Crimson Lotus Tea

I am a fan of this muddy, woodsy flavor profile. It is possible I prefer shou made from the larger, coarser leaves.

This is the first tea from Crimson Lotus I had a chance to try, so I was really looking forward to it. It is flavour and aroma focused tea. There is not much in the way of cha qi. Mouthfeel is interesting, but not the most enjoyable.

The dry leaf smell reminded me of sweet butter pastries, but there was also some vegetal aspect most reminiscent of nettle. After the rinse, the aroma became very complex and intriguing, like one would hope from a tea with such a name. It evoked a winter time in a conifer forest. I could also smell some smoke machine, edamame and thyme. The aroma in the empty cup could be best described as a sweet, dry meadow.

I will not go into all the details of the taste, which is fairly complex. I couldn’t, even if I wanted, because at the time of writing this note, I just don’t remember :) However, the evolution of the taste in each sip, especially in the early infusions, is roughly the following. It starts off herbaceous and bitter, gets sour and fruity in the finish and slowly gets sweeter and vegetal in the aftertaste. Overall, it is quite tart for a sheng. In the late steeps, it gets more vegetal generally. Flavours I noted include medicinal ones, alcohol, apricot and lemon skins.

The liquor has medium to light body initially, but around steeps 5-8, it gets considerably thicker. It has a tingling, coating and soft mouthfeel. There is some dryness in the aftertaste, but generally it’s quite smooth.

The taste of this tea (and also the mouthfeel a bit) reminds me of YS He Bian Zhai (a Mengku tea). That one is generally thicker and seems to pack more energy. Introgue on the other hand is probably more complex. Thanks so much for this sample derk, I enjoyed it a lot!

Decided to do more reviewing of this tea as it is quite likely to be the last cold rainy day I will see for five or six months and I don’t see myself drinking something this rich, thick, and dark very often till this autumn.

I put 3.5 grams in a 60ml gaiwan (though it actually measures closer to 50ml). I measure out 40ml of water with a graduated cylinder and boil each steep seperately using a 1/2liter electric kettle. It takes about 15 to 20 seconds to bring 40ml to a boil. I do my water this way almost always when brewing gong fu. I don’t understand why no one else does this and why they boil a big jug of water and let it cool off and boil it again etc. My water technique is very good for having a smooth and steady flow to a session and for upping or lowering the temp on the fly (I tend to start hong cha at crab eye and work my way up to full boil during the session). It’s also good for making sure the water doesn’t get overboiled and lose it’s structure.

After the first rinse I let the tea sit with gaiwan lid on for five minutes or however long it takes for the brick pieces to loosen up. Next I grab the tea and use a bamboo pick to fully break apart the all the leaves. One benefit of this is that the tea will leave a noticable smell on my fingertips which helps me get to know a tea very well. With this tea being so young it of course left some pile smell on my hands but not too funky. Pretty damn clean actually. Second rinse washes away any dust or cloudiness.

This tea gets going pretty strong right away. It’s a dark inky one for sure. Very rich, thick and creamy with a touch of dry aftertaste. The flavor on this tea is big. Big chocolate cherry sweet syrupy awesomness. If you are looking for camphor and chen xiang then find another tea cause you won’t find it here.

I get 5 to 7 dark steeps depending on how hard I push the tea plus several more woody slightly green steeps after.

Got this today. Was gonna wait to review till it rested a while and I had time to try some different brewing styles. The brick smelled so nice that I had to try it. Threw 4g in a 500ml thermos and let it brew while I did a few errands. Very thick sweet and clean. Very glad I bought a brick without sampling.

To be continued

The freshly opened package gave off a strong floral smell. There was a generous amount of bright green leaves mixed in with obviously aged ones. Course the art on the wrapper is fantastic. But is the tea fantastic?

Steep 1: After a rinse, I poured my first steep (which was under 10 seconds, Steepster won’t let me go lower then 15.). It gave me very strong notes of vegetable sweetness. Something like a beet. The liquid is surprisingly green.

Steep 2-4: A strong grass taste comes out in addition to the sweetness. Reminds me of freshly cut grass.

Steep 5 and beyond: The grass taste keeps getting stronger as the sweetness slowly disappears. I noticed hints of wood and other tastes of the forest came out. I steeped this all day long and it was still going strong.

