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“Whatever happened to Master Han? I recall that originally he was The Man with the Dongsa Cooperative, providing teas from the Mt Ailao area Qianjiazhai forests, but now it’s Master Zhou. It’s like...” Read full tasting note
“I’m taking a tea break while packing up the eldest and getting ready to send her off to college. So I’m not up for an in depth review and anyway, Haveteawilltravel has already provided an excellent...” Read full tasting note
“I’m so glad that I am the first to review this tea. I did a comparison between this and the earlier 2014 harvest. The first noticeable difference is that these leaves are more flat and less...” Read full tasting note
This cake has an intriguingly mature flavor for a tea just harvested in 2015. Perhaps the deep roots of the old growth trees are pulling more complexity, but we taste a distant older pu’er flavor of musty but sweet lotus leaf and earthy burdock root. These exciting notes are complemented by oregano, sage and coriander, a nod to the wild forests of QIanjiazhai full of medicinal herbs growth between the tea trees.
As the tea opens up, we get sweet apple and and creamy texture with an aftertaste of pine and palo santo wood. This cake is an exciting opportunity to invest in a young sheng pu’er from sone of the oldest and most remote tea forests in the world.
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Whatever happened to Master Han? I recall that originally he was The Man with the Dongsa Cooperative, providing teas from the Mt Ailao area Qianjiazhai forests, but now it’s Master Zhou. It’s like they are using the same comments about how he takes care to “let the leaves speak” etc, only they’ve changed the name. Master Han isn’t even on the Verdant site anymore. I’m just curious…
Oh well…I drank this tea all afternoon. It was tart, herbaceous, fruity, savory, and very very tasty. Near the end the flavor reminded me of Burdock root, which I’ve been digging up in my garden lately to add to soups & stews. It was great to finally open up the cake and sample it, and unlike some new Shengs that I’ve tried over the years that were very grassy, very RAW, etc, this tea is very drinkable & delicious, so I guess I shouldn’t care who picked it. I’m going to be enjoying it for a long time.
I’m taking a tea break while packing up the eldest and getting ready to send her off to college. So I’m not up for an in depth review and anyway, Haveteawilltravel has already provided an excellent review that is spot on. So, in short: this tea is wonderful. It’s smooth, sweet, smoky, light, with hardly any bitterness. I fell in love with Master Han’s Bamboo-wrapped sheng, and when I couldn’t get any more of that I ordered whatever of M. Han’s sheng was still available from Verdant. This was one of them. I’m officially a Master Han Fan!
I’m so glad that I am the first to review this tea. I did a comparison between this and the earlier 2014 harvest. The first noticeable difference is that these leaves are more flat and less twirled. The cake is more compressed, but it is also more fragile and flaked. The aroma is sweet and moist instead of dry and smoky like that of its older counterpart. I placed a generous chunk in my warmed yixing and shook it up. The aroma from my brewing vessel was sweet and sharp. I could describe it as ripe white grapes. I washed the leaves once and began brewing. This brew began sweet and smooth. This had a nice honeysuckle flavor and full body. The tea grew more depth as the session went on. This didn’t have any smoke like that of the 2014 harvest. The flavor was sharp and slightly sour. There was always an underlying sweetness throughout the session. This harvest was smoother and carried a lot more depth. I felt that the 2014 harvest was good, but it carried too much smoke and bitterness. I really enjoyed this, and I had it pre ordered. This company is having a sale on this sheng, and I would advise you to scoop it up. This is a beautiful tea, and a great value.
https://instagram.com/p/6D4YLxTGS0/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel
Flavors: Honeysuckle, Smooth, Sweet, White Grapes, Winter Honey
I wondered this too! I asked Lily and, apparently, he will feature more regularly again in future (I think it was just something about trying to more emphasise the cooperative nature of it all).
I had this last night and remember thinking that I got hints of apple in the mid-steeps. Kind of a mineral finish.
thanks for sharing this Kelsey!
I had wondered for awhile…, now I know :)
Ahhhhhh, gosh – thanks for the clarification! :-)
Updated version Putting the steepster discussion instead of the reddit thread. http://steepster.com/discuss/12225-transparency-in-the-tea-industry