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A wonderful clean and smooth puerh with a bit of maltiness. I would say this one has a medium fermentation level that is darker than most ripe puerh in the growing trend of lighter fermentation levels. Just watch out and pay attention to your time and tea to water ratio as this is a ripe puerh that can be overbrewed with less than ideal results if you do not take care.

A very smooth and slightly silky ripe puerh without any trace of undesirable off tastes or earthiness. Although once again the idea of a mini-cake that can easily be broken up into mini-bricks for brewing has less than desired results as the mini bricks are still too big to brew whole without breaking up first and the paper inner ticket is a pain to deal with when the brick is scored into mini blocks.

While I never tried Sleepytime and Sleepytime Extra side-by-side the taste difference is minimal as it does not come off as any difference in the cup. But watch out as a single cup of Sleeptime Extra is much quicker acting than two cups of Sleeptime, so I would only recommend drinking this if you are ready to go to sleep very soon.

Ten Ren’s Special Pouchong pretty much tastes like a darker green tea to me. Gets a bit better reinfusions than most green teas and is easier to brew as a very green oolong. Although it is enjoyable to drink I do not think I will be reordering more when I finish what I have.

I am not sure about if adding vanilla to Sleepytime improves it or not. It is still good but the vanilla smooths over the overall flavor which makes the rest of the herbs harder to taste, although it also adds a bit of sweetness into the mix.

The tea is good but the packaging was not the best. At first glance a mini-brick that is scored to be easily broken down into 9 mini bricks for easy brewing sounds like a good idea. The problem was the inner ticket was a pain to get out but luckily was close to the surface that it wasn’t too bad. For the actual tea be sure to break up the mini brick a bit or at least into 3 thinner layers before brewing as it is too thick to break apart right on its own when brewing. The actual tea is good, especially for a generic factory that tries to copy off of Menghai. The brewed tea is clean with no earthy off tastes and has a lighter mellow brew. Overall this shu puerh is better than most but not good enough to be considered an upper end premium quality puerh.

This has to be one of the best dark Ti Kuan Yin teas that I’ve had yet. A good mellow roast taste with a very smooth texture to the brew with a sweet finish. While I was initially hesitant to order this one from the “nice tin” and low price of only $15 for 300g I am glad that I did as this is rightly one of their most popular TKY products based upon its quality alone with its value and fancy packaging that makes it suitable for gift giving a nice bonus.

This Tung Ting comes off to me as being wonderfully in the middle in how it is darker than any green oolong that I have had before but is still lighter than a dark oolong, with a darker golden yellow brew. When gaiwan brewed with short infusions the tea produces fairly consistent brews with a smooth sweet taste that has a pleasant lack of an overwhelmingly floral taste.

A very nice blend of chamomile, spearmint and lemon grass that I find enjoyable and this is coming from a person who is not that fond of flavored teas. Personally I think it is the spearmint that sets it apart or at least for me as I heavily lean toward sweeter spearmint over its stronger peppermint counterpart. The chamomile is a nice herb to help unwind with closer to bed time and the lemon grass and spearmint add some nice flavor and extra sweetness as a sugar-free alternative to honey.

This is a wonderful example of a dark higher postfermentation level ripe puerh which is becoming less common in the growing trend of lighter shu puerh. This one is very smooth with a light malty mellowness that makes it very enjoyable to drink.