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Sipdown no. 2 of March 2019 (no. 37 of 2019 total, no. 525 grand total). A sample.

This was among the lowest rated samples not yet sipped down, so when I was looking for my next sipdown candidate, I went for this and made a big pot Western style.

A very nice dark oolong that leaves a silkiness in the mouth. Nothing else to add to the original note.

Another pu erh sample, leaving 13 left to try and write an initial note about.

The leaves smell richly woody dry. I am pretty sure I massively overleafed and next time I’ll cut back a little.

But the effect of the massive overleaf was a very, rich, round, fudgy flavor with a sort of maltiness that I also experienced in the Life in Teacup shu sample I liked so much.

I rinsed at boiling and let the leaves sit for 15 minutes before steeping in the gaiwan at 5/5/7/7/10/10/20/30/40/60

The color ranged from a cloudy butterscotch to a clear amber, and the flavor. Except for a bitterness around steep 4, the flavor was pretty consistent.

I’m a big fan of Life in Teacup’s teas. This is the first of their shengs I’ve tried and I am excited to try the other samples I have.

I am now working through my pu erh samples. With this one, I have 14 left to taste and write notes about.

I rinsed this at boiling and then let it sit for a bit longer than 15 minutes.

Steeped in the gaiwan at 5/5/7/7/10/10/20/30/40/60.

I also leafed via eyeballing and not measurement. I filled the gaiwan almost to the halfway mark.

I agree with others who noted the astringency of this tea. It is quite drying in the mouth.

The dry leaf smells sweetly arboreal with a slightly sharp note, and another that is slightly smoky. The tea itself doesn’t have the sweet or sharp notes in the aroma or flavor. It has some of the white chocolate and butter notes, but it has more honey notes than those and something slightly fruity.

It’s not as rich tasting as some others I’ve had recently, but still enjoyable.

Sipdown no. 1 of March 2019 (no. 36 of 2019 total, no. 524 grand total). A sample.

I am in a difficult position with black teas. I don’t currently have any that I’ve rated any lower than 79, which is a very solid rating.

So I’m into the great tea sipdown territory, and that is both good and bad. Good, for obvious reasons. Bad because some of the teas I’ll be sipping down, like this one, are really lovely and no longer available.

This is one of those. It tastes the same as it did when I broke open the packet a year ago — so I don’t have anything to add to my initial note. Other than that it is another reason I’m sorry ATR is no longer around.

At some point I’ll have to sip down the rest of my Brioche sample, and then I’ll REALLY be sad.

Sipdown no. 17 of February 2019 (no. 35 of 2019 total, no. 523 grand total).

There was exactly enough of this left in the tin to make a pitcher of cold brew.

It’s a better cold tea than hot, but still not anything to write home about.

Sipdown no. 16 of February 2019 (no. 34 of 2019 total, no. 522 grand total).

It was good while it lasted and made a nice take it to work tea. One of the better Sri Lankan oolongs I’ve had. Though I find I’m generally more partial to oolongs from China.

I wrote the original note not long ago and can’t improve upon it.

Sipdown no. 15 of February 2019 (no. 33 of 2019 total, no. 521 grand total).

The last three of these went into a cold brew pitcher with the last four of the Chicago Tea Garden Sticky Rice Tuo Cha and a spoon of the Golden Moon Pu erh. I was hoping that the shu would cut the nasty pungent note in the cold brew of the sheng.

And it did! This pitcher is more than tolerable. It’s even quite decent, and a nice send off for one of the lower rated shus currently in my cupboard.

Sipdown no. 14 of February 2019 (no. 32 of 2019 total, no. 520 grand total). A sample teabag.

If I was going to drink flavored pu erh, I think this would be a top contender. I didn’t order it with my last Lupicia order, though, and I don’t really need more tea anyway.

But Lupicia’s flavoring magic extends to pu erh in a very wonderful way.

Some of the Numi bagged pu erhs were also enjoyable, but I like this better. There’s nothing at all fishy about the pu erh in the bag — or at least if there is, it doesn’t come out in the smell or taste because mostly what I smell and taste is chocolate dipped strawberries. Maybe just the slightest earthiness to give it some substance, maybe just the tiniest tobacco-like note.

But mostly chocolate dipped strawberries. Which is a good thing.

It’s done, it’s done! I have tasted and written a note about all of the teas in my Steepster cupboard! Huzzah!

And I’m still on track to make my sipdown stretch goal for February. Now, of course, I do have about 16 pu erh samples left to taste and maybe one or two random others. But when I started this taste-everything-in-the-cupboard adventure, it seemed incredibly daunting. And now it’s done.

And this tea is an interesting note to end on. I didn’t have it listed in the cupboard until last weekend when I discovered I hadn’t put it in there. And there is precious little information available about it online.

I had thought it was a sheng because of the “greencake” reference, but then when I opened up the cake, I found a Menghai Tea Factory description of Yunnan Chitsu Pingcha inside. When I Googled that, I was pretty sure it was a shu.

The cake itself didn’t give away much when I sniffed it. It was sort of that chocolate tree thing, but not clearly so — and it could have been earthy mushroom just as easily. If I was more of a sophisticate with pu ehr, I probably would have gotten clued in through the leaves, which were big and broad and flaked off the cake easily.

But after rinsing at boiling and letting the leaves rest 15 minutes, I went ahead and did the first steep as a shu, at 10 seconds.

It was then pretty easy to figure out this was a sheng. Lighter colored liquor than the espresso color of shu, rather an orange-gold (apricot? amber?) color, and a definite rich, buttery, caramel-espresso note in the aroma.

The first steep was pretty intense because it was 10 seconds rather than 5. Thereafter, I backtracked, and did 5/5/7/7/10/20/30/40/60 in the gaiwan.

And now I believe I am experiencing what it is like to be a little tea-drunk. Tipsy, really. I’m a little light headed after 20 steeps of sheng between this and the last. A weird, but pleasant feeling.

This is a tasty tea — actually I find it very similar to the last one I had today in terms of flavor, but without the fruity note. It is also less astringent, and has a really nice sweet aftertaste, which is what the note inside the wrapping said it would have.

I think I’ve become a pu erh convert, though honestly, I think I am far less likely to be forgiving of a pu erh I don’t like than any other sort of tea. The ones I’ve enjoyed are really enjoyable. The ones I haven’t are…. well, among the worst tea experiences I have had.

The cake smells like chocolate trees. It flakes apart easily.

I rinsed with boiling water and let it sit for 15 minutes before tasting.

Gaiwan, boiling, 5/5/7/7/10/10/20/30/40/60

I leafed this quite a bit more than usual because I’ve discovered I generally like more leaf in pu erh. That made for interesting colors. The first couple of steeps were a sort of dirty gold, then became more orange-gold.

The flavor is richer than some other pu erhs I have had recently, and the tea is also a bit astringent. It has an interesting array of flavors ranging from the white chocolatey note to a smoky one, to a caramel-espresso one. There’s even something fruity about it, though I can’t categorize it — it’s not berry, melon, or stone fruit — more of a generic suggestion of fruit.

I’m quite taken with this one. Even though its flavor profile isn’t terribly different from other shengs, there’s something qualitatively “more” about it that makes it special to my taste buds.