not even sure what you have drank or not :/

Please Read
Not knowing that this thing was 20g, I began steeping this realizing that I was in for one long ass session…
Roughly 60 ounces later I felt like I couldn’t move.
Then 15 more steeps came; who knows how many ounces I’m at now…

I am not sober and I don’t believe I can operate stairs…
http://postimg.org/image/68m6l74h5/full/

W2T July Teaclub

Very interesting and complex tea..
Rinse: 30s, light peach color.. a little smoke, smooth shou flavor.
Steeps 1&2: 5s, orange/yellow color.. smoky, campfire, wood, wet leaves
Steep 3: 5s, fire orange.. same flavors, but a soothing, warming feeling.. a touch of sweetness
Steep 4: 10s, bright orange.. same flavor.. not my favorite flavor in the world, but it’s alluring.. drawing me to have another sip, and another.. I’m feeling the qi building and also feeling slightly drunk.. off of a yiwu, which is new for me.
Steeps 5&6: 10s, bright orange.. the rough edges of the flavor are gone now, yielding a tea that is smooth, woody, and smooth.
Steep 7: 15s, orange.. Now here’s where I’m going to sound like a nutjob. Add the smallest pinch of salt (literally, a few granules). You won’t notice the salt, but it unlocks a cooling sensation and a sweetness for me that’s amazing. Or maybe I’m just teadrunk. Either way.
Steeps 8&9: 15s, light orange.. still some woodsy notes, but a sweetness is breaking through the noise.. honey-like..

This is as far as I can go right now.. Excuse me while I take a cold shower XD This tea makes me so warm inside. Let me know if I just lost all credibility with the salt thing ;)

I like this tea. It’s certainly strongly in the “daily drinker” category- not super exciting and a bit watery, but it checks all the sheng-pu boxes that are important to me: texture, huigan and qi. It is sweet and mellow, perhaps a bit tannic, with notes of roses, dark straw, and stone fruits.

I recently sampled this, gotta say that the quality is undeniable. Soup is thick, dark, sweet, reminiscent of decayed wood, mushrooms, and wild honey, and has a distinct mahogany finish.

This is delicious creamy fruityness. Much less hay than many jingmais I’ve had.

Thank you Cheri for letting me try this one! I got a sample from her right after it sold out on the site (to neither of our knowledge), so had been waiting for an occasion to treat myself to the sample :P

Wonderful and complex and very enjoyable. Thankfully there are enough good Jingmais I am not in tears at how good this is though! It’s peaches and stone fruit with a creamy aftertaste, and it goes down easy but lingers.

Thank you Boychik for this sample. This was an excellent tea. I really was tired from work and not paying attention to the specifics but it was good. I didn’t notice much in the way of fermentation flavor although there was some. There was very little bitterness and a nice sweet flavor profile to this tea.

I brewed this eight times in a 120ml gaiwan with 10g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. I saved the leaves and may go back to this tomorrow. It was not at all weak in the eighth infusion and has a lot more to it.

I got this tea in the gourd shape from the monthly subscription and I’ve tried it three times. The second time I didn’t get the parameters right, so I thought I’d do it again before reviewing it. I had a nice long session with it today in my Jian shui pot. I used 7g and it was perfect. I also did very short steepings for most of the infusions, because it’s bitter if you push it too hard.

The first time I sessioned it, I got creamy citrus notes. This time, it was all creamy vanilla. Absolutely delicious! I’ve not had a sheng with vanilla notes before! I also got a nice energy from it, but it wasn’t crazy, and didn’t bother my stomach, which are all good things. My only complaint is the shape of the gourd, as it’s really compressed and you have to be careful or you will poke yourself with your pick. Also, I feel like it makes me break the leaf more. I would consider getting a regular shaped cake of this one, as the flavor is quite unique.

This young pu’er is really sweet! It was sweeter than expected that I accidentally poured it on myself (and prior to that stabbed myself with a pu’er pick). Besides sweet, the tea is a bit floral, kettle corn and steamed vegetables. I personally loved the sweet start of this pu’er but undecided on the vegetal final infusions, I think I need to play with times and temperatures a bit. The sweetness alone is enough to convince me I should buy a cake (and the sweet as f wrapper design)

Note – I’m referring to the 2015 Teaclub gourd, which is the same material. I’m curious how the cake may differ in taste due to tightness of pressing.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/june-white2tea-club-tea-review/

WOW, cacao aroma… sweet, very sweet…

Backlogging this note from drinking it last night.

Not much of a tasting note per say, more a note to remind myself that these are GOOD tasty nuggets with a cocoa type taste. I’ll write a more detailed note next time I drink them!

A nice tea, I love the strength and complexity of Dancong. Like all other Dancong oolongs, this tea is best brewed aggressively. Leaves should be piled high 3/4 of the Gaiwan, water should be boiling (or just below since the leaves are very green), and should be steeped at least 30s every time. I like my tea strong, but not bitter or burnt, so if you are open to trying this tea in different parameters, I promise you wont regret it. To discover and appreciate the nuances of Dancong tea give it a try! By the third steeping a strong fragrance of rose steamed off of the leaves and the liquor. The scent cup held a complex array of characteristics including melon, white sugar, and roses. The scent and flavor of the liquor was overtaken by floral notes. The color of the liquor was golden and it had a very full, satisfying flavor.

This tea is STRONG. Totally became tea drunk the first day I sessioned it. I was lightheaded, silly, my tummy gurgled, and afterward, I got sleepy! My first 8 or so steeps were all shorter than 25 seconds! Like I said, STRONG!

I used about 7g in my Jian Shui pot the first day and then steeped it in my shiboridashi the second day. I really enjoyed the flavor of this tea. I loved that there was a sweet note peaking out even in the early steeps. It also has great complexity, and by that I mean, it tastes like there are a lot of flavors, but I had trouble picking them all out. With the sweet note, there was also bitterness, but different than I’ve experienced in other sheng. It was like a note of bitterness playing nice with the other notes, rather than domineering them. The texture was also slightly oily throughout. On the second day, this tea was nice and sweet, a tropical fruit sweet, like pineapple or papaya. Delicious and definitely worth steeping it out fully. Just don’t do it all in one day! ;)

Very mild, very pleasant. This 13 year old ripe tuo is not complex nor strong. After finding myself steeping this tea and replacing the spent leaves with fresh chunks after many infusions I felt as if I may finish the tuo in one sitting. I saved some tea for future sessions throughout the week and I look forward to drinking this easily approachable tea. Tastes like dirt, goes down as more easily than any tea I’ve tried, and relaxes me. Worth it to buy in bulk, which I may do.

Talk about an underpriced tea- this is real, quality aged sheng stored in a traditional environment. Soup is thick and dark, with intense sweetness and enduring aftertaste. It is suggestive of sweet dried dates, antique leather and ginseng. This would make a valuable addition to any puerh aficionado’s library.

This is a delicious tea that has very little bitterness, almost none. It is sweet with notes that you could call apricots and stonefruits. This is the first time I am drinking this since I bought a cake during White2Tea’s moving sale. Last time it was a sample of the gourd from a good tea friend. This is just a really solid raw puerh tea. I do not know how the lack of bitterness will effect this tea’s aging. I have always heard that bitter teas age better. This is not a bitter tea. I used to add sugar to sheng because I was used to bitterness in sheng. Not sure when I stopped adding sugar to sheng.

I steeped this tea eight times in a 100ml Ru Kiln teapot with 8.3g leaf and 200 degree water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. I’m sure I could get at least 6-7 more steeps out of this if it wasn’t for the caffeine. While I think this is a blend of teas it is high quality tea.