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What a nice puerh it is. The aroma is probably the best I experienced with raw puerhs: no sourness, no dunkiness…. just a very powerful floral and fruity blend that is hard to describe but very easy to enjoy and appreciate. The same could be said for the taste – it is strong and immensely pleasant. Apricot, apple, cherry, mineral, flowers, orange zest. The tea’s emotional profile is of energy and cheerfulness.

This tea is forgiving with longer steepings and in general presents markedly different (but equally enjoyable!) profiles steeped short and medium. It invites you to experiment a little bit. A very nice lingering bitter and astringent aftertaste with floral and cherry notes is present. The only downside is that this enjoyable taste lasts only for the first 3-5 gaiwan steeps and after that quickly degenerate in the all-too-familiar cheap sheng astringency.

I tried this tea first time a year ago and while I liked it back then it since improved quite noticeably. I will have to go back and bump my previous rating up since this Smooch certainly deserved.

This is a very light sheng full of floral, apricot and vanilla sweetness – when brewed short. It does not distract you from what you are doing and happily lives in a background – which is rare with puerhs. Longest steepings are less interesting with floral notes turning into a typical young puerh astringency

The taste is not complex and I personally not looking for light cheerful sweetness in puerhs – my go-to teas for that type of flavor/mood are greens- thus good-but-not-great score. This tea was by no means unpleasant but I will not be getting it again.

I am really new to Hei Cha. It is a very distinct kind of tea so I refrained from writing a review until I had it several times. And I think it was the right decision for it certainly have grown on me.

Being a fermented tea it does not impress you in the dry leaf stage: dry dull leaves with equally dull fragrance of old leaves and dirt. The taste of the first steeping (and you can get many of them out of it, similar to puerhs) did shock me with the vibrant spice, dry fallen leaves and – foremost – bay leaves). The hei cha flavor constellation is certainly unique and I needed some time to get used to it and be able to observe the subtle changes over the course of steepings.

The spice/bay leave intensity gradually subsided with bitter herbs coming to the fore. And in the late steepings this tea changed into leather, thyme, mint, wild strawberries, baked apple, and cinnamon. In short, this tea produces busy, captivating sessions.

I am still not fully comfortable with this palette and will certainly need several more tries to become familiar . And I will certainly order a couple of other hei chas to compare them side by side. It is such a unique kind of tea and I am honestly surprised why there are many loyal (some would even say, fanatical) puerh aficionados but no" hei cha heads".

All in all, I had a mighty good time. The only caveat is that my high rating may reflect rather my excitement upon discovering hei cha in general rather than the strength of this particular tea compared to the others of the same type.

This tea is absolutely gorgeous in its dry leaf appearance but decidedly less impressive as a drink.

First, the good things: if someone wants to enjoy all of the visual richness of different colors, shapes and textures that green tea can offer this tea would be an excellent choice. The other good thing is that this Mao Feng, unlike many other greens, is way less happy to smite you with vengeful bitterness for any deviation from the rigidly prescribed water temperature or steeping time. In short, it lets you to experiment.

Now about the taste. I have to wholeheartedly agree with eastkyteaguy’s review of the 2017 harvest: “This was one of those teas that seemed a lot simpler than it was. Had I not taken the time to carefully and patiently ponder each sniff and sip, I undoubtedly would have gotten a lot less out of it. I found that this tea required focus and dedication in order to fully appreciate it.” Unfortunately I tend to drink tea mostly for pleasure and when I pour myself a cup I really DO NOT mentally go “Bluegreen, now you need to muster all of your patience, focus and dedication!”

And to a casual sipper like me this tea tastes very light, full with grass, wild flowers, asparagus and a bit of umami. If you steep it hotter/longer it acquires a bit of equally pleasant vegetal bitterness. In short – a pleasant light tea that does not overtly impress you or shows a lot of personality. When you focus on every sip it does reveal a lot more but I strongly prefer teas that are way less guarded, those that want to be your friends from the very first sip.

So I and my friend are tried this tea for the first time. After the first couple of steeps she asked me what is the name of this puerh. I told her that it was Cream and that it is supposed to be creamy. We looked at each other perplexed because it was anything but: this tea had a pronounced mineral, metallic and tangy taste. Not a bad taste but no hint of creaminess present.

After the third steep my friend started claiming that she felt a hint of creaminess but I was certain that she was imagining things. But the fourth and all the subsequent steeps – OMG, so smooth and so creamy with a looong creamy aftertaste! A bit of earth too.

All in all, I liked it, especially since I like creaminess and I did not have any other tea that creamy. And it is fun to observe the change from the metallic tanginess to the all-encompassing creamy goodness.

White2Tea has a wide selection of single brew-size individually packaged puehrs that
excel as inexpensive daily drinkers on a go. Ripe Flap Jacks is a nice recent addition to that group: cute 8-g little pancakes easily separating in a cup.

The taste is very mild and sweet, with earthy and rotten wood notes present but quite muted. No fishiness, no funkiness. This tea lends itself best to short (~10 seconds) gaiwan infusions and produces a lot of them without a noticeable decrease in flavor. The taste is not complicated at all but is consistently pleasant and cheerful. A very good daily drinker indeed.

I had this tea again at work hoping that it would inspire me for a short mad dash to complete a report before the deadline. No such luck. It has all oh the dianhong notes and looks but misses something that would make it special in any way. Also, you have to make very short infusions since it EASILY becomes to concentrated.

The end result is some pleasant sweetness combined with equally pleasant bitterness. It’s just I prefer teas with a defined character. And oh, it is NOT a tea to increase work productivity. Will go and lower my original rating of 88 to something more mundane.

My first experience with snow chrysanthemum and a very positive one.

This purple tea comes as a nice little black cake with orange and yellow snow chrysanthemum pieces all over – festive! The dry leave smells strongly of apricot, smoke, fallen leaves and spice. The flavor is fairly complex: I could pick up apricot, peach, prunes, spice, carrot, smokiness, dill, mineral… The aftertaste is very long, spicy and apricoty.

Ying Shan Hong reminds me very much of the fall season with bright orange colors, bold taste, splendid decay and wisps of smoke in the cool air. This tea effortlessly won me over and got me intrigued with the potential of snow chrysanthemum in other teas.

It never ceases to surprise me how many excellent variations of the basic tippy dianhong tea exist. This is one of them. This tea has a strong base of sweet potatoes and baked bread but on top of that has many sweet fruity and vegetable notes: peach, melon, floral, asparagus, spinach, broccoli. The taste is complex and enjoyable and remains enjoyable in the subsequent Western-style steepings (it did lose a lot of nuances, though) with hazelnuts coming forward strong.

This tea is very sensitive to water: to appreciate all of the nuances one needs to use sweet spring water. The overarching tea character is not one of the relaxation and lazy savoring – it is a very energetic, uplifting tea that is well suited to be one of the midday drinks at work. In that respect, this tea is not that dissimilar to more refined Keemuns. My only complaint is the regrettable lack of a lingering aftertaste , which Keemuns, for example, have in spades.

Nevertheless, this is tea is very good and worthy of a reorder. I will look if they have an imperial grade for this tea though since this tea would have a potential to be awesome.