white2tea

This tea is my all time favorite. Let’s see, first brewing parameters :
~6g of leaves in the W2T gaiwan which is 95ml! For timing, I usually go lighter
on the first 2-3 brew b/c of it’s storage taste and then go really heavy. This will
tend to yeild what espresso geeks call god shots by the 4th infusion and that for 3 more.
So something like this : Rinse, Rinse, Pause, 5s, 10s, 10s, 45s, 1m, 3m, 10m….

This morning, I was able to achive that godly taste, basically imagine milk texture, except
hot and with all this shou pu’erh godness!!! I am completly biased on that tea, sorry :D

This is also the first tea since I started drinking pu’erh that I’ve actually re-bought in
larger quantity! I have 2 cakes comming my way and I’m about halfway done with my
first one.

This is, to my taste, the pinacle of shou puerh :) BTW, anyone who despise wet stored tea
should stay away as it has quite a bit of humidity in the first steeping which I like because
it seem to help the flavors even better

AWESOME TEA basically!

This is my… counts.. second sheng? Third, maybe? I found it to be really astringent.. But talking to Phi and Veck, they let me know that my temp was too low, so I’d really like to try this one again.. I’m still a super pu noob, so I have lots to learn!

The only thing I can thing while sipping this is :
“BULANG HIT ME, HIT ME HARD!!!!”

I love bitter tea, especially shengs… So I actually overbrew this one and it taste soo soo soo good!!! Used 6g of leaves in a 95ml gaiwan, with nice and agitated brewing at rolling boil… give a thick, astringent, bitter tea… It’s delicious :) Leave a nice mought feel… Tea to be enjoyed SLOWLY, watching all the after-effect of that kind of powerful tea!!!

This tea is most definitvely on my to re-buy at some point :D
Cheers

First review on steepster, let’s try this out!

This is a really nice well priced shu. For a ’98 tea, it feels like it was dry stored for most
of his life. This is not a bad nor a good thing to me because I actually love humid stored
tea! :D

As to parameters : 6g in 95ml gaiwan, 2 rinses and then 30s/10s/15s/….
I got 8 interesting infusion out of this! As to taste, it taste like a well
matured shou puerh! Earthy and nice!

My first note got eaten by Steepster…:(

This shou is friggin’ awesome, and I believe I got the parameters down perfect. I aired out this shou for six months. My tea pals can tell you how long it took me to learn that aged offerings need airing!! I’ve learned that the aged teas from white2tea require this kind of patience but to trust TwoDog on his choices, if it ain’t good then I didn’t air it long enough or I didn’t brew it right. The longer an aged tea has been stored in China, the longer it really needs to rest and air out after arriving to really be the best.

I brewed up this 20 g melon in 180 ml Zhuni clay teapot to let it expand but then I used about half the water! So about 100 ml water after doing four rinses. The lump of shou sticks up above the water line. I’m on day 3 STILL flash brewing past 15 steeps. Smells earthy in the pot but the taste is the reward, mushrooms, dates, cherries, cacao, thick port wine flavored brown brew of goodness and double happy dance. Brew it thick and thicker with less water, this tuo is 20 g for a reason and the makers knew what they were doing when they made these! Oh yeahhhhh….

Really nice oolong – complex and the flavors change with each infusion! I got woodsy, cherry, butter, mineral and roasted barley. The cherry is a really tasty aftertaste! The oolong gets nice and sweet, with no dryness. The leaf on this tea is huge too!

Full review on Oolong Owl feat. Hellhoot http://oolongowl.com/march-white2tea-club-tea-review/

Dry – Aged floral bitterness, wood with sweetness, very faint dried fruits, some medicinal notes, raisins, tamarind shell.

Wet – Aged/slightly decayed wood but with a deep sweet fruit background, rich like dried dark fruits (raisins, dates, figs), dark sweet notes (molasses, caramel — the sweetness that inherently has a bitterness to it).

Liquor – Amber to reddish amber (Aromatic of dried fruits and bittersweet notes)

1st 3secs – Bittersweet woody and fruity, some bittersweet notes that resemble a very gentle tamarind with some shell pieces up front. It feels rather thick and as it goes down it is smooth and maintains the thick and rich notes with the same bittersweet-floral and woody note from the start.

2nd 3secs – Bittersweet floral/fruity and wood front that still somewhat resembles mellow tamarind(shell) to me which transfers to a richer/thicker body and notes and a lingering mouthwatering sensation. If well slurped it is more bitter up the front in a very pleasant and huigan enhancing way.

