2014 New Amerykah 2

Thought I had already finished this sample but found the remaining ~5g a few years ago. And have been hanging on to it. Today it called to say goodbye.

New Amerykah 2 is everything it was before https://steepster.com/derk/posts/379284 and a little more, developing some aging notes like dried plums and jujube. This material is the yang to Yiwu yin. No sweetness until later, rather masculine. Tobacco, straw, apple cider, peat, bitter (less so than before; my palate has definitely changed over the years), apricot, leather, grapefruit; muted sandalwood incense and smokey florals. Drying.

I’m overwhelmed by the energy. My eyes are squinting in some kind of cross between concentration and a narcotic buzz. Chesty, sit upright. Feelings of my muscles pushing, growing, tingling. What do I do? Lie down? Sit? No matter what, it’s going to involve closing my eyes, which I’ve already done. And breathing. And a closed mouth. And it feels amazing just sitting here in this cross between lucidty and stupor. I feel like a giant pin placed somewhere on a flat map of the world. A statue of flesh. Orange glow in my head. Now I remember why I likened this to the Statue of Liberty 3 or 4 years ago. (Marketing could have a play in my perception. The thing I like about White2Tea is that the names of the teas, however obscure they might be, give me something subliminal to chew on.) Been a while since I’ve had a tea produce such profound energies. Oh pu’er, I love you when you’re good.

Listen: Suuns – Armed for Peace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTGPplxz-JM

Bye bye New Amerykah. It was nice knowing you.

Another listen: Zillakami – BLEACH ft. Denzel Curry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK4pINjFAjc
Zillakami, keep making music.

Starts a little bitter and rather cigarette-smoky. Fades to leather, which lingers. I feel hit by the energy immediately. After a few steeps, the tips of ears are warm and it feels like my eyes are glowing.

Later steeps turned towards apple juice with some leather keeping it interesting. Pins and needles and eventually almost numbness at the sides of my tongue. Fascinating.

Overall, hard to say? I really didn’t like the flavor of the first handful of steeps, but I liked the later steeps a lot, and the energy was strong but comfortable.

I couldn’t miss the chance to grab a full bing of this guy. It’s a high performer with its intense energy, clarity, mouthfeel, and complexity of flavors (Am I missing anything?). I was so impatient I could only let it settle in the pumidor for two weeks before I broke into it. The cake arrived slightly broken on the edges, providing just enough broken tea leaves for the session—about 6 grams. They had a suspiciously mid-aged scent of dried fruit and leather.

The tea soup has high clarity and a deep golden hue. Brewed leaves had a scent of tropical fruits and sandal wood. I entered the sheng pu realm from the north (Lincang) and so am just beginning to get my bearings on Menghai and Yiwu terrior. I do have one genuine 100 g Lao Man E cake that shares some of the notes of this cake. Here I found a medley of tropical fruits (sweet grapefruit in particular) along side lovely bitters that literally rings in the mouth. The tea has serious staying power and a nice sandalwood base. This tea doesn’t begin to taper off until steep 10 or so.

For me, the mouthfeel and qi are the wow factor. I was in the middle of a conversation while sipping on the 2nd steep and the word’s “oh wow” came out. The qi followed the mouthfeel. It can take you for a ride if you let it.

One of my samples from a big W2T order! I really enjoyed this one. I used 7g of leaf with boiling water and my 120mL gaiwan.

On my first session with this, I was a bit too rough on it, and it punched me right in the face. If you abuse this tea, it will abuse you right back. I like bitter young (gutbomb?) sheng, but when I ramped up the steep times too quickly it was too bitter for me.

I found better results keeping it low for a long time – I did steeps of 7s, 7s, 7s, 7s, 7s, 8s, 10s, 15s, 25s, 40s, 1m, 100s. My first three steeps, when the chunk was working on breaking itself up, were light and sweet straw tasting with appreciably thick texture. On the third steep, the tea started to open up and wake up – and it was a bit cranky. Bitterness grew over the next three steeps, becoming heavy in the front of the sip, maintaining the straw flavor and gaining a slight fruity flavor. I didn’t taste it as apricot, more like apple – but the rind, as it wasn’t quite as sweet as the flesh of the fruit.

By the time I started increasing the steep time, the bitterness was receding slightly. The tea was softer, less punchy, with that apple rind fruity sweetness along with hay notes. The bitterness was still omnipresent, but more in the back of the sip, reminding you of its previous bite. On the second to last steep, a new sweet flavor entered the mix, reminding me of burnt sugar. It was pretty unexpected so late in the session. I probably could have squeezed a few more long infusions out of this one, but my kettle was empty and dinner was calling.

