Tea

This is another lightly fermented shou puer pressed in 2022 and released this year.

Brewing setup: 7g in an 125ml gaiwan brewed with 95C water

Tasting notes: river rocks, damp forest floor, a bit of cocoa powder in earlier steeps, some raisin sweetness on the later steeps.

Overall, this is a very drinkable shou. It isn’t as interesting or complex as the Fleet I had yesterday, this it more like a standard smooth shou that is maybe a bit lighter and has a bit more sweetness. At just $22 for a 200g cake, it would be a great option for a daily drinker. I’d consider buying this tea.

This is a lightly fermented shou puer tea pressed in 2022 and released this year.

Brewing setup: 6g of tea in a 125ml gaiwan, brewed with 95C water.

Tasting notes: 10s rinse 

10s steep: antique books, forest floor, some brightness. My partner says: straw in a barn on a hot day. 

Wet leaf aroma: hot cocoa and fruit jam

10s steep: old library books, cocoa powder

10s steep: forest floor, cedar incense, slightly drying finish. Slight sweetness lingers in the mouth 

10s steep: hot cocoa, old books, cedar incense

10s steep: nectarines, old books, sauna essential oils. My partner says it’s dusty in a good way, fruity tartness, and aerating it reminds her of a petting zoo on a hot summer day.

15s steep: more fruity now, blackberries and dusty library books. 

20s steep: juicy, woody

30s steep: more dry wood with juicy mouthfeel

45s steep: raw yeast dough, dry firewood, blueberry, juicy but drying mouthfeel. 

1min steep: dry leaves, grassy, honey sweetness

2min steep: dry leaves, cocoa, blackberry

5min steep: dry leaves, incense, berries

10min steep: sweet and woody

Overall, this is a very tasty and complex shou. I believe the intent of this light fermentation is to try and mimic an raw puer; and while I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing well aged raw puer, I can say that this is a lot more interesting to drink than most other shous I’ve tried. We would likely buy a brick of this tea. Now I’m interested in trying a couple of his other light ferment shous that were released this year for comparison.

This is a dancong oolong tea pressed into a brick. I got this as a freebie in my order, so I’m not sure which year this one is (it looks like they have one from 2023 and from 2025 on their website).

Brewing parameters: 4g in a 125ml gaiwan, water at 95C.

Tasting notes:

• 15s steep: light florals
• 15s steep: slightly stronger florals, juicy mouthfeel.
• 20s steep: very punchy, perfumey, slightly astringent. Need to dial it back
• 10s steep: floral and juicy, but even still a bit too strong.
• 7s steep with water dropped to 90C: perfectly steeped this time. Like walking in an a field of magnolia trees. Juicy mouthfeel. My partner is detecting some earthy notes. I smell the leaves now and they’re also super floral with a savory, umami note that I associate with oolongs.
• 7s steep (x3): three more steeps in a row keep delivering beautiful bouquet of flowers and juicy mouthfeel.
• 15s steep: starting to lighten up now, still very pleasant though.
• 30s steep: even lighter florals.
• 60s steep: perfumey, light, pleasant.
• 5min steep: perfumey, light, and pleasant. probably gonna finish up here.

Overall a beautiful tea, mostly just displaying really strong magnolia aromas with a juicy mouthfeel. The flavor and the juiciness linger for a long time after finishing a cup. The W2T description of this tea talks about it being tricky to brew, and it is indeed pretty tricky even though I dropped to their recommended 4g of leaf. After dropping the temp to 90C and keeping the steeps real short at 7s, that seemed to be this tea’s happy place once the leaves opened up after the first steep or two.

I ordered a bunch of W2T samples and have been going through them trying to figure out which cakes we wanna buy. Today we tried the Charing Cross. This is a roasted white tea.

Started with a 20s rinse and waited a few minutes for the ball to open up since it’s quite dense.