3rd 3secs – Bittersweet floral/fruity, woody front that transitions into the rich woody sweetness that resembles dried fruits such as raisins with a slightly herbaceous sweetness appearing as it washes down. Gentle camphor present.

4th 4secs – Bitter woody that becomes bittersweet woody with floral notes and a dried fruit background. As it goes down, it is still very smooth with apparent bitterness, combined with the rich dried fruit notes and hints of molasses.

5th 6secs – Bittersweet, wood, floral notes with apparent fruit background, the fruit and wood notes still combined continue to resemble a mellow/gentle tamarind note, it is almost an acidic fruit note. As it goes down, the liquor is very smooth with only minor astringency after it has completely washed down.

6th 7secs – Very similar to most previous steeps, some more astringecy seems to chime in, but still has that thick and rich body with plenty of that bitter to bittersweet note that keeps reminding me of a gentle tamaring note. The liquor continues to be aromatic.

7th 9 secs – Bitterness and bittersweet notes, wood, floral and fruits notes reappear with more energy again. After the liquor goes down the bitterness lodged in the throat and the huigan is very pleasant.

8th 10 secs – This one was cleaner steep with a bit weaker bitterness, but still very pleasant overall, mostly sweeter.

9th 14 secs – This one appears faded again in the bitterness aspects but still wears similar notes. Time for bigger steep time adjustments.

10th 25secs – Second wind; the bitter and bittersweet notes returned with most of its previous profile, a bit more floral and juicy than the richer and filling body it had before.

11th 35secs – Richer again, bittersweet as opposed to the weaker flat bitterness with less wood and more fruit notes. A very pleasant and lasting/lingering huigan.

12th 45secs – Still holding up for the most part, you can tell this one still has a few more steeps in it.

13th 1min – Returned some of the initial notes of bittersweet, plenty of floral and fruit with some astringency present. Very smooth still, specially in the 13th steep, it has some faded rich notes.

14th 1min 30secs – Good bittersweet notes, floral, some fruit and again astringency.

Final Notes
Very infusable, I feel like it has a perfect balance between the wood/floral/fruit bitterness with sweetness ratio. It has plenty of aged notes together with ‘I can age more’ character. This is not a complex tea, I didn’t get changes along the steeps, maybe something being more up front at times than others. I liked it a lot but this is also the type of tea that takes me two days to get through, not only because of the how infusable it is, but because it can be a bit boring after the 6-8th steep of the same notes. I would still recommend it.

Preface I have had a lingering head cold nothing major but my nose and throat are dry which has a big impact on taste and smell obviously.

I got more of the herbal tonic flavor this time but still chasing its fragrance. When I peak inside the steaming gaiwan after the liquor has been poured I get light whiffs of pomegranate. Definitely a slightly sweet menghai profile with playful tannic astringency. The fragrance hints at red fruits so hopefully it’s foreshadowing flavors to come. I am not completely sold on it’s worth but did a blind buy based on those wiser and more experienced then myself, hopefully I will be proven wrong in due time.

Fairly confused

When the cake arrived I couldn’t help but smell it and I was greeted with a light plum-esque fruity sweetness, which I again smelled from the warmed leaves in a gaiwan. Unfortunately I never got to taste it through all the infusions. The liquor brewed up a clear yellow orange which I did not expect given it’s age. By comparison the white whale and yangpinhao brewed up deep murky red. Clarity is a term I see tossed around not sure what the supposed implications are but this tea had a clarity in every brew from the start that I usually only see at the end of a session when a tea is dyeing out. The only flavors I tasted where generic menghai county no aged flavor or plum sweetness I smelt. Other unique features were the teeth cleaning/coating effect almost like I just ate a salad of raw bitter greens.

Not experience enough to know the implications of the clarity or teeth coating but at the moment I won’t be drinking this tea any time soon which is a shame because I was hoping it would be drinkable as well as an investment.

Backlogging from over the weekend!

I got my new little Ru Kiln pot from White2Tea this weekend along with some samples that Cheri sent! https://instagram.com/p/0gyegXRh48/ Thanks again Cheri!