I wouldn’t recommend this tea if you don’t like bitter sheng. If you do however, this is a great one. The bitterness can be tempered, not avoided, by quick steeping in the early session, and eventually goes mostly away, leaving just some great sweetness and a smooth brew.

From the Pu TTB:

Starts off super clean and refreshing. Moderate bitterness and florals. Notes of honey, rock sugar, and clorophyll. Actually more than moderate bitterness. Later steeps reveal hints of dry white wine and sandalwood. I enjoyed this one a lot, definitely among my top young sheng.

Got a sample of this a month or so ago, and it’s been airing out for several weeks. Without having read any reviews, I still had the impression from someplace or other that this tea has some potency, and this morning I needed a kick, so I broke it out.

This cake must be pretty loosely compressed: my sample consists mainly of loose leaf, and I was able to just shake 8g out of the bag into my weighing boat. Gave it one minimum-duration rinse and steeped like 5s, 10s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 20s, 25s, … and 5s increments up to 50s.

I was prepared for seriously challenging bitterness based on what I’d heard (hence the relatively restrained steeping schedule) but maybe that was a characteristic of the tea when it was newer. Some of the early steeps had an almost teeth-on-edge astringency but other than that I found the flavors fairly mild. The tea has serious punch though, I can definitely agree with that. I was getting a tea sweat after about the 4th steep. Nice solid mouthfeel, with some perfumey notes in the early steeps and some sweetness later on. I got 10 solid steeps, and 4-5 more to wring it out.

From the Puerh TTB 3. Thanks to W2T for donating the sample

I’m furiously drinking up samples to try to figure out what to buy on Black Friday. This is a tea I’ve considered buying so was anxious to try it. The initial steep featured light straw and smoke. Astringent but not bitter. Lots of tannin in the finish. By the 3rd steep it was much more interesting: layers of wood and tobacco, with a metallic flavor on the tip of my tongue. Very astringent finish; so much so that to makes the tea less pleasant. The cha qi is overwhelming; very strong. I think the tea is in an awkward point in development. Probably needs more age. 4th (30m): Seems to be getting more bitter/astringent.

A lot of reviews talk about “good” bitterness, but I’m just not into bitter. I got the feeling that this tea was in an awkward phase, where the various components just weren’t working together. I suspect it needs aging, but just don’t know enough about puerh to know how it will turn out in 10 years (which of course depends on how it is stored). I’ll be looking for a more accessible tea to spend my allowance on.

Here’s the deal about my review on this tea: Repave was the first and only sheng that I’ve had from W2T before drinking this.

Unfortunately this one was too strong for me. The bitter notes came through, not strong but they dried out my mouth by the 10th steep…. now I kept going because I really wanted to enjoy this tea since I can see how beautiful the leaf is. It’s possible that this one may need a few years before I can enjoy it… oh well, I’m impatient and ordering a sample of Last Thoughts; maybe it’ll rival Repave.

I’ve heard stories about this tea, so I was excited to finally be able to try. The cake has a Menghai appearance. Being so, an array of long twisted pale green moacha loosely compressed. The cake gives off a slight fruity and vegetal aroma. I broke off a chunk and placed in my warmed yixing. The scent deepened into fruity damp oak scent; there was a slight camphor or eucalyptus background. I washed the leaves and got ready for the brew. The liquor is a bright clear yellow. The leaves give off a sharp green and wild scent. The flavor is pure menghai. This brew gives a peppery kuwei taste that is slightly smoothed with some fruit. However, this brew grows more and more bitter. The liquor gives a prickling sensation on the tongue and makes my arms have goosebumps. I take sip after sip and feel my neck prickle. The flavor is spiced and evenly bodied. There is a slight huigan present in the brew, but it is largely dominated by pleasant bitterness. the qi is prominent and powerfully driven. It gave me quite a push. This was an aggressive energy present in this leaf. This was a good brew; however, the flavor died rather quickly. I was able to get about eight full bodied steeping sessions. The kuwei died down at about the fifth steeping. This brew was not as bitter as I expected. I was told that this was a punch to the taste-buds, and it should cause me to drawback. I might have a little bit too high of a tolerance, or I should have let this cake rest a little bit before brewing. I believe it was the latter. This was still a very good brew, and I was informed to use more leaves and prepare for a bold brew. I just may do that next time. I’m happy to have tried this tea, and I’m glad I survived the New Ameryka 2 session!

https://instagram.com/p/8ZfEbwzGXH/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

I have survived the tea! I drank this last night in the warrior style! About 10g/100ml ratio, but I didn’t measure weight.

Strong, punchy, pleasantly bitter. A real punch in the throat, but still enjoyable and complex. Notes of citrus and apricot, like some of my favorite shengs. Definitely one to keep around and see how it ages.