Liquid Proust Teas

I drank this once and it was amazing! Looking forward to a focused session and reviewing it. As a teaser: imagine if matcha was a black tea, sweet and savory.

A little floral, sweet, malty. It has an oolong thing going on but really the flavor is intricate. This ratio is perfect and the flavor really comes out in the 2nd-3rd steep at around 60 seconds. Balanced finish with pleasant astringency and drying sensation.

Later steepings are more serious with some light bitter notes and woody body.

Nuts how well this performs given the price! Check out LiquidProust.com. Buying more of this before it’s gone.

First session with this leaf so I’m not going to issue a rating without a bit more experience. Really tasty! But also subtle and smooth. Seems like the seller notes are spot on, this would brew well in eastern or western styles. I put it in my trusty easy gaiwan at work and left it to infuse for a couple minutes as I do with oolongs from time to time. It stood up to long infusion times well. Really great for the price.

Burmese shou from Taobao buy some years ago.

Saline-mineral and smoke taste overlays spicy tobacco and dry woody-earthy tones. Funky bread dough, mild camphor. Robust but thin; acidic aftertaste.

Welcome warmer as the evening fog ushered away the balmy day.

I think I’ll pass this one on to a friend. Not bad but not my style.

An evening pot of this found tea from one of Liquid Proust’s Taobao group buys long ago.

Unassuming little nuggets at first — not surprising considering the age and lack of any roast on the nose. Palm sugar aroma. Fairly thin and cleansing body. I get a sweetness akin to molasses in taste but not texture. Gives way to light notes of soy sauce and lemon peel (oddly specific: Sadaf brand crushed dried lemon), both of which bloom stongly and brightly in the finish along with a floweriness reminiscent of plumeria. Leaves a nice sour tieguanyin aftertaste and a hint of cooling. Those brewed leaves sure do want to escape the pot!

Reminds me a lot of Japanese goishicha! However, this is so much more mellow and less complex. Easily drinkable, no fuss tea. Practically no caffeine so great for after dinner.

Sample from a TTB. This is a decently malty black tea. It’s pretty pleasant and high quality. I taste a bit of vanilla, though I’d like to see even more.

Random find in my cupboard, maybe from that group buy 4 years ago or from White Antlers?

Tastes like a fruity Yunnan? — reminds me of a red tea from Ailaoshan. Light and sweet with raisiny/dried fruit, cherrywood, muted herbs, mineral with no astringency or bitterness. Only when overleafed does the tea become heavy with tannins. Pleasant — it was fine but did not excite me in any way. Low caffeine, better for evening than morning, took long hot steeps very well.

It’s just after 12 noon here and I’m finally sitting down to breakfast. I’m not sure why it takes me so much longer to cook than it does most other people but here we are. Having this really lovely chocolaty blend from Liquid Proust which is proving to be a great accompaniment to the fried egg and Conecuh sausage on my plate. No more resting after this though, as I have multiple piles of laundry to fold and put away this afternoon. Before I know it, it’ll be time to start dinner! But I do plan to drink tea throughout, so that’s something to look forward to. I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend so far!

Mastress Alita’s Monthly Sipdown Challenge
December 2022 → An earthy tea

If any tea in my tea cabinet would be considered an earthy one, surely it would be this tea. I thought I’d finished it a long time ago, but I came across this bag during my last tea cabinet clean-up. I don’t remember much about it honestly, so I’m really pleasantly surprised by how much I’m enjoying this. It’s earthy, yes, but also has a delicious bittersweet chocolate note coming through. I know the Liquid Proust shop is still up and running, but I don’t think Andrew is doing the blends and flavored teas anymore. Those are the ones I miss!

It was one of those mornings where the sausage was burning but not really cooking, people want breakfast but don’t know what they want, and I forgot about my tea. Despite that, I am still getting unique notes through the astringency and bitterness of the oversteep. Deep wooden notes with hints of vanilla. Oak barrel, maybe a bit of whiskey.

From a purchase 4-ish years ago.

This aged liu bao doesn’t have much longevity to it but what character it does harbor hits with a pow. With no hint of what is to come based on the liquor aroma, the first cup smacks me in the senses — not what I’m expecting from an old heicha. It’s like drinking a boiled peppermint tea but kind of fruity. It moves with haste in the mouth like it’s trying to get home as quickly as possible (in my gut!). Have you ever seen a small animal dart so fast to its hideout? The finish is oily and a bit metallic. Second steep I think I taste pizza — pineapple pizza — with old sauce and parmesan cheese rind. Third steep is? Nutty-rooty-woody. Forgettable, I guess. This tea definitely has a soft edge of wet storage to it. I have a difficult time describing humid notes without scaring people away.

