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“140 mL, 7g, gongfu, brita filter water off the boil Couldn’t smell anything particular in the dry leaves/mini cake. Tasted like a specific TCM the whole way through (神曲: Chinese medicated leaven)...” Read full tasting note
“I started this one last night but dozed off after only a couple of steeps so I’m finishing it today. An advantage to keeping the house so cold and dry, I guess…it’s almost like storing my tea...” Read full tasting note
Our Big O v2 is a blend of our small batch shu Puer and chenpi (Mandarin orange skin). Each mini is roughly 7 grams, with 7 minis in each stack.
This blend focuses on the bright, less fermented aspects of shu Puer and a younger orange skin that offers a full citrus aroma. The tea has a thick body with sweet fruity flavors and a strong huigan (returning sweetness) in the mouth. Drink now or age as you please.
140 mL, 7g, gongfu, brita filter water off the boil
Couldn’t smell anything particular in the dry leaves/mini cake.
Tasted like a specific TCM the whole way through (神曲: Chinese medicated leaven) that comes in little bricks that you boil. Given that I had to take this often when I was having stomach issues when I was younger, it doesn’t necessarily elicit any pleasant connections for me lol. No other observations, but definitely not something I’d order again.
Update: used the leaves for compost and was surprised to smell a strong passion fruit note three days later. Had it mixed with leftover W2T tiltshift leaves. This mini certainly tasted nothing like that, so not sure what that’s from but I thought the smell was interesting and pleasant. :)
Flavors: Bitter, Medicinal
I started this one last night but dozed off after only a couple of steeps so I’m finishing it today. An advantage to keeping the house so cold and dry, I guess…it’s almost like storing my tea bottle in the fridge overnight, no gross funky spoiled tea flavors/smells if it sits for a while. I might be constantly bundled up in multiple layers of clothing or blankets and have daily nosebleeds from the dryness but at least the tea is still drinkable the next day. Priorities! (Don’t worry, my tea boxes get Boveda packets so they don’t have to endure the 20% humidity with me)
I haven’t met a chenpi tea I didn’t like. Big O v2 smells more orangey than it tastes to me but it’s tasty. It smells really good. I would buy a candle or potpourri or something that smells like this tea. Or maybe a bath product. (You listening, Lush? Enough with the chocolate-orange and citrus with more citrus blends, give me a chenpi pu-erh bath melt). It’s pleasantly tongue-tingly. Compared to Channel Orange, this one falls apart quickly and seems more “normal”. There isn’t anything really mind-blowing or complicated about it, it’s just good. Good, happy, sleepy tea that doesn’t make my brain hurt trying to figure out what I’m tasting.
It’s interesting to see how your tea habits change over time. Last winter I was really into ripe pu-erh with rose petals and raw cha gao. Over the summer/autumn it was more green teas and trying to find a raw pu-erh I really like. This winter I’ve been drinking lots of chenpi ripes and moonlight white.