10s steep - fig jam aromas, just as promised

15s steep - more fig jam, slightly stronger

25s steep - rich roasted fruits, gonna dial it back a bit

15s steep - figgy, fruity, floral

15s steep - more of the same. Smelling the wet leaves now and I can sniff these all day; getting strong tropical fruit punch and floral notes.

30s steep - getting more floral perfumey notes now

60s steep - violets, cedar

120s steep - violets, blueberry, cedar

Overall a very tasty tea. It feels like it has similarities to white teas, oolongs, and black teas all at once. We’ll probably order a brick of this one. We’re finding we like white teas and the hybrid white teas (W2T Blood Moon was also one of our favorites so far).

This was an interesting one. I may be able to brew it better in the future.

Brewing Parameters:

5.7g in my 80ml gaiwan 205°F/96°C

Tasting Notes:

Dry smell: Somewhat weak, cardboard, wood, pepper

Wet smell (post rinse): woody, peppery, sweet, clove

Steeps:

0. Rinse (x2)
1. (Flash) sweet, weak, clove, wood.
2. (20s) Chocolate clove, rich smell.
3. (30s) Rich clove that touches on leather.
4. (35s) Chocolate, leather, clove, permanent marker?
5. (40s) woody permanent marker.
6. (1m 10s) woody permanent marker. Bright and punchy.
7. (2m 10s) balanced woody clove, very clovey

Ending lid smell: leather & clove

Tea high: Very smooth. I feel the impulsiveness in my body. My leg wants to tap, but my mind has very few jitters. Cozy.

Overall: A very fun mix up for me. Tasty and interesting. I love clove. Maybe if I brew it lighter next time it'll keep from entering permanent marker territory. Those permanent marker tones scare me a bit. I hope it is just some smells ending up too dense and overwhelming my nose, and not anything dangerous

Price comments: At $62/250g or $0.248/g this would be a slightly higher end daily drinker price for me. This gongfu cost about $1.40. However, realistically if I cake this tea, then it'll be a occasional treat. Maybe more because vibes than price.

There are a million reviews for this banger of a tea online, so I'm choosing to keep mine short here. $17.50 for a 200g cake is fantastic. The taste is fantastic. Pure wood. It's beloved for a reason. It's no super complex evolving tea, but it does wood right.

This is a daily drinker if I've ever seen one. It's good to have a lumber slut cake on hand.

This is one of the numerous minis I've received. I have been very excited to try this as it seemed pretty spot on for my palate, and slightly higher end than the super cheap stuff I tend to stick with. A 200g cake is listed as $47.

Brewing Parameters:

7g mini in my 125ml gaiwan. 205°F/96°C.

Tasting Notes:

Dry smell: Natural fertilizer. In a good way lol.

Wet smell (post rinse): Wood barn, hay, campfire.

Steeps:

0. Rinse
1. (Flash) Menthol & barn with pine trees around. Creamy mouth feel.
2. (Flash) Woody, hay, fertilizer, pine in the background. Dark cholocate richness.
3. (10s) Super woody and musky. Very rich.
4. (15s) Bright leather, barn, and smoke. Very rich.
5. (20s) Roasted leather belt. The aroma has a lot of staying power. Many breahts after my sip still smell of this tea.
6. (30s) Leather belt continues. Richness is gone.
7. (45s) Leather belt continues.

Ending lid smell: Perfectly balanced leather.

Tea High: Decently balanced. Solid energy, but also very little jitteryness. Good smoothness.

Overall: I really enjoyed the musk and pungentness of this tea. Awesome tea in my book. Though I imagine the barn yard tones might put some folks off of it.

Price comments: At $47/200g or $0.235/g I could definitely see myself caking this. I have a lot of samples still to try though. My usual gongfu is 6-9g so this would come to $1.41-$2.12 a session. Not bad, but we are just on the top edge of what I'd call a "negligible daily cost" for tea.

I forgot to take a picture of the brew. It was a nice dark liquor though. Near black in a lot of the brews.