I drank the ChocoShou Saturday night and I really enjoyed it for an aged tea. I’m pretty picky about my older shou and this was a very enjoyable one. Tasted like sweet old library books. Will pick up a tin with the next group order for sure :)

Truly a step above

I didn’t have high hopes due to paul being primary a puer vendor. I also thought most shui xian cultivars were lower grade old bush or not. Short answer I was wrong, my faith in paul is reestablished. While yancha is not favorite tea or even oolong I do enjoy the flavor profile from time to time and this was a nice sunday treat.

-Scent
Enough jibber jabber, warmed gaiwan I threw the leaves in and took a whiff. I smelled a fruity sweet dried red fruit profile along with a minerally/roasted strong background.

- Taste
Super Complex and a real shapeshifter that progresses in a astonishing way. First I tasted sweet fruitiness coupled with a perfumy slightly floral almost reminded me of a yiwu profile but amped up sweetness. The sweet dried red fruit passed after a steep or two and gave way to a roasted rock taste. After a another two steeps the roast dissipated a all the remained was the shui xian leaf taste which amazed me because most shui xian I have had in the passed have been roast that predictably bled into mineral leaf taste where as this had a very complex fruitiness floral aspect that was layered on top. The sweetness I have experienced before in an da hong pao but even that tea didn’t have this kind of unique aroma layered on top. Even stranger I did a suicide steep (boiling water, half filled gaiwan, 10+ minute steep ) after I was thought the leaves were dead, and instead of a mouth puckering bitter astringent whiskey face I was greeted with a pure honey sweetness I had not even picked up on during my previous steeps?

-Thoughts
Not sure about the caffiene as my tolerance is back up but I can say I did get a pinch of energy that was overpowered by a sigh of calm numbing tea drunk. I am far from a yancha connoisseur so I will not be purchasing at the current price. I trust this price is fair for the quality of leaf outside of china but as far as my oolong consumption goes it would be like taking a designer clothes on a hiking trip. The layered nature of this tea would be wasted on myself as I rarely brew oolongs and on the rare occasion I do I tend to brew haphazardly throw it in a slow pouring yixing that would surely drown the complexity.

After reading countless stellar reviews of White2Tea’s curated selection of puerh teas and impeccable customer support, I had to place an order. The owner of White2Tea, known in the tea community as Two Dog, is arguably the most knowledge tea blogger on the Internet. You can read his work over at http://www.twodogteablog.com/ and http://www.white2tea.com/blog/. He is also very active in the r/tea and r/puer communities on reddit.

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White2Tea is based in Beijing, China and offers a very minimalist, “no bullshit” approach to selling puerh teas. Although White2Tea’s selection is smaller than some of its competitors, sometimes it is nice to select from a smaller amount of curated puerhs, rather than sift through hundreds and hundreds of random cakes. I also love all of White2Tea’s creative and adorable logos on their wrappers.

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This 2008 Often came as a sample with my order (White Whale!). Two Dog was very generous, giving me four different ten gram samples. The 2008 Often Tuo is White2Tea’s main budget offering, which is why I wanted to jump in and try it right away.

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Dry Leaf

I used almost the whole sample for my review, so this is a little bit more leaf than I would normally use. With that in mind, I brewed the tea with very quick infusions.

This tuo (nest shaped puerh) has quite an interesting composition. My 10g sample contained one large chunk and several smaller leaves. The tuo is pretty tightly compressed, just like most tuos. The leaves are on the larger side, and are a fantastic array of color. Some of the leaves are light straw colored, while others are dark gray. They gray colored leaves had beautiful gold and silver hairs on them. I was transfixed by the way that the light was bouncing off of the hairs. If you zoom in on this photo, you can see the hairs!

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The dry leaf is not overly fragrant. There is a slight hay or grassy smell to the leaves, but it’s nothing too strong. I detected a slight smoky note to the aroma of the dry leaf. Perhaps the most noticeable aroma coming off of these leaves is a sweet and earthy smell, which I really enjoyed.

Teaware

I used a standard gaiwan, nothing too exciting. I picked up this neat tea strainer and hand from Tea Drunk in New York City. I used a tea strainer like this in Taiwan once, and I have been looking for one in the US ever since. I finally found one! I showed off this tea strainer and hand to my friends, but they were a bit concerned about how happy it makes me.

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Brewed Tea

The aroma of this puerh really took off once I placed the leaves into the warm gaiwan. The fruity and smoky smells were intensified tenfold. Incredible! If I had to describe it, I would say it is very peachy and smoky…perhaps grilled peaches? Nah, that makes me sound like one of those wine snobs.

I opened up this tuo with two five second rinses.

