368 Tasting Notes
Info from RoTea received! Wow, that was fast. Their customer service is kind of awesome.
Second steeping reminds me a great deal of the Pu Er 2002 Naka (Lahu) which I got from CS a few years ago. That taste of hot cabin wood, combined with a deep loam and wet stone.
Again, not for the novice, this. But then, sheng isn’t for the novice in general, come to think of it.
I may have to commit heresy on a later occasion and subject this stuff to a marathon steeping with fresh leaf just to see how the two differ.
Preparation
I am a bit sad I can’t provide more information on this tea. RoTea seems to be unaware that they sell it. Once I get info from them, I’ll update.
The dry leaf (still in big chunks of the original cake) has very little odor. Surprisingly little, in fact.
But the wet leaf is potent, sharp, dank and smokey. There are strong notes of mesquite as well as that classic hot-cabin-wood-in-the-summer-sun smell I associate with raw pu-erh.
That smokey bite is just in the leaf odor, however, the cup itself retains none of it, leaving behind a dank, musty, tingling bog of mouth drying complexity.
This is one of those teas you don’t want to make for friends who are novice tea people. They will think you are utterly bonkers for wanting to drink this. Me? I’m spell bound. Just a few sips and I can feel the grand heavenly cycle beginning to churn.
I wish I’d made this at 7:30AM I might have been in better shape to face the day.
Preparation
Oh, silly, silly, pyramid tea prison.
Your mesh is too fine to take on water rapidly. Your mesh is too fine to allow a good agitation of the water past the leaves.
Oddly, the leaf in there must be pretty good, because in spite of all these obstacles, the resultant cup is actually neither 2D nor weak.
Preparation
This didn’t work nearly as well as I remembered it working. I think it needs some mint in it as an addition to the licorice &c.
I happen to like proper licorice, so the flavor doesn’t bother me and it did loosen up some chest congestion for an hour or two which was nice when trying to fall asleep.
Combined with a metholyptus cough drop this would probably work wonders.
Take Fishermans Friends coughdrops if they are available there. They work
Heh. Probably not in Texas, but I remember them in New England.
I actually really hate cough drops (they seem to be the single most noisy product on the planet) but will resort to them when tea is failing me.
Now this is how you floral scent a tea.
There is no presence of the flower on the dry leaf at all.
The wet leaf does not hit you with a bomb of flowers the way so many do.
There is just the tiniest hint of a floral sweetness behind a gentle, but firm toasted finish in the liqueur.
Preparation
So, after complaining about the pong of this tea yesterday, given that my cold keeps getting worse, I decided “maybe if I can’t smell it, I won’t care” and opted to try to use some up.
Generous portion of leaf into a small pot, rinsed, and then very short (less than 10 seconds) steepings. I’m up to #6 and so far, no pong.
Maybe this is a tea that just really, really, really shouldn’t be steeped for any real length of time — unlike every other wuyi oolong out there?
sometimes they are better when steeped for shorter periods of time
Our tea thing is a constant learning process. Eventually we will have it wired.
Part of the problem is that you can only wire it on a tea by tea basis. It is hard to overcome the sense of “waste” when you make a bad cup. But learning is never a waste.
And it is still better than drinking coffee, soda or juice.
It does vary depending on the tea. Sometimes oolongs prefer a water that is not as hot and sorter steeping times. I had that issue with the Red blossom tea Heritage Rougui. It’s great when you keep the steeping times to around 45 seconds. :)
Yeah, differences between oolongs don’t trouble me. That’s expected. It is huge differences between oolongs which are of the same variety but from different distributors that catch me by surprise and which I find annoying. Huge gaps in quality level and I wouldn’t be surprised by big differences in treatment, but I tend to think of Rishi and RoTea as occupying the same “shelf” in that regard, so the radical differences in treatment is very unexpected.
I’ve had far better experiences with Rishi than Republic of Tea personally.
I recently got a quantity of Rishi brand wuyi because I was at Whole Foods not Central Market. It has accomplished nothing but to help me more deeply appreciate this one from RoTea. The Rishi has this utterly overwhelming… pong. I swear, that tea has body odor. And no matter how short or how long the steep, no matter how many steeps you do, you can’t get rid of it.
But this wuyi from RoTea is almost like a Darjeeling on steroids. Light, crisp, toasty and bold.
My pepper flake incident has exploded into a full blown head cold and so today is all about tea.
I saw that Rishi wuyi at Whole Foods and almost bought it…
There’s no arguing taste. Maybe it just isn’t what I like. Maybe see if you can snag a sample?
