127 Tasting Notes

Amaretto scented incense

Sound appealing? well then this is your tea. I will not speak in absolutes but I am rather bothered I got so much of this after my first impressions I can’t imagine wanting to drink this again anytime soon. Maybe as a result it will age into something better but at the moment I can’t see myself giving it a second chance to tweak parameters any time soon as I have an over abundance of good tea majority of which I have yet to even try.

One of the only sheng I have dumped after single digit steeps. Once again only had one short experience with this tea but it tasted like smoky incense initially then after 2 steeps I tasted a artificial amaretto/marzipan profile that was a weird sweet and off putting for me personally. This is more of a note for myself than a rant. I have been wrong in the past but I cant see my tweaking parameters changing my enjoyment of this.

Flavors: Marzipan, Smoke

Preparation
7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
tea123

Good honest review.

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I really enjoyed this tea is was medium thickness but a nice mild bitterness similar to coffee or bittersweet chocolate and a nice oily texture. This reminded me of rishi’s maiden which I liked a lot and actually wanted to purchase this tea as I can see myself drinking a lot of it especially since its lower on caffeine.

Unfortunately this is the first tea I have liked enough to warrant a purchase from jalam but they want $24/100g cake plus shipping… So working out the puernomics since it is in cake form I will loose 10% to dust upon breaking up the cake leaving 90 g or ~3oz so for $30 with shipping it will roughly work out to $10/oz for shupu! Thats insane especially for an autumn harvest. Sorry for bringing money into it because I really like this tea but for that money im sure I could buy a bunch of dayi ripes that have the same qualities if not better.

Flavors: Coffee, Dark Bittersweet, Thick

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 10 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
Cwyn

Wow I hadn’t considered the loss to breakage but then I scoop up and brew the dust. Lol.

Jiāng Luo

Funny you mention that I actually usually end up doing that if its shupu and it literally worked out to 10g of breakage from prying the cake in half which made me laugh it was precisely 10%..

As for sheng breakage certainly not young sheng, I enjoy bitterness but I am not a masochistic

Tealizzy

Have you tried any of their sheng? I really like their offerings. Also, it’s $19 plus shipping, so $24 if you’re in the US. It is a little steep, but I enjoy the information about each tea and it’s great for those who don’t know puerh that well yet and want someone else to pick stuff for them.

jschergen

Thanks for the price analysis, something that is often neglected!

Jiāng Luo

I like their sheng for “right now” casual tea, it is all autumn so winds up being too thin for my tastes but not bad tea by any means. If their cakes were priced at $15/pop I’d gladly buy up a few lbs but at $19 plus shipping thats breaks my price per quality barrier unless maybe they start carrying a few thick strong spring teas.

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Casually drinking though this not my favorite tea but the jasmine is way more pleasant relative to other scented teas I’ve had in the past. I can taste the bai hao yin zhen through the scent which is nice as lower quality teas in the past made my head hurt and stomach churn from the intense jasmine. I would recommend gong fu this guy unless you really enjoy jasmine then try your luck with longer steeps.

I think the theanine in this guy is pretty high and I felt dopey and numb after a session of this and a lao cha tou this morning.

Didn’t pay enough mind to really rate of give any notes I enjoy verdant’s hong and bai cha though and will probably only order those types of teas exclusively from now on.

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80

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!

Flavors: Caramel, Cocoa, Molasses, Toffee

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 30 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
Cwyn

Awesome review, I absolutely adore this tea. It steeped 3 days for me, then I boiled the nuggets for another thick cup.

Jiāng Luo

Love these things really got me back into shupu

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80
drank Himalayan Beauty by Rishi Tea
127 tasting notes

Another great hong cha rishi

When I ordered my tea table I need a few more items in my cart to qualify for free shipping and this sounded interesting. I am a fan of dongfang mei ren so the description intrigued me, not sure what oriental beauty processing techniques entails beside the bugs biting the leaves. Either way the description is spot on I am regretting opening the bag just now a year or two after I ordered it because the dry leaves smelled a but dull. I am quite the tea hoarder fresh tea before I discovered my new addiction of puer which of course encourages such behavior, not to mention my short stint at a tea retailer that sold tea from previous years harvest in semi-aerated containers. So I have experience of smelling stale leaves.

Either way the tea still had some life in the leaves it produced a brew actually fairly close to a dogging mei ten but the terrior came through with playful astringency and mild woodines as well and remind me of tippy darjeeling in the past. The scent was very perfume floral and the after taste was a great sweetness that peaked just short of a puckering reaction only after I had swallowed the tea which is where I can see the cotton candy reference because cotton candy sweetness builds as well, not so much flavor but sweetness development I can see.

I probably wouldn’t buy again it being a lot of buds the brew was rather thin which won’t hold my interest and so unique in flavor I probably wouldn’t drink very often. Teas like this are much welcome interruption to my normal routine strange enough to be interesting but only bought about an oz so I won’t be forced to drink often. I never put much worth into hong cha baulking at the die of spending morethan $3-4/oz but rishi has chanhchange my mind with their hong yue and now this I regret not getting their li shan micro lot but there is always next year.

