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This is the oldest (as in aged the longest) tea I have tried to date, although I just got some older ones recently. It is very interesting for me in the sense that different aspects of it resemble various teas like shou, aged white, sheng, oriental beauty and dianhong.

The smell is initially similar to a lot of ripe pu-erh, but very clean. It is sweet, earthy and nutty with notes like camphor, peat and prunes. It is very complex and later throughout the session becomes more woody and medicinal. There are aromas of spruce, oak, forest floor and chlorine.

The liquor is super clean and its colour is located between dark orange and red. The taste is also clean and inoffensive, but definitely enjoyable even though it may lack some pungency. It starts off sweet, spicy and nutty with light bitterness. I can taste coffee and hazelnuts in particular. The second half of the session (steeps 7 to 10) is a bit more herbaceous, while the very end (steeps 11 to 13) is fruity with notes of apple, apricut and walnuts. These last few infusions remind me of aged shou mei a fair bit. Even better than the taste itself is probably the aftertaste, which is very long. It doesn’t really have much extra complexity over the taste though.

The body is full and the mouthfeel is slimy, buttery, mouth-watering and a touch dry in the finish. I didn’t really notice any cha qi, apart from some caffeine effects in the chest around infusion 10.

Overall, I got 13 infusions of about 100ml and one final simmer of 200ml. Getting 1.5l of tea from 6g of leaf seems like a lot to me, especially given that this is not likely to be made from old trees.

Upon opening the bag, I get hit by an intriguing smell. It is not quite like what I would normally expect from DianHong. The most prominent note is the one of the smoke from a fog machine. Behind it, there are scents of tomato vine and malt to be found. Once the leaves are hit with hot water, the aroma changes. Now it is more medicinal. In fact, it reminds me of the smell of some disinfection sprays. The strongest aspects of the smell are more standard though – malt, nuts and cocoa.

Like many Yunnan black teas, this is the Assamica varietal, and the taste profile is somewhat similar to Assam black teas. It is floral, savoury and bitter with a touch of sweetness in the finish. There is also some astringency, although much less than what I would expect in actual Assam teas. I found flavours and aromas resembling lily, lime zest and bread.

After drinking, I get a constrictive feeling in the mouth that’s almost drying, but not really. The mouthfeel of the tea is nothing spectacular, but decent enough to not pose any issues. It’s thinner than what I expected based on the description, but still medium bodied I’d say.

Overall, it’s an interesting and fragrant tea for those who like Assamica and don’t mind their black tea be on the bitter side.

I got this tea as a free sample with my order, thanks MST! I won’t rate it though, as it is noted as being past its shelf life on the website. Since it’s already late today, I opted for less leaf and western brewing.

The aroma is surprisingly weak and initially I don’t really get much pomelo fragrance, if any. There is a sea air like scent though. After second steep, I can definitely smell the pomelo blossoms. The taste is somewhat light and very floral with bitter finish. I get notes of spinach and pomelo, as well as citrus zest in general terms. The aftertaste is quite long and displays the pomelo fragrance nicely. It is savoury too, reminiscent of sourdough bread in fact. The body is light and mouthfeel drying, but not really astringent.

Unfortunately, I found that the way the tea made me feel was quite unpleasant. It quickly got into my head and upset my stomach, even though I had dinner not that long ago.

The compression is not too tight, one rinse is enough to open it up. After the rinse I can smell some composted grass, straw and old wooden cabinet. Because of the small leaf particle size, I started with lower temperatures and as short infusion times as possible. Nonetheless, they were fairly bitter and astringent thorughout the session. Because of the high acidity and nutty flavour, I got reminded of coffee a bit. Other than that, the taste resembled the notes I got in the aroma. It’s fairly bland overall though. In the end, the 5g yielded about 9 100ml infusions.

As far as sheng mini tuos from YS go, the 2016 Monkey mini tuo is much better, I would say get that one instead if you want to have a super-casual raw pu-erh that’s also very suitable for cold brewing.

The first time I drank this tea, which was also the first time drinking Golden Monkey, it didn’t hit the right spot mostly due to its fairly light body. Today however, its smooth and delicate nature was exactly what I needed. The tea has a light, but pleasant smell. Dry leaves have a bit of a leather aroma with hints of tobacco, while the wet leaves are more malty. The taste is nutty, moderately sweet and quite woody in the finish. In the aftertaste I also get some chocolate notes emerging.

I definitely wouldn’t make this my default choice as far as hong cha goes, but once in a while it can be nice.

I prefer this tea as a casual brew rather than a focused session. Unfortunately, it is not priced as a daily drinker.