Are you sure it was a pepper flake and not one of those itchy scratchy cold coming on things?
Yeah, I could feel it burning.
Oddly enough, this is a true and proper bai mu dan. The leaves are huge and unfurled even when dry. It reminds me of the bai mu dan that TeaGsch sells (although their leaves are even bigger).
In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t really “do” flavored (or scented) teas. Like flavored coffees, they are usually an excuse to sell poor quality product by hiding it under too much flavor agent. I’ve had both teas and coffees that you can cut 20 to 1 with unflavored and the flavor agent is still HUGE in the cup. I just don’t get it.
Especially on white teas. What is it with people flavoring the most subtle, most delicate of teas?
But Sterling is a Texas company and they were hanging out in our Central Market location a few Sundays ago (I always do a shopping run there after services each week) and the folks were so nice and the sample they offered was… GOOD.
So I decided to do the local thing and picked up some of this white earl grey. If nothing else, I knew Liz would like it.
But… I like it too. In spite of myself. Neither the vanilla nor the bergamot are at all overpowering here — and that is saying something with vanilla. And the underlying bai mu dan is a proper, good set of leaf that are essentially undamaged in the flavoring process.
BEWARE of over steeping. This gets bitter FAST.
But if you get the timing right, you are rewarded with a warming, gently sweet, tangy cup. Bai mu dan are some of my favorite cold weather teas and the additions Sterling have added to this one make it a great “winter warmer” cuppa.
I agree about flavored tea and coffee
I drink both flavored and unflavored teas. The flavored ones I find entertaining as a novelty or dessert item as they are better for me than soda or candy. And I can’t get white tea to taste like anything most of the time. I must be doing something wrong…
Steeping white tea is worse than having an exotic pet. But, when you get it right, the results are amazing.
I think I got a red pepper flake stuck in my soft palate last night and I awoke many times through the night to discover my sinuses impacting and my throat becoming increasingly sore. I’m drinking this tea hoping it will ease my sore throat.
For a bagged product the ginger flavor is quite significant. I’m impressed. It does seem to have been sweetened in some way, though, which is a shame. It doesn’t need it.
It does seem to be easing the worst of the rawness in my throat, too.
I love ginger in tea…. and it is good for you!
I usually just boil ginger root.
I don’t know if I’d want something spicy to dislodge a spice from my throat. hehe But I’m glad it’s making you feel better. Getting sick is the worst.
Well, the pepper flake was long gone by morning, but the damage was done. This particular ginger tea isn’t spicy at all. The addition of the licorice root makes it very round and sweet.
But then, I have a very weird relationship with spice.
I am still new to the world of shengs and I can’t figure out what makes one better than another one. ;-)
How much you paid.
ha! yes. and no doubt the most flowery adjectives from the tea seller as well…
To be mildly serious, I think with sheng, there is probably very little, if any, “bad” sheng. It is way too hard to make to end up doing it poorly. There may be batches that in some sense “failed” in processing, but I doubt anyone is setting out to make “cut rate” sheng.
That being said, I’m also fairly confident that anything being sold by RoTea via a grocery store chain designed to appeal to self-identified “foodies” is probably not anything like “top shelf”, either. Especially not at $50/pound and a mere 3 years vintage.
That 2002 Naka Lahu I had was a borderline religious experience and probably would have been even better if I knew more about the shorter steeping techniques.
But the actual flavors in the cup are so, let’s face it, WEIRD that it is very hard, I think, so say anything more than “I prefer this one” or “I prefer that one” rather than “this is better than that”.
Which, ultimately, the tea you prefer to drink, is the best tea.
That was helpful Jim, but I tend to avoid RoT…just a personal choice. :))
I’m not a big fan, but this Autumn has been brutal on us, fiscally, and so my usual habit of placing orders with ultra-premium tea distributors has had to go on hiatus while we get ourselves back on our feet — unlikely to happen until all the holiday traveling is over.
Meanwhile I’m buying what I can find at Whole Foods and Central Market (Houston only has two or three tea shops and their selection of “serious” teas is pretty meager, or Teavana which is just pure evil) — which means Rishi (gag) and RoTea (slightly less gag) for the moment. There are a few smaller distributors on offer, but they are predominantly for flavored and scented offerings.
Oh I got my credit card bill yesterday and I am heading to cheapville myself. I can’t continue to spend so much money on tea.
I am getting some more tea paraphernalia from purepuer.com for Christmas, and have requested two ounces of their puer to try. I hope it is as good as it sounds!
Hope things improve foor you. I talk about ordering from new tea vendors….and yes, I want to, but It’ll be a while for me too. |:o\