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This tea makes for a very nice cold brew, mostly of spicy and fruity jam nature. I like to use the fannings at the bottom of the pouch for cold brewing which is what I did today. That way, the astringency is reduced compared to standard brewing.

[Spring 2018 harvest]

This is an interesting green tea with quite a herbal character. The dry leaf smell is pungent, sweet and nutty. I also get an aroma of vegetable broth and sage. On the other hand the wet leaves smell of pine, grass, cauliflower, lemon balm and a touch of mint and basil.

The taste is kind of refreshing, with a strong sweetness, umami and a peppery finish. There are flavours of pine, sweetcorn, asparagus and nuts. Overall, I found the taste to be quite exciting. The aftertaste is also nice. It is has a vegetal bitterness and is a little biting. It reminds me a bit of tea tree oil. When brewed well (which, admittedly, took me a while to figure out), the mouthfeel is awesome – thick, brothy and soft.

As for brewing the tea, I found high leaf/water ratios to work the best, which is common for higher grade green teas. In order to avoid overly strong bitterness and astringency, one can reduce the temprerature as well as adopt a careful brewing, especially when pouring the water into the teapot.

I went for the cake instead of the loose leaf version, but now I am thinking I should have bought both for comparison. I can still get the loose leaf, but the longer I wait, the bigger difference arising from the aging there will be.

It is a very interesting tea. I would characterize it as having complex, although not pungent aromas, multifaceted, crisp and a little rough taste and a full body.

The dry leaf smells of dry grass, wood and sweet florals. In a preheated gaiwan, I also get some plum pie note on top of that. During the session, the leaves give off aromas reminiscent of dill and edamame, while the liquor is more in the way of honey, cheese cake and sweetened cocoa powder.

The taste is changing a lot and is a little confusing. At times it is more like a standard Bai Mu Dan, other times not so much. It is sweet, vegetal, savoury, tart, and astringent, with a decent amount of bitterness too. As for particular flavours, I noticed some cream cheese, parsley, fish meat and orchid, but that’s not an exhaustive list by any means. Aftertaste has quite a stong umami taste with some white wine character.

Mouthfeel of this tea is very good too. It is soft, mouth-watering at first, but later on the drying sensation starts to dominate. Moreover, the liquor is very thick once the leaves open up a bit.

This is a delicious and affordable tea. Higly recommended!

[Autumn 2018 harvest]

I am treating myself to a special tea today, a competition grade TGY. Straight after opening the pouch, I can tell it’s a great one. It is the strongest smelling ball rolled tea I have encountered. The aroma reminds me of a conifer (spruce?) forest after summer rain, with some extra hints of cabbage. It is very “green” smelling. In a preheated pot, I get an unreasonably strong asparagus aroma, followed by apricot, apple and custard. Once the leaves open up, they exude a mixture of cooked vegetables (carrots predominately), lemon skin and later on throughout the session also cannabis.

The taste is very delicate, mineral and sweet. The first infusion has flavours of custard, cream, warm grass, spinach and fish broth. Second steep gets more metallic and vegetal, while the third one has a stronger umami flavour mixed with notes of melon and grape skins. I pushed infusions 4 and 5 a bit more and found them to be a little flatter in the flavour profile, but more spicy. Steep 6 is more grassy and has a new flavour which reminds me of courgette.

The aftertaste is slightly biting and quite crisp. It is floral and has a nice sour touch to it, nothing abrasive like so many of the lower grade TGY I have had. There are notes of seaweed, vanilla ice cream and moss too in the aftertaste. The sensation is warming at first, but becomes cooling in the throat after a while. The mouthfeel is generally very soft, velvety and lubricating with medium body.

As for the cha qi, it’s mild and very pleasant I’d say. It is quite body warming and mind focusing, as well as elevating.

This is undoubtedly the best TGY I have ever tried, it’s not even close. Now, the question is: Is it worth the price? I am not sure. I think maybe yes, as long as I haven’t found a comparable tea at a more competitive price. I don’t drink TGY often, but when I do, I would like to be able to drink this one. The 7g yielded about 1.3l of tea in 8 steeps, which is about what I would expect from a high grade TGY.

This is a very nice ripe, like all of recent Scott’s productions. It still has a decent amount of fermentation flavour, but that should dissipate in a few years. I find it to be comparable in quality to Rooster King, but it’s not as sweet, that’s for sure. The smell is a mix of medicinal and chocolate notes, with caramel hints in the empty cup. The taste is bitter, earthy and spicy with a sour finish. I get notes of citrus zest, tree bark and molasses, as well as some coffee in the aftertaste, which I found to be very long and getting sweeter and spicier over time. The body is medium to full and the mouthfeel is creamy and quite mouth-watering. Thanks to the balanced nature and strong, complex profile, I can imagine this tea rivaling Yang Luo Han as my favourite young shou, once a few years have passed and the fermentation notes are not as strong.

This morning I pulled out one of the teas from the recent Taobao group buy organized by Liquid Proust. On the label it says “Black cake”, which is the only information I have besides the tea itself. Of course, that much I could extract by looking at the leaves anyway :D

Judging by the spent leaves, this is made from older leaves than the standard hong cha production. They are large and stout with thick stems. They remind me of either mid to small sized huangpian leaves or the kind of leaves you would see in Taiwanese oolong production.

