Hoálatha Send Message

I kind of don’t feel like writing lately, but I need to keep these notes up so I can remember each of these teas.

The dry leaf smells a little dank, meaty, and spicy, like a typical shou. That wet wood smell is pretty dominant.

The brew is mineral and wood, sometimes with wet leaves and bark, as well as some tangy leather. It’s a pretty smooth shou when it’s cooler, but when it’s hot, there is an astringency that dries out the fillings in my teeth. I didn’t care for that part!

I’ve been loving the lack of tea bags and CTC lately!

I had a little trouble with this tea. No matter how many steeps I did, I couldn’t stand the flavor of it fully hot. It tasted off, like burned rubber or chemicals. I know this wasn’t my equipment, as I’m using nothing new, and the flavor disappeared after the tea cooled.

As the brew cools, the tea is a lovely chocolate and cinnamon flavor, with something fungal beneath like mushrooms. It reminds me of puerh in a way, except for the chocolate cinnamon part. There’s a tiny amount of bitterness and astringency to remind me that it’s still a black tea, but there’s no sweetness. That’s a little odd considering the other flavors.

A lovely Chinese black with the typical malt and sweet potato flavor. There’s also a hint of chocolate and molasses.

One of my favorite parts about this tea is the earthy flavor, which makes the brew taste more like a dirty sweet potato. While that may sound disgusting, I rather enjoyed it.

Unlike the other Chinese blacks I have tried, there was some bitterness and drying in the back of the throat, which made me have to knock a few points off my score.

I am told this is the same as the 1998 White Tuo from W2T, but since I bought this sample from BTT, I thought it only fair that I review this here.

Whew! Talk about earthy! Brewed this gongfu style from 212 all the way down to 160 and back up. The strongest flavor is earthy and tastes very much like green peanuts. Green peanuts are a southern delicacy that barely taste anything like regular peanuts, so don’t go thinking I am calling this a nutty tea! That being said, since green peanuts are often moldy, I wonder how much of this tea’s flavor comes from mold, ha.

As the temperature of the water lowers, the peanut flavor reduces down to really, really old books.

As I keep stating, it was intellectually stimulating, but not a flavor I would seek out. In addition, this tea also gave me that shaky, over caffeinated feeling. I wasn’t a huge fan of that.

Last of the Mate Sunday, and I wasn’t a fan of this one.

Dominant flavors were chocolate, nuts, and some kind of fruity flavor mixed together in a way that was overwhelmingly artificial. There was also something a little alcohol-tasting about the brew.

I just couldn’t drink it. Had to dump it out.

Not sure why they call this java mate. There’s no coffee flavor at all to it. As a matter of fact, it’s closer to tasting like cookies than coffee.

But it’s still good. Kind of sweet, woody, and hazelnutty all at once.

Be careful, or you’re going to make me a fan of mate.

Although I am not a huge fan of mate, I have to say that I enjoyed this one. It was roasty, not at all bitter or astringent, and had a sweet nutty flavor to it.

I was really hoping to find out what thistle tasted like, but it looks like I am going to have to wait a while longer. This tastes like a straight up black tea to me. If I hadn’t know which tea I was drinking, it just as easily could have been Scottish Breakfast.

The base is Indian, and rather mild. The malt and astringency are toned down to the point of this almost tasting like a darjeeling, but with a bit more power behind it. Overall, it’s not bad for a bag, but really nothing special.

I have to admit that I was afraid to try this tea after a mini session with LP. Putting 5 or so needles in a cup full of water yielded a pretty strong rum taste. What on earth was a full session going to taste like??

The dry leaves smell very strongly of rum, but there’s also a fungal, earthy sort of aroma beneath it. That aroma comes through in the scent of the brew and the flavor of the liquid.

Rum, of course, is the strongest flavor. This is particularly great for me because I like some aspects of certain alcohols, but hate that burn that comes with it. This tea allowed me to experience some of that great rummy flavor without the burn. This rum flavor lasted through several steeps.

The base is also nice. As with the dry leaves, the brew is a little fungal, but it is also sweet and woody. It’s rather clean and refreshing for a shou. Later steeps reveal the brew to be more like a dark brown bread, which pairs well with the subdued rum flavor.

This was my favorite of the LP blends so far. Great job!!

I should have had this and the Heather tea side by side, because I am not detecting much difference between the two. It’s less bitter, and that’s about all I can say for it. It’s good enough to keep around for those days when I have an aneurysm and don’t want to bother with loose leaf, even if I can’t imagine such a scenario ever occurring.

The whiskey flavoring is almost non-existent. I can smell it a bit in the sweetness of the brew, and maybe the aftertaste, but that is all.

Sorry, LP, for inflicting these on you!