Definitely recommend it. Probably will be buying a tong to age myself. It starting off with that young sweet green taste and shifting to forest flavors is brilliant. Just like its mix of young and old trees. If you want to buy it and drink right away its perfectly fine to do so. Its just that good

I grabbed a cake of this almost exactly a year ago. I’ve been letting it chill, but finally it felt like the time to break this bad boy out. The compression is tighter than I personally prefer to deal with and you’ll inevitably end up creating some tea dust. For this session I used a 160ml Yixing zini teapot that’s a fairly new acquisition, but one that I’ve been using a fair bit to try to break it in. Initially when I got it it cleaned up the taste to a ridiculous degree absorbing virtually all of the base notes. I ended up bumping up the normal ratio of 12g that I use for shu to 16g just to get the strength to match my Jianshui pot of the same size. I’ve been gradually able to bring the ratio back down to around 12g and I’m still trying to decide if I need to go even slightly below that on average, because many of the teas are still turning up quite potent even for my tastes. The tea the pot is brewing up is really good now and this was the first time I felt confident enough in using it for a review. The difference between Jianshui and Yixing zini is night and day, but I’m not going to get into my impressions on that here as I’m still discovering them myself.

For this session I ended up using 11.5g. I was considering going with 11g just in case this tea was potent, but ended up with a compromise between 11 and 12g. I did a single 10s rinse followed by a rest of five to ten minutes to allow the moisture to seep in and prime the leaves. I forwent my trusty Jianshui clay teacup this time around just because I felt like it and since I’ve found that with the zini pot I don’t find it an absolute necessity unlike when brewing in Jianshui. I did ten infusions, the timing for these being 12s, 10s, 10s, 12s, 15s, 18s, 30s, 45s, 75s and 2 min. respectively.

The first thing I noticed about Storm Breaker was its smoothness. This tea is very smooth. The body was light to medium to start with and the texture quite nice and unique. While there were some earthier notes present of course, the tea was fairly bright overall. I tasted a subtle sweetness that lay somewhere between a berry and a caramel sweetness. In the second infusion those darker notes became more prominent and there was now a touch of bitterness in the finish as well. The tea became increasingly more bittersweet once it cooled, ending up tasting like the darkest of the dark chocolates, just without the chocolate. The quality of this tea was already evident to me at this point.

The third brew presented a mix between the profiles of the first two by combining the berries from the first with the bitter notes from the second which were also now joined by new roasted notes. The result was kind of like a really gentle and refined coffee, one that as a non-coffee drinker I could imagine the fancier coffees possibly tasting like. This was nothing like the generic shus that are often reminiscent of diluted or cheap coffee, but seldom the good stuff. This was the best steep so far. This is a very elegant tea.

In the fourth infusion we were beginning to lose some of that nice texture. At the same time the background bitterness was quite high now. The tea was dominated by bitter, roasted and coffee notes. A touch of the berry sweetness peeked its head in the fifth brew, but this got overpowered by the bitterness. On the other hand I was noticing some mouth cooling now. At this point it was also becoming clear that this tea can take a toll on the body, especially if brewed strong, and I would recommend keeping some snacks on hand.

Steep six was sweeter, brighter, with less bitterness, but also somewhat weaker than the other infusions because I held back on the time afraid the tea might get too strong otherwise. Texture was good still, feeling very expansive in the mouth. At this point I found myself craving some more development from this tea.

I haven’t talked about the color of the liquor yet, but this tea brews up a dark red. Steep seven is when I was able to barely make out the bottom of my white porcelain cup. The flavor was bright, but still quite bitter. The tea was starting to get creamier, both in taste and texture. The soup was at its thickest now, impressively thick. I was actually finding it very hard to swallow as my commands weren’t getting through. The following infusion was thinner, but smooth still. There was quite an alcoholic tinge to the finish, or at least that’s how I’d describe it as a non-drinker. Overall the general presentation of this steep was quite wine-like, something I associate with certain Menghai area ripes I notice.

The second-to-last infusion was very nice. Sweet and sticky – very reminiscent of a plethora of shus out there, just a much better version of them. I’d likely describe the sweetness as approaching date-like. The tea was so sweet it almost hurt. Mouthfeel and texture remained supreme compared to most average shus. The tenth steep was the last one I did. In it we pretty much returned back to the beginning with the berries and generic sweetness, but this time with a slight alcoholic tinge to it all and thinner texture overall. Mouthfeel remained nice – smooth and lubricating – and there was a somewhat refreshing quality to the tea now. I could tell that we were at the tail end now, though, and I decided to call it there just to be safe and avoid ruining good memories with a bad experience.

