2000 Chocolate Mini Shu

Thanks to Stephanie for sending me a mini tuocha in her swap!

Had a gongfu session with my ceramic gaiwan. I pried the tuocha apart. About half went in the bowl. Gave it a ten-second rinse. Let it sit for ten minutes. Steeping times: 10 seconds, 10, 15, 20, 30, 60; 6 minutes.

After sitting in the heated bowl, the dry leaf smells of earth, then leather, then chocolate. The rinse aroma is delicious: chocolate-covered coffee beans! I mostly smell leather thereafter.

The soup is dark, clear and full-bodied. Flavor fills the mouth. The texture is creamy most of the time (smooth in the middle of the session). It begins with sweet earth and a hint of chocolate. From the second infusion to the last, I taste black coffee and a bit of old leather. The bitterness from the coffee is not off-putting – it reminds me of higher quality coffee. In the back of the throat, during the aftertaste, there are notes of dark fruit (raisins, acai berry) and dark chocolate.

I thought this was alright. I enjoyed the creamy texture and the intense flavor, but I learned I’m not keen on black coffee in my shou. Glad I got an opportunity to sample this!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBz6TZMQNnB/

This starts out a very moist dirt flavor with a little bitterness and seems to dry out with more steepings. Becomes more of a damp paper-y taste. It lightens after the 3rd steep and gets a little sweeter.

(Read the writing on here https://instagram.com/p/9Co1coRYAC/?taken-by=liquidproust)

This was a very smooth shou. I was thinking it would have some umph to it, like some rough notes… but the taste was silkish (not the texture). The texture was creamish and wonderful. While this was a really good tea, and I’ll be buying some, the other shou from W2T kicks this one’s butt. This is the kind of shou I would introduce others to if they like the earthy notes that ripe tea has or the depth, but can’t stand the strength. The sweet after taste makes it even better because the brisk earth taste that is smooth and doesn’t overpower the tea comes right through and makes a smile appear.

I did something unspeakable to this tea, and for that I apologize in advance to the Pu-gods, Shen Nong, Lu Yu, and the honorable Tea Farmer who grew these leaves. When I drank it last, which according to my tasting note was approximately a month ago, I wasn’t feeling it. So apparently I drained the leaves, put the tea in a plastic bag, and put it in my fridge. And forgot about it. For a month. In my cheese drawer. FACEPALM

The good news is that it was not destroyed. I’m on my fifth steep and it’s pretty wonderful actually. There’s still that tang, but the predominant sourness has mellowed into deeply flavorful shou, earthy, primeval, and satisfying. Now I’m feeling it.

A sample of this tea came in a surprise package from Stephanie! Thank you! The little cube was about 9g, and my gaiwan isn’t that big, but I was able to break it in half. Yay!

It took a bit to loosen up. I did that trick where you let it sit a bit after the rinse. Always helps. Stephanie mentioned it tasted like library books, and I have to agree, not that I’ve ever eaten one. ;) It also has this really nice sweet taste, which was silky, like caramel. It stayed that way through an average number of infusions. It goes down nice and smooth. Mmm. I liked it a lot! Seems like a solid shou! Would definitely consider picking some up!

Backlogging from over the weekend!

I got my new little Ru Kiln pot from White2Tea this weekend along with some samples that Cheri sent! https://instagram.com/p/0gyegXRh48/ Thanks again Cheri!

I drank the ChocoShou Saturday night and I really enjoyed it for an aged tea. I’m pretty picky about my older shou and this was a very enjoyable one. Tasted like sweet old library books. Will pick up a tin with the next group order for sure :)

Dry – Old decayed wood house, musky tree, wood-bitterness, dried leafs.
Wet – Sweet, coffee like bitterness, musty decayed wet wood, molasses.

First few (1-3) steeps Have a sweet front but wear a very robust mustiness that can be either very pleasant if you like it or off putting if you don’t that develops pepper like woodiness and slight spicy astringency and woody bitterness. The final notes recover the sweetness with a refreshing camphor.

In the Middle (3-6) Here is where the real good stuff shows up with mostly the sweeter notes and maintaining most of its woody characteristics with out being unpleasantly musky or decayed wood-bitter. The sweetness has some thickness and the bitterness make it seem more like a molasses than sugary which is very nice and almost malty in some sense.

Final steeps The notes start getting weaker, but the sweetness shines more here; with most of the wood bitterness and musk notes gone the sweetness is more like a raw sugar than molasses like, it doesn’t hold much complexity but it is still satisfying.

FINAL NOTES
I like this one as an every day drink, the mini bricks have an undeniable musky, sometimes almost fishy scent that at least to me require a few days out of the container and a good two rinses to get rid of and even then the first 2-3 steeps will have plenty of it.

With all of that said, it becomes more and more pleasant in the middle steeps and flat sweet in the last few ones. I would recommend using the container for other teas and moving this ripe to a box or open container to get the best out of it.

Yesterday I thought I’d try grandpa brewing the last square I had from White2Tea’s Tea Club. A quick rinse, and then the little square sat in my tumbler for a few hours as I sipped from it.

Unsurprisingly, it was a really, really strong brew. Dark, earthy, wet rocks. It was a little too intense for me during the first round of grandpa brewing that I poured half the tumbler into a mug and filled the mug up with hot water, which helped a lot. There was a pleasant, light sweetness to it. It was surprisingly crisp and refreshing, like how I’d imagine drinking from a stream would taste.

I have a tin of this on its way. At some point, when I have time (ha), I’ll have to do a proper gongfu side-by-side tasting with the ‘98 White Tuo. There’s something kind of familiar about this tea that made me think about the White Tuo.

I have been wanting to try this tea for a while. Picked it up with my Black Friday order to White2Tea. Just now getting around to trying it. It is not bad. The aged flavor is strong. I was going to describe the aged flavor as a bamboo taste but I think the Steepster writeup has a better description, wet wood. It starts out with this note and its quite strong. By the second steep it began to dissipate and be replaced to some degreee by a sweet note, but not the sweet note of a young shou. This has a definite aged flavor throughout. By the fourth steep this note was almost gone but not quite. As I have to sleep tonight I only gave this four steeps. To be honest I didn’t like it enough to steep it more anyway. This tea was definitely worth trying. I just didn’t like it as much as I had hoped.

I steeped this tea four times in a 220ml gaiwan with 9.3g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 10 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, and 20 sec. This was a very strong tea and I could have gotten a lot more out of it, probably eight more steeps.

http://instagram.com/p/xK1EQQzDdu/?modal=true

This is the first tea I’m sampling from the White2Tea TOMC.
The dry mini bricks are very very dark & fudgey looking, with an aromatic wood/camphor & earth aroma. There are 2 10G squares, so I decided to go with 2 different steeping methods. For the first try I used 10G in my regular mug, giving it a quick rinse & then 15 sec steeps, increasing time as needed.
The early steeps were a light shroom broth, & a sweet bready after taste.
This built over time to a rich & very dark cup, very smooth, reminding me the feeling of unsweetened cocoa powder, with a taste of dried black figs, & blackstrap molasses.
It was very rich!

So I started this yesterday, drinking several cups. Today I gave the leaf a rinse & am enjoying it some more. I started on it when I got home at 3:00 & I think I’m on my 3rd cup. It’s still very dark, damp wood, tobacco, light camphor, & this last cup was kind of like cream of wheat with agave, & a little bit of a light shroomy broth.

The 2nd mini brick will be gongfu steepings in my yixing, sometime. I might have to pick up some more of these in the future.