white2tea

Afternoon Grandpa.

I was cautious about Grandpa-ing this tea as it’s got some “oomph” to it, so I did underleaf this a bit compared to how I would usually grandpa brew a shou – but it’s beenc oming out quite lovely. I’m on my third “top up” of water now, and people around the office keep coming around and steeling sips of it. This Slut is definitely a crowd pleaser. Just a very smooth, clean profile and end of the sip. No weird fermentation “funk” to be found – just a mix of vanilla, earth, petrichor, wood, and mineral goodness…

I actually ended up giving away most of what was left of this sample – I have enough left for a Gong Fu session in one of my smaller gaiwans. Though, I do still have the 2018 sample to crack into and I’m very excited to dig into that one!

Mmmm!

Tea + Food Pairing. (A really, really good one in my opinion)

Basically what I put together was a pairing of this tea, steeped Grandpa, with a caramelized peach and rhubarb tart from a local bar/pub called Beer Bros. They’re one of my favourite places to head to for a pint and a veggie burger after work since they’re downtown and so close to the mall where I work(ed) – but they also recently joined Skip The Dishes, so I’ve been having fun with ordering their desserts (which are REALLY well done) for at home to have along side different teas…

Love the bright acidity of the peach/rhubarb against the more natural earthy/woody petrichor notes in Lumber Slut. The buttery, sweet pastry crust of the tart draws out the sweet and bitter undertones of the tea; baker’s chocolate, espresso, leather…

Very good ‘push/pull’ of flavour!! Kind of a stroke of genius on my part, I think. Also, just throwing it out there that I’m REALLY excited for the 2018 version of this tea.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/BqI2zpCluII/

Finally getting around to trying this fan favourite; I’ve been sitting on a sample of it for what feels like ages now and as much as I’ve always felt really intrigued by it there always seems to be something just a little more interesting that catches my attention in the moment when I’m selecting a tea.

I’m going 7g/100ml – and will take jot notes with each infusion. I don’t think I’m going to time the infusions out though; I’m mostly just in the mood for something a little more casual and experience based. It’s been almost two weeks, I think, since my last Gong Fu session. The manager at the store I work at got fired a little while ago, and since it was so spontaneous we didn’t have a new manager found yet. So, I’ve been running our store in the interim until we find someone new – which means I’m working literally seven days a week. Literally 60-80 hour work weeks. This is the first afternoon I’ve had off in two weeks; and only because I finally just sort of buckled and said ‘nope; can’t do another nine hour day! I’ll open the store, take the afternoon off, and come back and close in the evening’. Fuck me, I’m tired.

Oh, also, gave this a rinse first! A pretty long one, because I’m spacey AF.

Steep One:
- Very strong camphor really right off the bat
- Intensely aromatic, with woody notes all throughout the sip
- A little bit bitter in the top of the sip, but sweet undertones

Steep Two:
- The aforementioned profile, but a little less bitter and a little raisin-y
- Astringent finish

Steep Three:
- Camphor, mineral, raisin, petrichor, wood, bittersweet chocolate, pine, leather
- Already feeling quite the buzz from this, and I’m only three steeps in!
- I actually think this is wicked smooth too; very pleasant overall!

Steep Four:
- About the same; perhaps more emphasis on the pine and leather?
- More sweetness creeping in, as well!

Steep Five/Six/Seven:
- I think this is the sweet spot for this tea; it’s got all the aforementioned tasting notes
- With absolutely no astringency, and a thick mouthfeel!
- Best part is the extra push of pine and petrichor, and the sweet finish

Steep Eight:
- This was the steep where I really started to notice the decline in flavour
- Mouthfeel also seemed thinner/more watery

Steep Nine:
- I definitely wouldn’t call this the point where the tea was ‘steeped out’
- However it was quite a bit weaker than I really wanted it to be
- And most of the wood notes had subsided
- It was also the last of the water in my kettle; so this just seemed like a natural end

Overall? I was a little intimidated by this tea both because of the reputation it’s gotten but also because the way it’s described on W2T’s site is a little scary. However, overall I GREATLY enjoyed this tea! It was a really good session that highlighted what are actually my favourite flavour notes in Shou overall (sweetness, petrichor, wood, etc.) just in general but especially within the last month or so. I don’t know if this is in stock at all still, but it’s something I’d actually probably cake.

Photos:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg1rnHkAhHq/?taken-by=ros_strange
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg1zxwQA8Uh/?taken-by=ros_strange

Album Pairing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WroKVtlRWOg&t=1579s

Still extremely bitter in the early steeps (have to throw the first few as they are just way too much). Develops a very nice sweetness and hints of bamboo in the later steeps, as well as when grandpa’d. Too strong to drink now but hopefully will calm down with time and turn into something very nice.

Great smoky flavour with a good level of bitterness. The most bang on description of a tea I think I’ve ever read. Does well in both gongfu and grandpa brewing. I hope the smoke doesn’t fade too soon, I love this one.

Strong bitterness if over brewed or with too much leaf (found that out the hard way). With a lighter ratio and short steep times the bitterness is tamed to a good level. Subtle hints of aged flavour like liu bao or traditionally stored 7542. An underlying dustiness that continues throughout the steeps. Seems like a good candidate for further ageing.

Very sweet, nice aged flavour. No bitterness in any steeps. A little weak, requires high gram/ml ratio and tapers off quite quickly around 6 or 7 infusions. Quality daily drinker for aged flavour. Doesn’t have enough strength to seem like a good candidate for further ageing (though I’m not hugely experienced in that regard).