Overall, I picked up on more aroma in the warmed and rinsed leaf than distinctive tastes in the tea. Lots of associations from the leaf such as maple-sweet fenugreek seed, warm bricks, old Easter candy (robin eggs), goji, autumn leaf, hot stone fireplace and finally mulberry, which appeared as the leaf cooled and while I waited for the kettle to boil again.

Too caffeinating. Both times drank left me feeling some anxiety.

I don’t have any other info on this, other than LP offered it for sale at some point, and I bought it to compare with the Wu Qiying LCT also from 2001 offered by Wistaria and as a sample from LP. Some definite frost to the leaves, so I double-rinsed. rinse has date like smell of some of the clean slightly aged yee on shous. taste is similar as well, but less sweet. Granted that I haven’t tried the WQY LCT so I haven’t the faintest idea of what dry stored LCT is “supposed” to taste like, if you told me this was aired out Yee-on, I wouldn’t question it. Not a great value at .39/g, and died really quick, even for LCT.

From Liquid Proust group buy almost 4 years ago. 22 years old at this point. It’s very mild and with very little taste until the aftertaste begins to bloom with subtle notes of sweet and sour stewed fruits, spice, wood, flowers and menthol. Smooth and very lightly salty-tannic mouthfeel. As it steeps out, it becomes very perfumey. Much too mild to drink any time besides the evening.

Craved this one. This oolong shows what oolong can do green and oxidized. Unusually balanced for a Gaba.

Really unusual. I may have had it before, but I’m not sure. It’s also a popular tea that Andrew hates is popular because it’s not as sophisticated as some of the other stuff he sells, but the flavor is on point.

At first, it has the scent of a flavored milk oolong being spinach-vanilla cookie batter like, almost fruity like Flinstone vitamins. Drinking it up, it’s like flinstone vitamins. There is some mineral and bready qualities along with funky gaba fruit, though way smoother than other gaba. It’s like a white grape raisin in a buttery floral milky body. I kept drinking it over and over, brewing it up again and again in flash steeps maintaining the flavor. Longer 30 sec and up steeps leaned more towards the raisin cookie quality, lighter steeps were more fruity and milky like fruit loops in milk.

Either way, I’m digging it. I look forward to see what I else I can get from it. If anyone else writes about it, there are going to be a flurry of adjectives on this page in all kinds of directions for it.

This one has the smoke and touch as listed. Very big leaf and an almost savory salty note to it. The tobacco is in there as well and carries through for quite a few steps. Might be a niche type tea but could be appealing with those that like the bitterness and smoke in one. Gong Fu style brewing.

Straight up camphor and tiger balm in this one. Up front notes with some smoke and bitterness in the cup. If you are a fan of one punching you in the mouth with that oily mouth coating this would be the one. If you aren’t sample before you get one. It is either the notes you like or wouldn’t. I don’t think there is a middle ground on this one but for me this is straight up my alley.

4.1g, 90mL gaiwan and random steep times and 190f-212f temps. It can handle higher temps, but for just brownie taste, lower temps + slightly longer times are better. Higher temps bring out raisin-y and stronger floral malty hongcha notes. Anyway, these being noted, I accidentally left the 4th or 5th steep in for over an hour with 185ish water and it was alright, but sorta bitter hongcha and chocolate-y raisins in a way akin to the bourbon barrel shou.

Very happy to have been able to get some of this. Thanks a ton to Andrew for making this available! True to its name, taste and aroma are entirely chocolate and brownie batter. There’s a very slight tinge of alcohol that sometimes weaves into the aroma, but not noticeable unless you pay attention. While this didn’t seem terribly complex to me, it is a very fun tea that I very much enjoyed.

2010 CNNP 迎春香 (CNNP Welcome Spring in LP’s listing).

5.3g, 90 mL gaiwan. Brita filtered tap, boiling. 2x 10s rinses.