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The first steep came out an interesting orange-yellow color. The color was definitely darker than I expected. This puerh has a very interesting flavor, with many of the characteristic sheng puerh flavor notes, but it is a bit more vegetal than most puerhs I’ve tasted. The first steep was quite astringent, even though I essentially poured the hot water in the gaiwan and then immediately poured it into my cha hai. I actually found this astringent character quite pleasant. This steep was also notably vegetal. Although the dry leaf smelled a bit smoky, there was no smoky flavor in the brewed tea.

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The mouthfeel was very slick and smooth, giving this tea a very pleasant juicy and thirst quenching quality.

The astringent and vegetal qualities of this tea combined quite well, combining to create an interesting flavor that I identified as green bell pepper, or perhaps celery. The aftertaste was notably sweet and very pleasant.

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The second steep was a similar color but tasted a bit less astringent. The next several steeps were very strong and powerful. This tea is definitely strong in the early steeps, as noted on the White2Tea website. Steeps five through eight calmed down quite a bit, although the strong vegetal qualities still came through.

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Finished Leaf

I steeped this tea in my gaiwan about ten times, and then threw the leaves into my tea mug and brewed the leaves “grandpa style” a few more times. The tuo definitely packs some power!

This tea gave an excellent cha qi. I felt super calm and relaxed after this gongfu session.

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These leaves were definitely on the larger side. The leaves were mostly light green or gray-green, but there were a few darker brown leaves thrown into the mix.

Conclusion

At $22.50 per 250 grams, the 2008 Often tuo is a solid daily drinker with a few years of aging. I would definitely consider buying this tuo again, and perhaps keep a few for aging and see how they taste in a few years. This tea is just beginning to calm down, and I would love to see how this reasonably priced tuo will develop in the future.

I would definitely recommend buying some teas from White2Tea. Two Dog is one of the most knowledgeable and helpful people in the specialty tea business. White2Tea offers a carefully selected and well-balanced selection of puerhs and oolongs at various price points. While some of the offerings are definitely a bit out of my price range, I am sure the quality is impeccable. Luckily, Two Dog also has plenty of teas that are quite reasonably priced.

This tuo was a solid introduction to White2Tea’s offerings, and I look forward to reviewing more of Two Dog’s teas in the coming weeks.

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Dry – Old decayed wood house, musky tree, wood-bitterness, dried leafs.
Wet – Sweet, coffee like bitterness, musty decayed wet wood, molasses.

First few (1-3) steeps Have a sweet front but wear a very robust mustiness that can be either very pleasant if you like it or off putting if you don’t that develops pepper like woodiness and slight spicy astringency and woody bitterness. The final notes recover the sweetness with a refreshing camphor.

In the Middle (3-6) Here is where the real good stuff shows up with mostly the sweeter notes and maintaining most of its woody characteristics with out being unpleasantly musky or decayed wood-bitter. The sweetness has some thickness and the bitterness make it seem more like a molasses than sugary which is very nice and almost malty in some sense.

Final steeps The notes start getting weaker, but the sweetness shines more here; with most of the wood bitterness and musk notes gone the sweetness is more like a raw sugar than molasses like, it doesn’t hold much complexity but it is still satisfying.

FINAL NOTES
I like this one as an every day drink, the mini bricks have an undeniable musky, sometimes almost fishy scent that at least to me require a few days out of the container and a good two rinses to get rid of and even then the first 2-3 steeps will have plenty of it.

With all of that said, it becomes more and more pleasant in the middle steeps and flat sweet in the last few ones. I would recommend using the container for other teas and moving this ripe to a box or open container to get the best out of it.

Might as well at least add something short on this one. While the qi was very potent and goes a way toward redeeming this tea, I found it to have way more shu “funk” than I’m comfortable with. Maybe I’ll revisit it someday — it’s certainly cheap enough.

Lazy sunday

Received a sample in my mail and after yesterday’s young bulang chugging I figured I try the polar opposite today. I don’t have much experience with aged teas so take it for what it’s worth. The dry leaf originally smelled on old books (assuming that what storage smell is, or maybe humid storage?) and beet root. After a week or so of airing out the storage smell subsided and red beet smell came through.

-Smell
After two rinses , the gaiwan smelled of par boiled beets not quite raw but not quite sweet/cooked and at the end a slight spice that tickled my nose. I cautiously sipped the first flash steeping bracing for dust or storage taste but to my surprise, no unpleasant tastes to be found. As hinted by the smell, it was a pleasant tea soup that almost tasted like a borsch soup which immediately reminded me of lively polish wedding receptions. Obvious not saying the taste is identical but as with puer reference points are the only way to attempt to explain sensations.