Interesting aroma reminds me of something I can’t place, similar flavour as well. Somewhat bakery like, fresh poppy seed rolls? Nice low level of bitterness. Strong caffeine buzz.

Found this to be a very uninteresting tea with little flavour beyond the usual sheng bitterness. Not nearly as nice as the Old Bear which has a similar age and price point and a lot more interesting things going on in the flavour.

This is a unique and very tasty Fujian black! Fruity and malty with a floral aroma similar to a jade TGY or Taiwan high mountain oolong. With the silky mouthfeel plus tastes of mango and peach it reminds me of a juice nectar.

More on the blog: https://themellifiedcup.wordpress.com/2018/03/23/first-white2tea-club-2009-jingmai-sheng-and-2nd-flush-auburn-black/

Very nice storage on this brick; well matured for it’s aged without being dank or earthy. Tastes of dry herbs and honey with some tobacco, mineral, and citrus in the background. It’s unobjectionable, but not super “great.”

Picked up some of this one in a recent smaller W2T order. Compression is pretty tight, but comes apart without much of any fussing – so definitely not on the scale of an iron cake or some of the peskier tuocha/fangcha that are out there.

This one had a bit of a dry woodiness to the aroma that may be imparted by the bamboo, or may just be part of the flavor profile. It is definitely young sheng, and being slightly smaller material, it can definitely go astringent if you don’t brew it with a proper touch. Definitely some sweetness and thickness, to the tea. To me, this one is drinkable now, but would certainly benefit from some age. Wasn’t smoky or funky at all – pretty clean taste.

Pulled this out for another tasting today. Smells much less sharp fruit and floral and wet than last try, tastes up front kind of like a savory, chestnutty mao feng to start, but with more bitterness that turns into a very nice (vaguely sweet) and lingering floral fruit aftertaste.

Crazy fizzy, tingling mouthfeel where the tongue meets the roof of the mouth, feels like my back bottom jaw is humming. Strong mouth and throat coating, like having rice paper thin gauze coating my mouth. Can feel the tea all the way down my throat into my chest and further into my stomach as it penetrates further throughout the session and kind of undulates up and down in an odd sensation. Kind of reminds me of those audio sound jiggly lines as a water droplet slowly stretching and separating from the body of water right before completely splitting from it. Man, did I get tea drunk.

6.66g/100ml ruyao gaiwan @ 207F

This is the most honeyed pu erh I have ever had. From the first steep, it got more and more intensely floral and honeyed. At the 3rd/4th steep, it reminds me of Ethiopian honey wine or mead, but (obviously) without the sugar and alcohol taste.

The aftertaste isn’t necessarily sweet, just… honey-like.

I enjoyed this a lot… it felt and tasted like an elegant treat.

My first aged white and surely not my last. I now see why the Chinese shudder when they hear of westerners tossing white tea after a year and why they say 1 year tea, 3 years medicine and 7 years treasure. 8g gong fu starting 85 then ramping to 95. The flavor of this stuff reminds me of a combination of Red Man chewing tobacco and the date and nut cake my great aunt used to make at holidays. This is actually a good thing. This stuff refuses to stop steeping and keeps giving. The qi is unique. It’s not relaxing like an aged sheng but both speedy and spacy. Perhaps this should be reserved for a weekend party tea…

Threw in a cake of this with my last white2tea order as I found the description intriguing. There are notes of wood, forest, pine and so on but it is much smoother than expected. I expected (and wanted) more of a punch in the face but it’s still a nice tea.

A pretty strong tea that kept producing flavorful infusions for a long time. The tea has some astringency and the flavor profile leans towards earth, leather, books and the like. Nice bitterness which sits in the mouth for quite some time.

I’m less excited about this shou than many of the white2tea’s other offerings. It has strong notes of wood and hay and reminds me of an old barn. I can almost get a scent of horse in there, but I guess that’s just my associations messing with me.

Probably a nice tea if you’re looking for the above, I however look for other things in a shou.

Very tightly compressed, to the point that I actually find it annoying. It is somewhat tricky to get a decent chunk without turning too much tea into dust, and it takes a long time for the tea to open up.

The tea however is nice. It can go for many infusions, which might be related to the tight compression, and has a pleasant flavor profile with floral notes and honey. I enjoy drinking it but the compression unfortunately makes me lesss excited about the tea as a whole.

I was pleased to be greeted with a very thick body and sweet floral taste, but with some unexpected complexity. I thought it might have had a couple of years of age on it, but it’s all spring 2017 material. Once the leaves had opened up, the bitterness was quite strong, like when you don’t quite swallow a pill properly and it gets suck in your throat. The astringency wasn’t too strong and built slowly.

Continuing to flash-steep, the bitterness was there ready to jump on me if I over-brewed even slightly. Even so, it was still quite strong, but I found it to be quite enjoyable. The hint of complexity persisted and trying to put my finger on the nature of it during the session was a lot of fun. The body of the tea remained quite thick and the sweetness level remained fairly constant – present but not strong.

Extended steeps brought out slightly more sweetness but not as much as I expected. After the session I was left with a ‘spiciness’ on the tongue and a light menthol sensation going far down the throat. I didn’t feel much energy during, but I felt energised after the session for some time.

Whether this tea would be good to introduce to a new young raw pu’er drinker, I think that depends a lot on their tolerance for bitterness. If high, this would be a great option. I think more experienced drinkers (especially those who enjoy young raw) will appreciate it a lot. Well worth trying!

You can read the full review here!

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/2018/03/13/Little-O-by-White2Tea