Flavors: Astringent, Floral, Muscatel, Sweet

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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81

Burpin’ Ole’ Book

Finally learned how to store and brew this guy which makes me a happy camper because I took a risk based on the price going up and bought more. I still wrestle with perfect steep time to acheive white whale nirvana which is a slightly tannic slightly fruity thicker smooth luscious cup. If I over brew it is a bit astringent and fruitiness is drowned by old book taste. Under brew and it’s a boring thin bland brew. I still sporadically smell and burp the old book taste hours later which is fun.

At the current price I like the yangpinhao better but I am spoiled to say this will be my daily drinker.

Flavors: Berry, Dark Wood, Red Wine, Tannin

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
Cwyn

Keep airing it.

Jiāng Luo

I actually like the taste but I do have a few bricks broken up in a jar in my ghetto pumidor for ease of use.

Related question though, I have been airing out samples but fear they may lose some oftheir ccomplexity due them basically being the equivalent of loose maocha is this just paranoia

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Diet Puer/Puer “Lite”

I remember reading somewhere purple varietal are suppose to be smokey and harsh so I braced myself for a rough and tumble session. To my shock it was literally the opposite, super fruity, it is truly yiwu tea but amped up sweetness due to the anthocyanin that result in the purple colored leaves. The flavor was so fruity if I was blind folded I would say it was a flavored tea not at all a puer and almost teavana flavored sweetness. I maybe over exaggerating the sweetness slightly but after a week off drinking rough bitter harsh young pu maybe my taste buds were off kilter following the logic of the polar opposite spectrum given that studies have shown calorie free sweeteners are soo overly sweet that when we taste real sweetness it is bland in comparison maybe the young shengs have been so bitter my taste buds felt anything remotely sweet was candy. Either way this was rather thin and not terrible complex but very approachable and atypical of puer not at all bitter or astringent or unpleasant in any way it was actually so sweet and dainty I almost don’t care for it but will gladly drink the rest of my budget blind buy cake. This would be a good casual drinker as it cannot be over steeped and distractions would not have a bearing on your enjoyment with other complex teas where you might miss subtleties.

I have not tasted the tea referenced but my experience parallels the tea the guys over at Tea DB review in this link.

http://teadb.org/2006-yunhai-nannuo2/

Just realized Tea DB did a review on a newer vintage of this tea as well but my qualities it shares with the yunhai nan nuo still stand
http://teadb.org/2012-purple-yiwu/

Flavors: Berries, Blackberry, Honey

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 30 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
jschergen

Purple tea can get a bit confusing.. There’s a couple different types of purple pu’erh. The yesheng (wild purple) tends more towards the harsher/smoke.

Purple bud like this tea can be a bit more sweet and mellow. The autumnal nature probably pushes it this way as well. Yunnan Sourcing has written a bit about this as well.

Jiāng Luo

Thanks for the clarification maybe thats why it was more fragrant(forgot to mention) with less bitterness and thickness, wish I had a spring version because it would probably be more balanced.

TeaBrat

I tried my first purple sheng recently and I liked it. This sounds great :)

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Back logging from memory

Started out mildly citric fruity spectrum which bled into lemongrass due to lemon flavor being more pronounced followed by a slightly herby tail which reminded me of dried lemongrass. Unlike other fresh sheng I have had by verdant I would say this is an attempt at storage puer where as in the past it seemed they were friendly/light “drink now” profile whether intentional or not. There was a bitterness which I like but unfortunately it was not followed by a sweetness (as per bulangs I enjoy) which would have sealed the deal for me to order a larger chunk but we shall see in a year or so. It slightly reminded of w2t bulang mini cake I really adore but this tea was more complex but it was lacking the body and sweetness that complete the experience personally.

I will have to rebrew in the near future due to this being the first sheng by verdant that has held my interest and have potentional to be flavorful with flash steeping or sub boiling water.

Flavors: Bitter Melon, Citrus Fruits, Citrusy, Herbs, Lemon Zest, Lemongrass

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 30 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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Bio

Reputable Companies I have narrowed down to over the years and my personal purchase preferences from each

Origin tea (Gao Shan Oolong)
-Eco Cha (Taiwanese Teas)
-Rishi (Great starter for Taste Profile Footing and high quality teaware)
-Yunnan Sourcing (Teaware, Black, Pu er)
-White2Tea (Curated Pu er)
-Essence of tea (Curated Pu er)
-Yuuki-Cha (Japanese Teas/Teaware)
-Teavivre (Chinese Teas)
-Jing Tea (High quality Chinese)

“You can go a week without food, but not a day without tea."

Numerical rating personal meaning
70-75
#Bulk#
Drinkable but would not purchase

76-80
#Traveling/Tumbler/Office Tea#
Willing to pay up to $5/oz

81-84
#Staple#
Willing to pay up to $8/oz

85-89
#Reserve#
Willing to pay $10/oz

90-99
#Experience#
Priceless

I try to refrain from numerically rating a tea until I have tried brewing at least an oz of it with various different parameters and vessels (hotter/colder water, longer/shorter times, yixing/gaiwan etc)

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