-Taste
I tasted no storage what so ever just a pleasant beet root that later steeps showed an almost spiciness maybe cinnamon if I had to name one specific spice but in the way a taiwanese hong yue tastes “spicy”. The mid notes were a light sweetiness like a muddled wine(tempranillo profile) combined with a hint of red currant. As the description notes it is a soft, sweeter end of the puer spectrum but I wouldn’t agree with the floral description at least from my one session. In retrospect I could see “floral” being in the tail end of flavor but super prominent or even noticeable and not a upfront jasmine floral maybe the very light and playful dryness of rose. The feeling I received from this tea was clam and collected just like the flavor which made me almost drowsy hence the lazy sunday name unfortunately it is not sunday and I have a lot to get done today so not so welcome at this exact moment but no way off putting

-Thoughts
I really enjoyed this tea it was my first aged tea I enjoyed and while not super complex(a common theme with aged tea) it was far from one note. If I had to name one bad thing it was maybe that it was too thin not enough body but I only had one session if I upped the steeping time maybe it would result in a different outcome.

Just noticed none of my tasting/scent notes are even listed as options…

This is my second all time favorite,

I’ll do a lazy review, let me just say that all the buzz around this brick is real
I should have bought more when it was cheaper!!!

Dark leaves in the cake which offer some of the typical peat smell. Many whole leaves combined with bits and pieces of leaves and stems. The clear and bright tea soup is gold with a bit of orange tint and a light floral aroma. The taste is brisk with a little astringency. Astringency then sweetness emerge quickly in the sip – sweet fruity flavor which brings to mind thoughts of stone fruit (peach or plum?). These linger in the mouth and throat but notes of spice are added to give a nice punch to the aftertaste.

Overall this tea is fun to drink and it presents decent body from the first steep onward. Full mouth-feel. Sweet with the flavor of stone fruits and a lingering hint of spice. Palpable astringency with a sweet draw in the mouth. Decent durability – 8 rather interesting steeps with an appealing mix of flavors and sensations.

The gift of a sample from one who knew I had missed out on this one — Thank You!

Possibly the best shu that I have yet tasted: sweetly-smooth leather with distinctly-pleasant overtones of the sea (cod-fish?). The soup is a delightful sludge in the middle infusions. Prepared this western-style, as gong fu infusions are too weak.

First infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz water, boiling, 2:00 min.

Second infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz water, boiling, 2:00 min.

Third infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz water, boiling, 3:00 min.

Fourth infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz water, boiling, 3:00 min.

Fifth infusion — 5 g. per 8 oz water, boiling, 5:00 min.

Sixth infusion — 5 g. per 8 oz water, boiling, 10:00+ min.

I don’t think I could properly give this a rating. I was so disappointed by the way the meeting went that I could not remember enough to put a number to it. I hate to admit it, but all of the steepings were awful. The bitterness and astrincency were so prominent that not much else was trying to get through. We did discuss it’s potency and earthiness, we even agreed on the strong black coffee and tobacco notes. The other teas we tried went the same route. sigh.

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Bravo on these nugs, got 300 g and dunno if I have enough. I reviewed these somewhat on my blog, but now today after steeping a small amount of this tea for 3 days, 20+ steeps, I’m gonna boil the leaves. Five minutes of a boil in an enamel pan. I got a thick coffee colored brew that tasted very minerally.

Gushing on these nuggets because they taste great, and are an incredible value at $5.50 for 50 grams, 3 days of steepings plus a boil or two after that!

I’ve been (tea) Pimped!

I took photos of the boiling, I don’t know how to post links, I’m new to tweeters and Grammies but I’m cwynsdeathbytea on Instagram.

I received this as a sample from a fellow connoisseur, Joe. (Thanks for the hook up by the way, man!) This is my first time having this, and I’ve been meaning to pick up a brick for a while now. So, with my first attempt of brewing this, I used a little bit too much leaf, not realizing how strong this was. I tend to use a bit more with Aged Sheng because I really like to as much camphor out as I can. Anyway, I had to reduce the amount by about half, and it without fail helped preserve the flavor. Right away this gives you a punch in the face. This sheng is quite strong, and with it being 13 years old, it is a decent “middle-aged” puerh. You get the same astrigency, and bitter tannins you would with a young fresh sheng, and the smokey, dusty, camphor taste you get with an aged. It really is a mix of the two. I didn’t catch any mineral flavor, to my disappointment.