This one was $25 for the cake. Almost twice as much as Prosbloom, but I'd wager it is more than twice as good on my palate.

I drank this tea with a good friend. I'll mark my notes with a P, and hers with an S.

Brewing Parameters: 9g / 125ml gaiwan. 205°F / 96°C

Tasting Notes:

Dry Smell: [P] Wood that is too wet to use in my campfire. [S] Bright tree stump.

Wet Smell (post rinse): [P] Leather, baked goods, woody, goji berry. [S] Baked goods, leather, unripe berry.

• Rinse
• Steep 1 (flash): [P] Weak. Baked goods on a river boat. [S] Dark color for a flash brew. Not much smell. Tastes mildly of leather.
• Steep 2 (flash): [P] Caramel, wood, and a hint of leather. [S] Weak wood smell. Tastes of tobacco and ash, mild notes of wet wood.
• Steep 3 (12s): [P] Old library. Musty in a good way. [S] Smell of cardamom. Tastes of decaying wood and cardamom. Lightly peppery.
• Steep 4 (15s): [P] Campfire and that nice smell of a person you like. Peppery. Dark chocolate richness. [S] Smell - fresh leather books. Taste - Deep leather, smoke. Campfire and a leather bound book.
• Steep 5 (20s): [P] Finally, full leather. Peppery background. God I love leather. [S] Campfire by the lake on a humid summer night. Enough said.
• Steep 6 (30s): [P] Bright peppery leather with a hint of sweetness. [S] Thick soup (visual). Dark as hell. Forefront of leather & cardamom with a smokey ashy background. Peppery.

Stopped due to feeling very caffeinated. This tea easily could've done more brews. I wish I could've drank more.

Ending lid smell: [P] Delicious bright leather. [S] Goji berry, hint of leather.

Tea High: [P] On the energetic side with the smallest hint of smoothness. [S] This caffeine has me tweaking. Anxious energy. Good for work, not so good for a lazy morning.

Overall: [P] Awesome tea. Lots of flavors I adore and I enjoyed how the tea changed throughout the gongfu session. The steeps kept getting tastier and wish I had a higher caffine tolerance so I could drink more.

Price comments: At $25/200g or $0.125/g this is a great daily drinker. This gonfu session cost $1.13 since I used 9g.

I have a lot of tea samples in the mail. I hope y'all like reviews and tasting notes!

I blind caked 2023 Prosbloom from white2tea because of how cheap it is. I have samples in the mail that cost more than this cake. $15 is amazing. However, this tea is not a stunner.

Brewing Parameters:

7g in my 125ml gaiwan 205°F/96°C water temp.

Tasting Notes:

Dry Smell: Light refreshing aquarium.

Wet Smell (post rinse): menthol mulch

• Rinse

• Steep 1 (flash): smooth & dull with a slightly minty mouth feel.

• Steep 2 (flash): still very smooth, vanilla with a mossy overgrown pond life tone.

• Steep 3 (20s): I did a long steep here to try and push the tea because of how smooth it had been. Smooth vanilla and pond life dominate with a hint of leather and dark chocolate richness.

• Steep 4 (30s): Old library that has a fish tank.

• Steep 5 (50s): Wood pencil and school textbook.

• Steep 6 (1m 30s): peppery school textbook with a hint of sweetness and dark chocolate richness.

I stopped because it is late and I started to feel quite caffeinated. This tea could've gone a few more brews.

Ending lid smell: vanilla cherry puerh

Taste review: Duller than I want. I like menthol, leather, wood, and bold flavors. This was a smooth inoffensive vanilla with supporting flavors.

Tea High: This felt on the energetic side. It has a bit of that smoothness and calmness, but, like the rest of the tea, the parts that I really enjoy seem to be background characters.

Solid for $15.

I'm curious to grandpa brew this tea.

