John Grebe Send Message

Like the other reviews I doubt that this tea deserves its premium name. It is better than most of the black teas out there but it falls way short of the really premium ones that I have encountered. Still worth drinking what I have but this is not a tea that I would use to show off a really good black tea to somebody.

A lighter fermentation ripe puerh with a clean smooth taste. While I have had better this is a good cheap everyday tea that would be ideal for a beginner to puerh.

Fujiam Rain is one of the best Shui Xian Wuyi oolongs that I have had the pleasure of drinking. If one is poetic in their tasting notes fujian rain would be the perfect description of how it tastes assuming that rain would have a light and sweet taste to it. Just be careful about getting this tea too strong as it quickly goes downhill but brewed right it is a very nice light and sweet wuyi oolong with amazing reinfusability. When gaiwan brewed I have literally brewed easily 10 cups or more from a single set of leaves.

I gaiwan brewed this tea like I normally do with greens. To me this is a somewhat light and sweet green tea with some depth that is not grassy but unlike the description I would not call it smoky, maybe slightly smoky but light enough that one can miss it. While it was compared to Gunpowder in the description quite honestly I think it is more like a Pi Lo Chun type green tea.

After enjoying the Nor Sun puerh a lot a friend recommended that I try Adagio’s Pu Erh Dante thinking I would like it which is coming full circle for me as Dante was the first puerh that I had years ago. Brewing it I can tell that this one is more like a traditionally stored puerh, although it falls a bit short of the Nor Sun in my opinion. It has deep earthy taste to it but it lacks the bit of mellow sweetness edge to it that comes along with a good earthy puerh in the earlier infusions. Although to its credit it does pick up some sweetness or at least the earthiness fades enough to balance it out by the 3rd infusion.

In many ways it is a shame that Menghai Golden Needle White Lotus ripe puerh has been hyped up so much online. It is a very good ripe puerh but not the best that I have encountered although to its credit it is better than most. I think the best thing about this puerh is its overall balance and lack of rough edges and an enjoyable but complex taste that can be hard to nail down into words although I’d say more of soft wood and not dirt. It has a medium level fermentation which has more body than many of the lighter ones but stops short of the strong malty taste that some of the heavier fermentation brings. Also as others have mentioned before this tea has really good staying power for a ripe puerh but as always the number of infusions you can get from the leaves depends upon how strong you like your tea but you will get more than normal for this one.

From how Darjeeling teabags go this one is actually pretty good compared to most even though it is not that good of a tea overall. I was given this box of teabags as a gift and I will be passing it on to somebody else who will hopefully enjoy it a lot more than I did.

This is the first cake of aged sheng that I picked up for myself after long since being afraid of aged sheng out of fear that it would lead me to enjoy shu less. Although as it turns out aged sheng is different enough that it is nothing to worry about. My initial impression is that wet storage aged sheng reminds me more about Liu An tea than puerh, in how it has a lighter and slightly earthy taste to it. The other great thing about this tea is its insane level of reinfusability in that one can literally drink it all day and the tea leaves will out last the heavy tea drinker.

To me the 2002 Keyixing Ripen puerh cake is a fine example of the silky ripe puerh. A light mellow taste with rich smoothness that lasts for multiple infusions.

This is an example of a rare gem of puerh as Chinese grocery store style tins of tea are very rarely that high quality. This is a traditional stored ripe puerh that also has some green puerh mixed in with it. While it has an earthy/traditional stored taste to it, unlike other cheap and low quality puerhs I would call this a good earthy puerh with a sweet taste that is not musty. Quite honestly this one is good enough that if I could buy it in person at a local store I might not actually bother ordering that much puerh online as this is a really good one.