Steeps of various times, and more one note past say 4-ish steeps. Opens up slightly woody, with a bitterness running mostly throughout the beginning, but can pop up again later with kill steeps. Sort of medicinal by some stretch, and definite HK basement/humid taste. Some very slight floral or mint (?) aspect and varying levels of sweetness in aftertaste, along with a pepper-y taste. Maybe some dirt, very light mushroom, and coming close to beet/geosmin territory on 4th steep, but definitely present after. Pretty darkened color for a 2010 tea, so definitely HK storage at work.

I was wondering why I never reviewed this, but I don’t think I ever got around to trying it out of the Spring sampler teas from my first LP purchase (a couple weeks short of 1 year ago!!) until now. I can’t remember if I still have the rest somewhere, but it’d be interesting to maybe go back and compare. I doubt I’d have enjoyed HK humid stored tea early on, so it’s good I’m trying this now I suppose. Wouldn’t cake for personal taste, but it’s not bad, and right in daily drinker price range ($84/400g). Given how much my preferences have shifted in this year, I wouldn’t count on this being a safe blind bet, unless one already knows they really like HK humid stored sheng and are willing to drink through a whole 400g of it. This reminds me in many ways of the Changtai ‘03 Jinzhushan from MrMopar, which makes me wonder how much I can actually distinguish teas and storage at this point. Going off of memory, JZS is a bit more mellow, given the extra years of age, but at the same time, the mushroom and geosmin notes on JZS may be stronger. At this time, my impression of both of these now is that storage has taken over in determining taste, so I don’t know how much I agree with the descriptor for this that “it has the ability to shift dramatically within ones storage as the fate of it’s taste/aromatics is not completely set yet”. Shift? Sure. Dramatically? Less sure.

2.8g, thermos overnight. Roasty woody sense, with the usual minty vegetal background. Some dark, almost caramel like sense? remember being enamored with this at some point for some reason, but LP’s other aged oolongs are better… Even while accessible in my desk, I never find myself reaching for this one.

2.1g, 16 oz thermos, boiling. Really roasty in cup. Minty aftertaste. Second refill is slightly plummy. None of the caramel notes from the last time I had this, which was in a glass and heat dissipation probably made it lighter and more pleasant and plummy. Thought i made a note before but can’t seem to find it.

This didn’t turn out quite as I expected/hoped. The vanilla scent is definitely there, but I’m not getting any vanilla in the flavor. This is quite a malty/raisiny Assam, but unfortunately doesn’t deliver on the vanilla.

Adding more to it. The more I’ve had this open for, the more it’s relaxed. It’s actually well suited to the spring summer weather.

I get most of the same notes, but the tea is a lot softer and fruitier in a soft yellow liquor. There’s more pineapple, apricot and slight sourness this time bordering on apple. By association, my brain makes me think of the apple coleslaw at tropical smoothie. Guess I’d add carrot and kale to the notes then. I’m almost tempted to put vinegar in the notes for some reason because of it’s funk. Maybe it’s just me.

I really like this one and it’s fruitiness/fresh veggies vibes. Cutting the time short really helps cut down the more vegetal qualities bringing out the fresher ones, and so does backing off on the leaf. Going too intense on it makes the tea kale-sour broccoli tasting.

Andrew has said he actually thinks this is a better tea, but we’ll see when I get the GABA Milk for comparison. He posted a video talking about how mad he gets that it’s the more popular one because people are really into flavor when he really wants to get them into tea education. We shall see.

I’ve had this one for a little bit, and thought it was the same as the Milk Gaba. Guess not.

Describing this one is kinda difficult. It’s sweet, and I mostly get corn, squash, heavy buttered green beans, osmanthus, apricot hints, and jackfruit(?) in the notes. Today, I’m getting kettle corn with those other notes after washing it 15 and again 20 seconds with 75 ml, 195 F. Before in my tumbler, I’ve gotten Squash, green beans, yellow malt, and corn. The vintage I have is either 2020, or 2021. I can’t remember if I got it, or if Whiteantlers gifted it.

The weird combo between sweet and savory is what gets me from the GABA funk. Sometimes, it tastes like green and yellow skittles, and other times, it tastes and smells like vegetables. It’s fun and well, obviously oolong that I am happy Andrew offers, though I’m not solid on it. I like it more than some other Alishans I’ve had despite not drinking it super often. Sometimes the GABA funk is too much. Hypocritical, I know. There are also more florals, edging on violet, but I’m not sure.

Well, I added it to expand the data base. I like that it’s closer to the style of oolong I usually drink over a more oxidized version or a green tea. Still holding off on the rating ‘cause I’m not sure if I love it.