I brewed this in my sheng yixing, at boiling for about 7 seconds each infusion up to about the 9th where I tripled the steeping time. Two 4 second rinses. After about the fourth infusion, there are notes of malt, barely, tobacco, and an aftertaste of what I caught as strawberries?

This was a very enjoyable tea, but there are quite a few flavors and notes I can’t really pinpoint. I think with this session I can probably get maybe a dozen more, but for now I’m gonna let the leaves rest a bit and try this again tomorrow. Maybe I can get more of review out of this.

I feel this could be an absolutely amazing experience if this tea sits and ages again for maybe another 6-7 years. It seems it may be similar to the 1982 Menghai I had a while back, if left in dry storage long enough.

I’ll give another review on this tomorrow once my pallet is a little more open.

Holy Tea Drunk

These freshly fermented nuggets have some duiwei which is too be expected being so new but that does not take away from the experience at all. Just be sure to do two LONG rinses (30 seconds or so) and/or break up the nuggets. I actually tried the suggestion of break up the nuggets which did produce a more consistent session that peak much earlier ( I believe my original session went for 10-14 steeps). Can’t say it was to my liking due to every pour having my filter clog up and over flow due to its slow moving thick viscosity and resulting fanning of breaking up the nugs.

Flavor wise it was the same as last time being super rich thick and sweet. Early steeps reveal warmed milk sweetness and consistency which build until you get hit with a cocoa flavor profile that sweetness peaks at a caramel almost toffee like after taste.

I sessioned a bai hao yin zhen directly after so I can’t say this tea my resulting feelings were in isolation from this tea but on the train this morning I was literally the most tea drunk I have ever been and not the hopped up laughing giggly, I was straight up numb and nodding out trying to snap myself out of it. My vision was blurred and delayed as if I drank a few shots. Really not the best idea prior to lifting heavy for 2+ hrs as I literally felt disassociated from my body and couldn’t get a grip.

Such a great tea I will throw some in my cart every order I make It’s my guilty pleasure and a counter balance to harsh sheng. Just note to self NO PUER OR OOLONG on lifting days!

Favorite shu ever

I purposely waited to review this until I ordered more selfishly that should hint at it’s quality. Paul has earned my respect (and much of my income as a result) for his no BS pricing, descriptions and curation. This description is spot on I almost feel silly adding anything because it is so accurate. It is a 2014 production so it’s pile smell is still apparent I suggest two super long rinses and/or breaking up the nuggets prior. Once you get past the funk it has the taste and consistency of hot cocoa literally. I was immediately taken back to childhood sipping on swiss miss hot cocoa. I wanted to throw some marshmallows in my gaiwan and pretend it was a snow day. Later steeps reveal a sweet molasses dark richness that was paired with a thick syrupy body.

This is my first tea head nugget shu so I am not sure if this sweetness/ flavor profile is common but it was a welcome change from watery woodsy generic shu I am used to. Added kicker is the energy this bulang gives off had me humming all night long.

From the Sheng and Shou TTB.

Brewed gongfu style with a ceramic gaiwan. 5 second rise. Steeping times: 10, 10, 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 120, 240.

Such an alluring aroma the dry leaf has – incredibly sweet, with notes of honey and jam. It is what lead me to try this sheng when I didn’t know where to start on this side of pu’erh. Following the rinse and each infusion, the aroma initially offers green peppers, which quickly change into purple grapes, raisins, and prunes.

The liquor is the color of peach juice, and clear and clean with a thin-texture and full-body. Beautiful to look at with bits of leaf at the bottom of the cup. The first infusion tastes of green pepper and dried grass. Thereafter, there is a consistent note of bamboo and sweet summer field grasses. Beginning with the fifth infusion, honey comes up, creating a long-lastingly sweet aftertaste.

Dry grass notes don’t appeal to me, which is why sheng isn’t a favorite of mine(it’s what I’ve tasted in all but one of the shengs I’ve tried thus far), but Often is beyond tolerable, a a nice pleasure, especially because of its qi. I felt the qi on the first sip of each cup. It is calming and grounding. In addition, Often will get you tea tipsy if you drink four infusions one after the other.

Recommended for those who want to start exploring sheng. I might buy the 250g one day to become more used to sheng and to taste its evolution.