I’m happy to report that Storm Breaker’s promises of being made from higher quality material than typically used for shu are very evident in the cup. The smooth mouthfeel is definitely one of the standout qualities and the flavors are very refined and clearly defined. While I found the tea to lack some development and be dominated by bitterness in the middle steeps, this eventually corrected itself and my slightly reserved opinion eventually turned into a positive one. This tea actually brews out a lot like a raw pu’er if you think about it, and looking at the leaves at the end of the session they are actually possibly the lightest I’ve seen in ripe, very similar to Yiwu Rooster but possibly even paler. I haven’t had a raw that’s been dry stored for a number of decades, but I could imagine one that still had bitterness left after all that time being somewhat reminiscent of this tea. While drinkable now with maybe a slightly lighter hand or if you like the bitterness, this is definitely a tea made for the long term, with great care from great material. This is genuinely one of those shus I can easily see people wanting to age for ten years and more – two decades is definitely no joke. I’m not saying you have to, I’m saying you can. That should say something about the tea.

Did I like this tea? I had a good session with it. What does that mean? I think the quality is high and I’m interested to see where this tea will go. There were infusions that I enjoyed very much, but for me the time to drink this tea is not now. This was a nice glimpse into the tea, but now I’m going to be tucking it away in my pumidor for a number of years, to be revisited sparingly to conserve this precious tea. Would I have purchased a cake if this were just a sample? I’m pretty sure I would have. Even among the ripes made from “better material,” this is one of the ones that stands out. I’d consider this a sheng drinker’s shu, as the quality and character of the original material is still being allowed to shine through.

If nothing more, Storm Breaker is definitely worth a sample. As alternative recommendations, this one reminded me in a way of Bitterleaf’s Plum Beauty ripe at least in terms of quality. Hai Lang Hao’s Yi Shan Mo ripe is also of course a personal favorite of mine. All occupy virtually the same price point, so they would make for a great comparison. At ten bucks cheaper than Crimson Lotus’s Black Gold, I prefer this tea over that one.

A really complex and tasty shou. More than I would normally pay for a shou, but if I was more into them overall, I could see myself going for a cake.

Aroma is woody, spicy, molasses. The flavor is definitely woody, but not the forest-floor sort of woodiness I get from a lot of shou. This one was cleaner, but definitely a bit “old” tasting if that makes sense. It brought to mind images of a well cared for antique chest and/or spiced wood. Texture is pleasantly thick, and there is zero funky pile taste or anything like that. Not musty or even particularly damp tasting.

A very rich amber brew with a heady earthen aroma and a surprisingly sweet and clean taste filled with a sharp mineral tang and foresty palette (wet earth/leaves, mulch, tree bark). The best way I can think to describe the taste of this tea is like having the ability to drink petrichor.

Highly recommend and need to get more!

This is my favorite of the 3 Crimson Lotus dragon balls I’ve tried so far. It has a good range in its profile. The rinsed leaf produced aromas of powdered sugar, peach, English peas and yeast. Started off savory, sweet and mineral with some bitterness in the back that lasts throughout the session. Smooth and brothy with a honeyed aftertaste. Then came an herbal addition (definite thyme) and at this point, I picked up watermelon/rind and faint basil on the lid. This was followed by buttery, fruity peach and yeasty notes, then florals and some astringency. Last steep of 7 minutes had a nice tartness. The pure sugar smell in the bottom of the cup and the strong returning sweetness that lasted the whole session were incredible. Honestly, this tea reminded me of a chardonnay in its buttery/yeasty character. The spent leaf was very chopped and tippy. Very high in caffeine, whew. The tastes make it something I want to buy more of but the caffeine would make it a rare indulgence for me.