Today I drank it while working so no detailed notes this time. However, I can say that it is quite balanced and refreshing. There are no obvious drawbacks. The smell is nice and strong, it has a decent body and is tasty for sure. A good dessert tea I would say. It’s just that none of its aspects really caught my attention when doing a focused session.

This sample from AprTea was marked as Zhang Ping Shui Xian, which it clearly isn’t. Like the previous one, I am fairly confident I could identify it from the selection they offer. When I opened it, it had a distinctive charcoal roast aroma that has dissipated after the few weeks that I gave the tea to air out. Now the dry leaf smell is a kind of generic greenish oolong scent. However, the rinse does smell like a lightly charcoal roasted oolong again. The wet leaves have an enticing smell that is indeed somewhat floral and cooling, but also fairly heavy and earthy at the same time. It reminds me of clay bricks a little bit.

The taste is balanced – sweet, grassy and floral with the characteristic TGY sourness. Overall, it’s a little flat and somewhat boring though. The body is medium to light and the mouthfeel is slightly milky. I get some astringency in the finish, but only in the mouth.

To sum up, this is a balanced and easy to drink light to medium roasted TGY that’s anything but exciting.

I am continuing in my exploration of the samples derk sent me and this is another good one. I have already tried the purple needles from the same producer, which I really liked. There are similarities between the two teas but they stand on their own for sure and provide a nice comparison.

I have to say that this tea proved to be quite challenging and sophisticated. Many of its characteristics I couldn’t easily separate and identify, which made the session all the more interesting, but also made me want to have more of the tea to play around with it.

The dry leaf smell in particular I couldn’t really place, but some of its aspects did remind me of pumpkin pie and lavender. After the rinse, the bouquet becomes very unique and complex, yet subtle. It has an arid feel to it, with notes of fresh pumpkin, sunflower seeds/oil and nuts. Later on throughout the session, it becomes a bit more fruity displaying aromas of peach, fruit tree flowers and saurkraut/pickles (not pickled cucumber). One interesting association I get is a dark, but clean cobblestone alley on a rainy night.

Body is medium to light and the liquor is quite velvety. Taste-wise, I found the tea to be quite herbaceous and nutty overall. A bit less prevalent are the sour, vegetal and floral notes like lemon zest or courgette flowers. In mid to late infusions, the tart fruity aspects get amplified, mostly I could taste passion fruit and granadilla. There are some grassy undertones too. Even when I pushed the temperatures and steeping times, I never got much astringency, which is pretty remarkable.

The aftertaste is generally fairly protracted. Like derk I also noticed white peach and the light waxy/phyllo like feeling in the mouth. The sensation is mostly cooling and clenching in the throat, expansive in the mouth and body warming.

I greatly enjoyed this silver needle with its hard-to-describe-sophistication and impressive longetivity (I got about 1.2l from the 5g).

Unfortunately, I don’t have much information about this tea. It disappeared from the website almost as soon as I ordered it, so I guess it sold out. But even before, it didn’t really mention much about the material. It is tightly compressed, which as far as I understand, is the standard for huangpian. Therefore, I gave it a long rinse followed by about 10 minutes rest. However, the first few steeps had to still be roughly a minute long in order to get some flavour.

In any case, it is the first huangpian sheng I have had a chance to try. All in all, it definitely made me want to get more exposure of these large leaf pu-erh teas. I think they should be good for the times when one wants a more straight-forward raw pu-erh session.

As for this particular tea, I will record my observations, even though they are not as useful given that we don’t know what the tea is. The smell is surprisingly complex in fact. I found it to be really pungent. At the very begining of the session, it was more fruity with an alcohol like feel to it. Over time it became much more vegetal and spicy, resembling bay leaves a lot. Other notes I picked were black pepper, rosemary and mint.

The taste doesn’t actually differ that much from what I could smell, although less distinctive and more on the overripe fruit side of things. When in control of the steeping time, there was very little bitterness or astringency to be found. In the early infusions, the body is medium to light and the mouthfeel is like skimmed milk. Later, it is thicker and smoother, with a bubbly feel to it. Aftertaste is also not too strong, but lasts for quite a while. It becomes cooling and tart once the leaves open up properly.

edit: I increased the rating, because although not too complex, the taste is actually quite delightful.

Unlike many others, I seem to prefer the imperial grade version. I would nonetheless choose the classic one for a more casual session. It is more nutty and robust with a vegetal and tangy aftertaste, while the imperial grade is more delicate, complex and with more pronounced umami & grassy notes.

I find that this one is slightly closer to some of the other Chinese green teas, whereas imperial grade is somewhat more in the direction of Japanese greens. However, that’s not really a fair comparison.