Crimson Lotus Tea

Revisiting this young sheng 5 months later. My gut reaction is this is a strange brew, a lot going on to contend with.

Dry leaf aroma is soft with peach-apricot, wood and dry forest duff. Notes of peach tobacco, plum, humus and green bean when warmed. Rinse reveals a very pungent and tangy aroma that I can smell from several feet away throughout the entire session — peach, aged wood, light florals, green beans.

Still a cloudy brew until about halfway through the session but now a darker gold-orange color. Soft sugary apricot aroma. The first steep gives an idea of the overall character: bright, light and fruity yet with a substantial pungent, heavy quality. Starts a little oily and mineral mouthwatering but quickly moves into a lighter body with moderate astringency. Citrus zest tingling early. A little bit of age has tamed the strong peach character and revealed something more savory and bright like hot hay-baked squash-baked lemon. There is still a bit of a green bean taste but that turns into a generic vegetal tone later.

The bitterness is very present, blooming on the swallow and lingering in the whole mouth. There’s not much sweetness to balance the bitterness but it does does transform quickly into a persistent returning sweetness. The aftertaste is quick to arrive with peach, osmanthus and a hint of butter, with the osmanthus growing considerably as the steeps progress.

The energy crept up over the first several steeps with that same kind of relaxed forgetfulness I experienced before. Then bam, fourth steep my whole body felt heavy, like wearing a lead apron. Body-cooling tea with a heavy, slow-moving feeling in my muscles. These characteristics seemed out of place with the tastes. I was able to fall asleep easily an hour or so after finishing the session.

Strange blend and I can’t help feeling like I was being pulled in several directions. At this point, from what I’ve read about aging tea, this one seems like a decent candidate for storage with its pungency, astringency and bitterness.

Received as a freebie with my order. Thanks Crimson Lotus!

This is a Damn Fine Fruity Fresh Sheng.

6.5g, 100mL, 205-212F, 10s rinse, 5s initial steep.

Dry leaf has light compression. Looks great and smells soft with fresh peach dusted with powdered sugar. The warmed leaf lets me know what I’m in for… super strong yellow peach (with a little bit of green bean). In taste, it reminds me of canned peaches with their steel can character. That moves into fresh apricot with more steel touch. Brews a nice golden honey color all the way with a little cloudiness early. Very smooth with some tang, a lively mineral effect with light salivation that lasts and light bittersweet in the back of the mouth. Some pepperiness comes in toward the end and a light astringency catches in the throat. The tastes gradually lighten with no major drop-offs. I wouldn’t say the liquor is sweet – it can actually be quite tart – but a long-lasting sweetness presents at the top back of my mouth.

The energy is pleasant, no craziness in any dimension, though my demeanor tended toward forgetfulness after the first few steeps. Like what might happen if you wander across a peach orchard and find yourself feasting on ripe fruit, lounging under a tree to escape the midday sun for some unknown amount of time, then suddenly realizing you had something to attend to. It reminds of something out of a C.S. Lewis book. Maybe like the Wood Between the Worlds in The Magician’s Nephew. As a result, I oversteeped here and there. The first gaffe was several minutes long and was strongly bittersweet and fruity. I adjusted the timing of the next steep based on liquor color and from there the tea played out over the course of 2 hours. This tea has a lot to give. As expected, the spent leaf is a mix of olive greens. I’m happy to report no gut rot, but I do have a pretty strong stomach.

I’m content :) I’d like to see the transformation. Gonna give it a few more months and try again with less leaf.

I got 18 infusions out of my session of Jade Rabbit. This sheng leans fruity sweet with plenty of energy. The tea nerdy interest of this tea is the fact it was blended per cake basis, so in theory got truer interpretation of the maocha blend and consistency.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2018-jade-rabbit-sheng-puer-from-crimson-lotus-tea/

Thank you phi for the sample!
7g in 110ml clay pot, boiling water

The dry leaf on this is #1 very different and gorgeous compared to other young sheng and #2, smells like macerated raspberries in rum…delicious.

The tea after rinse is like sour berries…
1. When you swallow, the first thing you notice is high floral berry perfume notes. I can feel tingling immediately crossing my cheeks sideways, then down my neck and out across my arms. Nice…
The taste is like those bitter raspberry seeds here in the early steeps, with a very interesting gan. It took me a long time to figure out what it was so I took my time here. I eventually figured it out—sake/rice wine!

2. And the sake aftertaste is gone :( . Instead its jasmine! Either way delicious! Undeniable that this is a SOUR and BITTER tea though. Absolutely no astringency which is a plus in my book but certainly be prepared for bitter.