This is my first review on Steepster so I’m not good with descriptions of lingering aftertastes and tea soups :). I really enjoyed this tea. Went through the first cake pretty fast and just ordered a second one. This is just my kind of tea. I don’t like shou’s and generally enjoy young shengs. I think the description on CLT’s website about creative energy is pretty accurate. I can drink this tea at home, at work, in the morning, at night, and it’s a great all-around tea. Overall it’s more fruity than savory, it does have some astringency but no bitterness (I brew with off-boiling water for about 10 seconds, increasing time gradually). Like many others, I was drawn to this tea by the wrapper :) but it has become my go-to everyday tea.

honestly, i just bought this tea, because the wrapper looked very appealing, and of course the description sounded amazing.

after already sessioned the tea today, i decided to do another session to get deeper into it and write a small review.

the description of CLT is pretty spot on. i feel like theres is some fruitiness of darker berries and spice (curcuma?) on the wet leaf present too.

the tea soup has a nice golden liquor and feels pretty thick. there is a tiny bitterness that immediately transforms into a honey-floral-like sweetness. Jasmine is definitely noticeable. nice hui gan.

the blend of multiple years gives the tea a wonderful balance. by looking at the infused leaves, its pretty hard to determine the age an proportions. but even the oldest material wont be over ~5 years i guess.

decent tea. definetly worth a try and surely interesting to let age that thing!

edit: bought a tong now! ;)

It’s been interesting tracking the progression of this loose leaf sheng. I’ve had it only 3 or 4 times over the past two years. Despite not being in cake form, it is still taking the path of transformation.

The dry and warmed leaf aromas are now strongly brown sugar, ripe papaya and plums, floral, kind of citric. Rinsed leaf is pungent, wet leafy and floral.

The liquor color has moved from lemon yellow to gold to the current pinkish-yellow-brown. The taste is of caramel sweetness, moderate drying woody bitterness, slight acidity, minerals, flowers and camphor. The aftertaste rises from the throat with caramel, flowers and a hint of smoked meat. The brew quickly becomes thinner in body and taste. An underlying vegetal character presents as the caramel become ever lighter. The bitterness is persistent throughout all infusions. Very relaxing energy.

It’s been a while since I’ve had this, so a quick note for tracking its development.

Dry: soft, fruity, powdered sugar
Warm: stonefruit – apricot-plum, yeasty-pastry
Rinse: apricot, plum, cherry, yogurt, floral, vegetal

Liquor color: GOLD
Aroma: powdered sugar and faint tropical fruit – papaya?
Mouthfeel: viscous, mouth-watering, juicy after swallow, rough texture and nice tongue swelling midway through
Tastes: stonefruit/papaya?, hay, sneaky bitterness grows stronger, darker honey, deep vegetal undertone comes forward later, floral, strong returning sweetness midway
Feels: calm, alert, seems like a good morning tea

Overall impression: I like where it’s heading. It’s pretty sweet but the bitterness is on the stronger end which I like and keeps the sweetness in check. Bright tropical fruit zing has diminished, developing more stonefruit notes and darker more syrupy ripe papaya note. Can’t wait to see what happens when that vegetal undertone changes. Seems like a Yiwu with attitude.

More short notes.

Opening the bag, I was hit with a thick cloud of prune, wood and hay. Warmed leaf smelled of stonefruit, earthy, hay and faint woody cocoa. 10s rinse revealed apricot, stewed tomatoes, chard and prune.

The taste of the liquor was completely different from the leaf aroma. It was smooth and viscous, bright, crisp, juicy and tart. Kind of tropical. Starfruit and unripe pineapple, minerals that induced salivation, soft bitterness. Very active in the mouth. Bright and clear lemon yellow to gold liquor with a fruity aroma. Some relaxation and general feeling of well being with a softening of the gaze. Something made me think of the word ‘song.’ My kind of sheng. Want the cake!

Basic notes, been pressed for time.

Honey with a very mellow sweetness, herbal, light mushroom, mixed evergreen and deciduous forest floor leaves. Texture was like fresh extra virgin olive oil – creamy-fluffy and thick to brothy – I focused a lot on the sound of my swallow. Like a cough drop, lubricating. Very light bitterness and astringency. Calming.

In terms of leaf, it’s bud heavy. The leaves were sticky and slick, super thin, tore very easily and had some disintegration with 200-212F water. Makes me think this might be best drank sooner than later? Idk. For now, it’s really good.

