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A very nice FF Darjeeling this one, although not all that much different from FF black teas to be honest. It is maybe a bit more grassy & sweet, and less floral & astringent than those.

The aroma is interesting but not too pungent. There are notes of spices (nutmeg and others), grass, eggs, and cookies in the dry leaf smell. On the other hand, wet leaves have a marine, sea shell like aroma.

The taste is refreshing and very well balanced (sour, sweet, savoury, floral above all else). In later steeps it also gets a bit more woody. Among the flavours are notes of cucumber, sweet pepper, apple, dry grass, but also many others. Aftertaste is a bit spicy with an underlying persistent sweetness.

Mouthfeel is smooth, bubbly and oily with a good thickness to it too. It can get a bit astringent too, but nothing overpowering. The spicy character makes it quite warming in the mouth too.

This is a strange tea. It is very green for a Dan Cong, in that regard it is somewhat reminiscent of YS’s Wu Dong Chou Shi. Otherwise, it is very different though – more vegetal as opposed to floral, light bodied and not too complex. I found the taste to be quite muted as well. There are notes of fermented fruits and a hint of dungeon (a bit like what you get from some, especially wet stored shou), which makes me think that maybe this tea only went through a partial kill green. I wonder what would happen if I stored it with my pu’er, lol. I may actually do it, I didn’t get all that much from any of the three sessions I’ve had with it.

As for other notes, the dry leaf aroma is mostly a mix of honey, cream or steamed milk, and stewed fruits. After the rinse, it is a more herbal and vegetal smell with notes of courgette and peach among others. As I alluded to, the taste is kind of unremarkable, but there is a nice cooling grassy finish to it. I also noticed a strong warming and defocusing cha qi every time I drunk this tea, which I didn’t like at all.

Pin is a very nice production from W2T for a reasonable price as well. In spite of being about 6 years old (on average), it seems to be aging quite fast and I would definitely place it in the semi-aged category. 

The aroma of the leaves is not too complex or pungent at this stage. Main notes are those of forest, some nuts and fermented apple (which also appears in the taste). However, as the description mentions as well, drinking the tea bring aboard a very heavy fragrance that also dominates a big chunk of the aftertaste. 

The taste profile is mineral, sweet, woody and coppery with notes of hops, cape gooseberry, alpine flowers and rock sugar. The aftertaste is warming with a strong spicy sweetness mixed in with a sort of quinine bitterness and mouthfeel. It is very interesting but also hard to describe in words. With teas like this, it pays off to take breaks and pay attention.

The dark orange liquor has a medium body and a foamy, buttery texture. Astringency is fairly strong, but not in an unpleasant way I’d say. I found the cha qi to be energizing and just slightly mind-numbing.

This is the most aged sheng I’ve had with what one could call dry (aka, Kunming) storage. As such, it is an important reference point for my own storage experiments. Of course, it is hard to come to strong conclusions given that I know little to nothing about how the tea was when young and how it progressed throughout the years, but one has to start somewhere. 

I have enjoyed my one session with this tea a great deal! It has a rounded profile, well-defined and pungent flavours and a thicker texture than any other aged sheng I’ve had. Moreover, the cha qi is super relaxing and strong, but not aggressive in any way – the tea didn’t knock me out, it just induced a very peaceful state of mind.

The flavour profile is a mix of forest (earth, pine needle, sweet wood), herbaceous (thyme flowers), fruit (apricot, citrus), and savoury (burnt butter) notes. Interestingly, the aftertaste is warming rather than cooling. It is also sweet and a bit acidic, with a honey note emerging at times but never dominating. The liquor has a full body and a smooth creamy mouthfeel that’s a little bit chalky and numbing. 

One of the first aged raw pu-erh teas I have thoroughly enjoyed and I will be looking to purchase a cake to savour over the years.

This aged sheng is good but it also doesn’t stand out too much. I wouldn’t buy a whole cake at this price I think. The whole experience can be summarized as comforting, maybe with the exception of the mouthfeel that’s a bit more abrasive and interesting.

The dry leaf aroma is cooling and woody with a decently strong tobacco note. After rinse, it is a very subtle earthy scent.

At 18 years old, this tea is entering adulthood, as indicated also by its dark orange liquor. It has a medium body and a very smooth, buttery, bubbly and quite numbing, astringent texture. It induces a light body-warming sensation, but overall the cha qi is relaxing and not very aggressive at all.