The tea turned out to have more longetivity as a result as well. From the 3g, I got 10 infusions of 50ml, but I probably could have gotten one or two more, judging by the fact that some leaves didn’t properly open up after that. Another interesting feature is that the tea can withstand high temperatures very well and in fact needs close to boiling water after steep 6 or so.

The taste is not too pungent, but quite nice. I found the profile to be similar to some pour-over coffee. There is a floral quality that’s common in sun-dried black tea as well as the roasted, tannic and a touch fruity flavour. However, it is sweeter than coffee, even though less so than other black teas. Compared to those, there is more bitterness. I also noticed a tobacco note on top of those. The aftertaste is again not strong, but lasts long. It is drying and reminds me of peach skin.

The mouthfeel is not too interesting, but the relatively light body makes it easy to drink. There is some cha qi too, mostly caffeine like effects I’d say.

[Spring 2018 harvest]

This is a green tea for young sheng lovers. It has a thick and full bodied liquor, complex profile and it can withstand high temperatures very well too. Even the dry leaf aroma is a bit like raw pu-erh. I can smell stewed fruits, meadow, honey, nuts and wheat. Once hit with water, the smell is more savoury with hints of meat and popcorn later on. In the empty cup on the other hand, flowery tones dominate.

The taste has unusually bitter onset for a green tea, even if brewed at lower temperatures. There is very little of astringency though, unless you push the temperature over 90 degrees. The taste profile is vegetal with notes of cabbage, celery, grapefruit, grilled vegetables and green pepper. It has hints of smoke and a sweet finish. Aftertaste is very crisp and tart and characterized by a strong huigan. It is a touch drying, especially in the throat. I found it to be quite herbal and displaying more of vegetable notes like bok choy and cauliflower.

The tea definitely doesn’t disappoint in the mouthfeel department either. It is smooth, mouth-watering, coating and slimy.

This ranks among my favourite green teas for sure, but it’s by no means a standard green tea. I recommend you to try out various brewing methods and parameters for this tea. Not only it is versatile, but that way you can explore its many facets. You can even try pu-erh like parameters. The bitterness will be strong, but I find that it transforms quickly, just like in a good sheng.

This is probably the most floral black tea from outside Darjeeling that I have tried so far. The leaves in a preheated gaiwan smell of rosehips and orchids, while the wet leaves have a distinctively herbal, sweet, cooling and medicinal smell. I am tepted to say it’s like a mixture of sage and fresh fenugreek, but that’s not quite right. There is some tomato leaf smell though.

The taste is also fairly unusual. It has some malt notes, sure. However, the dominating feeling is that of tart fruitiness at the onset, followed by biting herbal notes and a smooth, creamy and floral finish. The aftertaste starts kind of astringent, but very quickly transforms into a little sickly sweetness, allowing the florals to take over and stay for a long time. The liquor also has a very good bitterness, something I lack in many black teas.

I am very satisfied with this tea. It is comparable in quality, price and taste profile to second flush Darjeelings that I have had.

Oh, now I know what the wet leaf smell reminds me of. It’s that of an unscented massage lotion/cream. Now, I don’t know which (combination of) ingredients in them is it that creates the characteristic scent though.

I can’t quite warm up to this tea. It is clearly of good quality, but I may just have to accept it is not for me. It is mostly the strange combination of heavy bitterness, sticky sweetness and a bright tannic quality that just doesn’t appeal to my palate.

Anyway, here are some notes I wrote down. The smell is very heavy and sweet. I compare it to a mixture of shisha tobacco, swamp vegetation and brown butter. As I mentioned, the overall taste is bitter, sweet and tannic, as well as quite vegetal and refreshing. As for the flavours, I noticed notes of sugarpeas, grass, fresh bay leaf, mediterranean florals and mussels. The last one becomes strong especially in late infusions. In the aftertaste, there are further notes of moss and red pepper (the spice, not the vegetable).

The liquor has medium to light body and soft, powdery and sticky mouthfeel. After swallowing, I get a numbing sensation in the mouth. I can definitely attest to the subtle, yet strong nature of energy of this tea. Since it doesn’t affect consciousness much directly, I found it possible to work while drinking this tea actually.

Today I pulled out this sample I received from derk, probably the last one if I am not forgetting some. I have never tried Bai Ji Guan before, but I thought it could be my gateway into WuYi oolongs, as I have had a little hard time with the more roasted ones.

In a preheated gaiwan, the leaves smell of milk chocolate, gingerbread cookies, honey and dry grass. After the rinse, I get mostly quite standard rock oolong smell – mineral with a touch of cannabis. In the empty cup, I can smell mostly floral scents.

The taste of this tea is very interesting, definitely different from any other one I have had. It is savoury overall, but with plenty subtleties. At various times its aspects reminds me of sheng, Dong Ding or Tie Guan Yin. I noticed flavours in the general vicinity of mushrooms, mineral and floral ones.

The mouthfeel is complex too. Honestly, I would need quite a bit more than one session to figure it out. The liquor is thick, soft and slick generally. I also get the a sourness at the very back of the mouth that’s characteristic of TGY. After swallowing, the sensation in the mouth is mostly cooling and a little drying on the sides, while fairly constrictive in the throat.

All in all, an ok tea, but frankly not the most enjoyable or memorable.