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5 steeps: rinse, rinse, 5s, 10s, 20s, 30s, 60s, 4min

5s: Generic puerh taste

10s: Generic puerh taste

20s: Puerh that’s beginning to lose it’s flavor on the 3rd steep

30s: Generic puerh taste (once again on the weak side)

1 min: Generic puerh taste

4 min: Surprisingly weak after 4 minutes

Woooow I am floored. The leaves on this were large and flat and I wasn’t sure how much to add so I decided to put in extra just in case. I ended up filling the whole 90ml gaiwan by accident. Wasn’t expecting the leaves to expand that much I guess. Anyway, since the gaiwan was full, I was expecting to end up with tea that was very strong, dark, and maybe a bit bitter. What did I end up with? Just barely decent tea. I kept thinking to myself “what does it say about a ripe puerh if the gaiwan is full and it still barely gives any flavor?” I’lllll tell you what it means. I means I’m a sucker. This was one of 4 teas that I bought as my first puerh purchase. Puerhshop was recommended and I didn’t have much to spend so I selected 4 teas from their clearance section. I thought “Clearance” meant “marked down” teas, not “crap” teas. Literally all four teas (3 tous, and this brick) turned up extremely bland. sigh Lessons learned:

1. You get what you pay for
2. Sample, sample, sample

I don’t know where I got this tea from. One of my August TTBs I think.

Anyway, I feel like dancing because this is the first time I’ve enjoyed a sheng. Evidence of my changing taste buds I suppose. I liked it so much I brewed it over and over! I think the leaf ratio had something to do with it too. I covered the bottom of my gaiwan with about 2 layers of leaves. The flavour was pleasant, not overpowering. A savoury roasty taste plus some sweetness from the sugar I added.

90 gaiwan
~200F
5 steeps: Rinse, 5s, 10s, 15s, 25s, 35s

The first tea to debut my new 3 oz gaiwan!

5g tea
90 ml water, 212F
3 infusions: rinse, rinse, 2s, 5s, 10s

This tea packed a punch for it’s little 5 grams. You could just see the flavor jetting out of it right away as the water was still pouring. A bit of a chocolate taste going on in the background, but note much as to speak of. Almost generic tasting, but in a good way. I guess you could call it “a well rounded blend”? I like shou, so tasting like shou’s not a bad thing right? :P My point is that while it’s not very complex in taste, it was still very enjoyable. After only 3 steepings I could tell that there were many many more to come so I’ve left it to enjoy again tomorrow.

Thank you Teavivre for the free sample!

160ml yixing pot filled about half way (80-90ml)
7g of leaves
212F
4 infusions: 5s rinse, 5s rinse, 5s, 10s, 20s, 30s

It’s a rich, creamy shou. Earthy and a little chocolaty too. It starts off light and sweet and the more you brew it the richer it gets. I only did 4 infusions but it has a lot of life left in it that I’m using to raise the pot. Definitely a candidate for purchase. :)

Couldn’t find any gong fu instructions for this tea so I decided to wing it.

180F
5g leaves
120ml (4oz) glass gaiwan

3 infusions: rinse, 10s, 15s, 15s

Websites that say to start at 30 or 40 seconds are crazy!

The last two infusions were a bit bitter. The flavor wasn’t anything to write home about. Next time I’d use 4g instead of 5.

Thanks Teavivre for this free sample!

I steeped this following the brewing guide on the website. The only difference was that I’m using a 4 oz vessel rather than 3 oz. The sample was only 7g so I couldn’t add more to correct the ratio.

I really wanted to like this tea but I couldn’t get it to work for me. The flavor was a bit underwhelming, not really for me. Vegetal, a hint of floral, a really tiny hint of roasted flavor. Next time I’ll increase the steeping times to make up for the discrepancy in water/leaf ratio.

Marco Lewis TTB

Thanks Lily at Verdant for the sample!

Dry leaf appearance: Tiny, crinkly, dark green

Dry scent: pistachio nut, grassy

175F, 120 ml, 4g
3 steepings: 8s, 15s, 15s
I wanted to try Verdant’s steeping perameters, I really did, but I can’t ever seem to get any flavor out of a 3 second steeping (plus I can hardly ever figure out how to hold the gaiwan right within that time. lol) Maybe I’ll play it by the book next time.

Silly me, swearing off green tea for like a year because it “tastes like grass in a cup.” And here I find that I actually enjoy the stuff. I’ve been missing out. Next week I’ll try to tackle blacks again since they’re still on my no-no list. I was a bit traumatized by a very strong Golden Monkey last week. Didn’t help much to be honest. Anyway on to the Laoshan Green!

I wish I was sophisticated enough to write pages and pages on how this tea tastes, but it was just good, sweet green tea. Actually yesterday I had to use a whole teaspoon of sugar to make my TGY taste good, not so with this tea. I used only half a teaspoon and with the first sip my eyes actually lit up when I found how sweet it was! I realized when I poured some more that some of the sweetness was actually due to the fact that I didn’t pre-heat my cup, because the next one was hotter and less sweet, but hey, that means it should make a pretty mean iced tea right? :)

Photo: http://instagram.com/p/wromMJAuM-/?modal=true

Marco Lewis TTB

Thanks Persimmon Tree Tea for this sample!

This is my first jasmine green. I’ve been traumatized ever since having Adagio’s Jasmine Rooibos so I’m scared to try this, but here it goes.

2 steeps: rinse,40s,60s

Not too bad, the jasmine flavor was not overpowering like the other one I had. The only problem is it tastes as if the leaves have been artificially scented rather than being scented by real jasmine flowers. I don’t like artificially flavored teas so I don’t seem myself drinking this again.

This tea pretty much sucked last time I had it, so screw Adagio’s brewing recommendations. I’m going with Teavivre’s instructions.

rinse,15s,25s,35s,45s,55s

1st & 2nd steeping: It tasted just as boring as last time, then I added another scoop of sugar. Much better tasting! The floral aspect was brought forward a bit more. The sweetness of the sugar went really well with the flavor of tea.

3rd – 5th steepings: It was pretty much downhill from there. The little bit of floral that was there is gone and nothing but sweetness is less.

Verdict: The way to make this tea enjoyable (for me) is to use lots of leaf and lots of sugar. Which basically makes me draw the conclusion that it’s not very good quality.

Photo: http://instagram.com/p/wpEpVlguLS/?modal=true

Thanks Teavivre for the sample!

This is a very smooth puerh. It starts off a lot more subtle than most I’ve had. It’s not terribly memorable, but at least it tastes good. :P Just a basic sweet ripe puerh taste.

You can tell that this tea is good quality because it keeps giving and giving! When I was done drinking I brewed it about 8 more times for my yixing pot to soak in.