The taste is woody and sour with a sweet finish but feels a little muted. There are notes of grape seed, chrysanthemum, and orange peel. The aftertaste is sweet and spicy with a strong vanilla flavour. 

Qing Mei Shan is the only tea I have three different harvests of, so I may do a vertical comparison at some point. This note is just about the oldest of the three, one from 2014. At this stage in its development, I find the mouthfeel and cha qi to be the highlights. The flavour seem to suffer a little bit from it being in a sort of transition stage.

Dry leaves smell of honey, orange peel, animal fur and garlic, but neither of those particularly stands out. During the session, I get mostly herbaceous aromas with notes of moss and plant roots.

The first infusion is very mineral with a light and airy mouthfeel and yet a very thick texture. It is a bit sweet and nutty with light forest and mushrooms notes. Second steep is woody, more bitter, and has a slightly sour finish. It is followed by a sweet, floral and cooling aftertaste that lasts for a very long time. Some of flavours that emerge include cabbage, potato pancakes, kumquat, apple, kiwi, brown sugar, and sunflower seeds.

The profile is very well balanced and even though none of the flavours are too memorable at present, I have little doubt that the tea has a bright future ahead. This is especially apparent from the very pleasant and defocusing cha qi and a great mouthfeel.

Song pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAqof9xXa_k

This is a loosely Mao Feng style green tea (although it seems like a bit later picking), which is nevertheless quite unique. The dry leaf aroma especially is most unusual. Notes such as sawdust, tobacco, fish sauce, seaweed, dill, pulled pork, roasted pumpkin seeds, and courgette flowers all appear in the mix. Wet leaves throw in green bell pepper scent too, but the overall complexity is dialed down.

The taste is predominately vegetal, as well as savoury and bitter with a touch of earthiness. Flavours of sand, anchovies, clean smoke and cheese again show that this is not an average green tea. The more standard ones include spinach and cream. The aftertaste is mostly sweet and buttery. 

I also like the mouthfeel a fair bit – the liquor is oily and full bodied and definitely above average in that regard.

This is not a tea I would think of as being complex, but in fact over the course of multiple sessions it shows sufficient depth of character. It is just that you won’t be able to get it all at once. Overall, it is very easy to drink tea with a medium body and strong woodiness. The cha qi is mild and chest warming, while the mouthfeel is at first foamy and later on somewhat oily.

From the dry leaves, I get the sensation of smelling dry coffee beans and old wooden furniture. After the rinse, notes of magnolia, curry leaves, nectarine, honey, and multiple other woody and vegetal ones appear. The taste profile is not too different either. It starts off being very woody with a herbal, nettle-like impression. The latter lingers on to generate a cooling and quite vegetal aftertaste. Middle of the session gives a sweeter, thicker and earthier liquor with notes of blackberries, citrus and stone fruits. These flavours are then followed by rum, custard and charcoal towards the end.

It is certainly a nice tea that I see myself coming back to often. However, as it lacks any sort of ‘wow factor’ and doesn’t yield much more than 120ml/g, I cannot really rate it above 80, especially given that it isn’t cheap either.

Another year in this tea’s progression has passed and it is moving ever further away from its very rustic character that it had when I bought it. Instead, the profile is more forest-like, even though the mushroom note again hasn’t appeared.

The main difference from the tasting about a year ago is that the sweetness is now much stronger, both in the taste and the aftertaste. Furthermore, there is an interesting constrictive mouthfeel just after swallowing, hints of which were apparent before, it just got stronger. Liquor colour is now definitely in the reddish brown category, somewhere between barn red and dark amber I’d say.

I also noticed a hint of dried orange peel in the aroma, but it’s far from a dominant one.

[Spring 2020 harvest]

This green tea is really solid with no obvious drawbacks and may be my favourite tea from the Tea Joint samples I ordered. 

Already the dry leaf aroma is quite complex with a floral sweetness base and notes of nuts, corn, apple juice, flax seeds, and semolina flour. On the other hand, wet leaves smell quite different. I get notes like thistles, butter, brussel sprouts, garden peas, spinach there. 

The taste profile then follows the latter fairly closely. It is actually somewhat bitter for a green tea, which I definitely don’t mind. There is also a lot of umami and a sort of vegetal tartness. I could detect flavours of olives, sea holly, kale and pepper among other ones.

The mouthfeel is soft and numbing, but not overly thick or heavy.