Fuding Shou Mei White Tea Cake 2011

This tea has an intoxicating dry leaf smell of meadow hay and light honey. The wet leaf adds to that aroma some blueberry notes. I steeped it first for 3 minutes (250 g/3g/205 degrees), and followed it with the second steep of 5 minutes.

The taste was simple, with the strong notes of blueberry and somewhat lighter notes of hay, honeyed sweetness reminiscent of Yunnan reds, and baked goods. Like drinking a blueberry pie. In the second steep the tea became very sweet, as if you added water to some berry preserves and now slurping up all of this overpowering sweetness.

It was more robust than many white teas that I had and did possess the requisite great white tea aroma but the taste was really not that interesting. On the other hand, people that enjoy fruity tea blends and, especially, fans of blueberry pies may find it very much to their liking.

This tea smells and tastes distinctly of honey, and nothing else. There is no complexity or development to the flavor, and honestly I really thought the leaves looked young (as in the wer leaf did not feel like aged leaf) but I’m not versed enough to make that call. As far as the recent teas i’ve tried from teavivre, you could do worse than this. If you had to have pure honey shomei, why not I suppose. It’s drinkable, but it is a one trick pony. I will try bpiling the leaves next time.

Thanks again for the samples, Teavivre! I think I’ll have tried most of Teavivre’s teas now and it’s unbelievable that most of them are delicious. Teavivre loves what they do, you can tell in the tea they find. This is one of those white teas that look like there are all different leaves pressed into a cake. Like raking leaves in the yard and making tea out of them. The flavor is all sweetness and light. Teavivre mentions white tea has three types of sugar, so I can see where the sweet flavor is from! I’m not really sure how aging this tea is supposed to make it taste differently but this tastes similar (as much as I can remember) to the Shou Mei cake I tried previously. The steeps stay very consistent and you can’t really oversteep it. I wanted to see what would happen on an extreme third steep: The third steep was like a light black tea in brew color, with the flavor of a smooth golden yunnan but with slight notes of autumn leaves. Interesting! The description says that loose Shou Mei and cakes of same quality can have the same flavor, and I can see that. The cakes save space with these big leaves and cakes are better for aging teas. I think the tea tastes sweeter as it ages. White tea cakes are a treasure after seven years, so this one just has one more year to go!
Steep #1 // half sample for a full mug// 20 minutes after boiling // 2 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 17 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 6 minute steep

I really enjoyed the aged white tea that I sample from Nannuoshan a while back, so when I placed my Teavivre order for fresh greens I picked up samples of their 2011 and 2012 Shou Mei cakes.

The leaf isn’t pretty, it looks a lot like mulch or something you would rake up in the yard, but and smells a bit like raisins. Brews a gold-orange color. Thick in the mouth and moderately sweet with tastes of raisins, hay, peppercorn, and dried herbs.

It’s a nice and comforting brew, and I look forward to seeing how it compares to the 2012.

I’ve had a sample of this sitting around for a few weeks, so I decided to use the opportunity to drink it alongside the sample of W2T’s Fuding that Roswell Strange sent me.

This came from a smaller sample, so upon washing I can tell this one is a bit more broken up, and I get a good bit of fannings and dust that come off during the session. But, as a result, I get a lot more up front flavor, and a darker liquor to start with this one.

This tea tastes of fruit, hay and spices, and has a very smooth mouthfeel with an appreciable thickness that persists throughout the session. I find this one more enjoyable from the first steep, but also perhaps a bit simpler and less complex, and it gives out sooner since it was quicker to open up.

I still find this to be quite good, and I’d be interested in seeing how different steeping parameters would affect the flavor overall. What I enjoy most about it is the immediate flavor and the persistent smoothness and thickness, and I wonder what condition I would find the leaves to be in if I were able to break this one apart myself.

I have a bit more of my sample left, so I’ll be able to play around with it some more.

This tea has a rich amber color and an aroma of hay and molasses. It has interesting flavors of hay, like a white tea, and molasses, like a black tea. I also get a little spiciness, like cinnamon, reminiscent of a Rou Gui Oolong Tea. It isn’t something I would put into my regular rotation, but I am glad I tried it.

a great surprise, I wasn’t expecting that for a white tea. Pu er like, a little bit smokyness, but refreshing and with a floral (?) – vegetal (?) taste.