Interesting. I think I enjoyed this more than most high end Lao Man’e offerings (although pu-erh.sk Lao Man’e maocha was phenomenal this year) because I like complexity in tea and I find most Lao Man’e to taste of quinine and slate but not much else, bitter, powerful and intoxicating but give me BaKaNan or Naka over it any day. This stuff otoh being Huangpian starts off tasting like sweet tobacco and tamarind for the first 4 steeps then the bitterness hits and it starts tasting like the Lao Man’e I’m used to…not Huangpian but regular cake. The energy is pretty good and warming too. Not something I’d break out often but I think this would be awesome snow shoveling tea…

I’m really glad I ordered a lot of these little Planets that CLT released last year. Some people aren’t big fans of the teaball format, but I don’t find them to be too much of a hassle to deal with. Just takes a liiiitle bit longer to get opened up. The dry leaf is very sweet and floral smelling – even more so, with a bit of green veggie nose after the rinse.

This one was really a creamy floral bomb that got nicer and nicer as the ball opened up. A thick and pleasing mouthfeel that went down the throat as well. There was a small bit of vegetal astringency, but it never got particularly intense – instead just balanced the overall flavor of the tea. Good stuff in a little package.

This dragon ball lasts forever – so long, I had to break it up into two sessions and could’ve gotten away with three. I imagine if I had done flash steeps after the initial 30s, I would’ve gotten 20+ infusions.

I was surprised how dark the liquor was – a nice, clear, medium amber. This is a texture-heavy puer – one of the thickest I’ve ever had. Sits like a ball in the belly and time releases itself from there. Very savory and alkaline; a little sour and honey. Slight dark-honeyed stonefruit aftertaste taste early on. Has a light bitterness that becomes prominent when cooled. Astringency is there, not in my face but sneaks up on me. The liquor brightens up near the end and gives a moderate buttery flavor. The energy was of a zoning out but the caffeine kept me focused. Spent leaf looks good, I can tell it’s no longer a baby. If somebody told me this tea was older than 2017, I’d believe them.

I’m glad I brewed this gongfu over chilling with it grandpa style. I think the thickness and savoriness would’ve been overwhelming that way. Seems like a good puer for playing video games on a cold, dark winter night

I like where this one’s going already at such a young age. My sample is mostly a whole chunk with layers easy to peel. It’s quite the mix of shapes and colors, from almost black to brown, olive and beige with some beige-grey needles and a few gold ones. Dry leaf smells soft, sweet, vegetal, yeasty. Rinsed leaf aroma is peach, a light smoke and green beans. Rinse color is a light honey and I don’t know if my eyes are playing tricks – a tinge of pink.

Starts off light bodied and mineral, gaining some light honey with some sourness mid-mouth and light bitterness in the back. Fruity apricot/peach aftertaste. As the steeps progress, the honey disappears. The tea becomes more savory and the sourness becomes identifiable as citric in nature. It continues to get more tart and more bitter, leaving my mouth raw. Then, right when I expect a lot of sheng to lose steam, this one really blossoms. I notice a thickening of the liquor, a fullness in my throat, a persistent sweetness in the back, the bitterness and tartness fade, some light cooling and grassiness show up and the minerals return. Apricot and bready aftertastes linger for a while. It takes to over-steeping well in this later stage. Wasn’t keeping track but I think I got between 12 and 16 steeps.

Poking around, I see several different types of leaf, a lot of them whole and robust, some outlined with oxidation, some fat needles and an outlier leaf that’s longer than my middle finger. Quite the blend. Some charred bits in the bottom of the cup. No stomach discomfort at all. Energy in the beginning was kind of sedating, then later I noticed how utterly caffeinated I was.

This sheng fits my profile pretty well – not floral, not too sweet. Considering a cake for the price. I’m curious where this one will go.

trying yet again. i am surprised this round. the tea is actually picking up a little base notes. i never thought it would happen. strong after taste. but still a light tea.

When I received this tea it had a sour lactic acid twang indicative of too dry of storage. Remembering that I fixed a similar problem with the 2006 Xigui by breaking it up and humidifying it in a canister (thus making it at least as good as the 2005 Naka that’s 3x more expensive) I decided to try this with this tea…and upon steeping was immediately reminded of my favorite fishing hole in early June. There is a huge patch of wild spearmint and multiple types of berry bushes blooming in June . There is also an aroma of decaying willow branches. That’s the character I get from this tea…very contemplative. Of course my dad drank a little and gets white wine and herbs so get a sample and decide yourself.