It looks like the time is close to harvesting my hibiscus. Anyone have tips? Do you dry yours or use it fresh? I currently only have two blooms open, with 4 more buds.

This is really smooth.

I started to use an automatic coffee maker a friend left at my house to brew my Bengal spice (chai with roasted chicory instead of black tea). I put my tea bags in the glass pot.

I began setting it so it sat for an hour. Then for my birthday my son got me a new coffee machine that keeps the pot hot for 4 hours, now I steep my tea for about 2 hours.

Description: Meme of wide-eyed innocent Spongebob on left with caption "coffee stains" juxtaposed again muscular and angry Spongebob on the right with the caption "TEA STAINS".

Sorry if memes aren't welcome here. Just have been experiencing this since my partner drinks morning coffee as opposed to my morning tea, but her vessels can basically just be rinsed out. Whereas removing tea stains actually takes some elbow grease.

I'm on an orange pekoe or yorkshire (bagged), followed by ginger-turmeric green tease (loose) kick at the moment.

I'm a southern man born and raised, and I run on sweet tea. Lately I've been experimenting with lowering the amount of sugar (or splenda) I make it with. What I've found is that I like the reduced sweetness, but tea bags are so low quality and bitter that I need the sugar to cover it up. Cold brewing and adding a pinch of baking soda help a lot, but I still want more. I think a higher quality tea is going to get me the flavor I'm looking for. So, any suggestions on any part of the process are welcome! What teas to try, brewing methods, etc. Less caffeine is better, I have a lot of heart failure in my family history so I try to minimize caffeine intake.

Had a wonderful gongfu session in a nature preserve this morning. The tea was a sample of W2T Lumberslut, which made it feel like there was a wood stove burning out there. I lost count of the number of infusions I did but it was about an hour and a half long sessio

I enjoyed the Jasmine tea and the white tea, which tasted like incense smells. The green tea tasted like spinach and the oolong didnt taste like much. The fermented tea tasted like cut grass. The Cardamom Ceylon black tea didnt have a strong flavor at first but with sweetener, the cardamom really pops. I had hoped that I would like tea unsweetened so that I would have a healthy beverage but it is either no strong enough, bitter, or tastes like plant. To be fair, only the cheap store brand tea has been bitter. Any suggestions for teas to try that are more on the fruity, nutty, floral, or spice side?

I found both the sencha and the corn tea at the same Asian International Market. I doubt it is the highest quality but it is the first japanese green tea I have tried.

I never milk

Chili teas are mine. Just angry hot water that hurts

We used a sencha flavoured with banana, mango, melon, etc: https://tea.gr/eshop/caribbean-cocktail/

We left about two tablespoons of tea in 300ml of room temperature water for maybe an hour, then bought a bottle of cold water, emptied 300ml from it, and put the concentrate in. Very tasty and refreshing.

Our plastic jug is old and has a lot of salt stains unfortunately, sorry for this.

Normally it takes two gaiwan-fuls to fill my mug. This time I brewed it both times with a bit less water, then cooled it down a bit by using another mug (pour it from one mug into the other, rinse the now empty mug with tap water, repeat), and at the end I topped it up with ice cubes.

Using this oolong: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/imperial-jin-guan-yin-aaa-grade-anxi-oolong-tea

As is the case for every cold tea, it tends to conceal a bit its more delicate flavours. However, this tea's aftertaste is thick and sweet with some milky flavours, so this is retained very well in the end result. The astringency is a bit more pronounced in the cold version, but it essentially goes from non-existent to very mild, so that's not a problem.

Unfortunately I have to use a Mighty Mug when drinking next to the computer, in order to prevent spilling (I've had to change a laptop keyboard because of this), so you can't see the colour of the tea.

I tried uploading pictures, but the server is giving out errors, so you can view them here: https://toot.cat/@vivia/110666587179203337

As there's no other post yet, let's start here with today's tea. Already the 14th brewing so it's a bit light, but still has a nice, full taste.