Unfortunately by steep 4 the sour bitterness really starts to become overwhelming to me and never quite breaks…its like orange pith. I certainly hope that breaks out over time because this thing was really damn unique—nice job CLT!

The pictures do not do this cup justice. Period. It’s beautiful, well made, the silver shines so bright and feels really good on my upper lip. I got this for sipping shou while studying. The cup has some serious substance, thick and heavy, perfect for holding while contemplating late into the night. It retains heat very well. So well, I have to let the cup sit for a few minutes so I don’t scorch my widdle fingahs. But I don’t see the heat retention as a negative. What this means to me is that I’m in no rush to drink the brew before it cools. I did a side-by-side comparison in this cup and an unglazed clay cup with several steeps of some lower-grade shou that was brewed in a clay gaiwan. The silver cup seemed to neutralize the muddy qualities I found present in the clay cup’s brew. I’ll have to try some other shou between the two cups to see if that holds true.

I am super stoked. Totally worth it. Thanks Crimson Lotus.

Was sent this tea from CLT as a gift to make up for a booboo that happened with an order. Otherwise would probably not have tried this tea. Thanks Glen and Lamu.

I drank this at least 10 days ago. I didn’t want to write about it right away because it was a special experience and wanted to make sure that this review imparts the essence of the experience in some way and not just describe the tea in the usual quantitative/qualitative way.

What this tea is is a taste of what tea would be like for the first time. A taste of what someone who has never been exposed to tea would experience during their first tea session. Imagine possessing all the adoration and love for tea that you have now but with a palate that has become a clean slate, and a taste vocabulary/memory that has also been wiped clean.

CLT said they broke this tea up into single sessions so that as many people could experience it as possible. I get it.

This was one of my favorite teas from the 13 sample pack from CLT that I got a couple months ago. The best word I can think of to describe the taste is “detailed”. It’s like the flavors were sculpted and very specific. Not lacking bitterness. Not too green tasting or muddy either. Exploring the possibility that my palate loves fall teas. I hope this is true because then I can afford to build my pu’er collection a lot quicker.

Update: After trying several more fall teas including an LBZ I realized that I’m not really that into them. I just happens that one other tea I have and this Moon Princess happen to be excellent examples of fall material.

Clean, solid, dynamic tea.

First tasting of this was in a thermos with 150ml boiling water per gram. Was immediately impressed. The dry cup smell was out of this world. I really love dry cup smell and it is a big factor for me in choosing cakes.

Enjoyed this tea gong fu as well with my 60ml gaiwan using 3.5 grams. There’s some smoke in the first couple steeps which I’m not into, but after that all good. Very clean. Just enough bitterness. Not too vegetal. I’m pretty new to pu’er so not sure if lack of veg flavors is because it’s had a couple years to rest or if it is inherent to this tea. Would like to know. Good session.

Brewed up more of this sample today. 7gr in 110ml porcelain teapot. Lately I’ve been brewing tea doing 10 second steeps from start to 8, 10, 12 steeps or whenever a tea seems to be needing a push and then I put the leaves in a 500ml thermos for at least half an hour. The short steeps are nice for enjoying the more subtle flavors and enjoyed the progression of this tea. Even without the thermos portion of the session this tea is recommendable and worth buying a cake. But with the thermos steep this tea shines even more. Very thick but soft mouthfeel. Warm maple sweetness. Amazing puckering bitterness. And a huigan that stayed with me for nearly an hour.

If you have not brewed tea this way I suggest you try it. There are some things that just won’t come out of tea leaves without a thermos or boiling but boiling boils off a lot of flavors. Basically once you are two thirds of the way through a session is a good time to feed the thermos. And I’ve noticed that the better the tea, the better the results.

Had this in ball form from the Sheng Olympiad. Purple/wild teas aren’t usually my thing, so much, but this is a pretty decent one, erring on the sweet side with little bitterness unless it’s pushed. A cooling, mentholated finish adds some complexity to the typical purple fruitiness, and the qi, while powerful, doesn’t have the disquieting character that some of these teas have. It’s also impressively caffeinated, which came as a plus today. Personally, I wouldn’t buy this, as I’m not really a fan of the genre; if you are though, this seems like one of the better examples I’ve had.

Gong Fu Sipdown (597)!

I sent the last of this to someone in a swap, so this was a sort of sipdown. My last session of it, anyway – unless I repurchase, which is certainly tempting but I recall this also being quite an expensive shou so we’ll see…

Very pleasant session though; I think this is an exceptionally smooth shou with a lot of very interesting tasting notes present. I started the session off taking physical notes about the tea, but my steep two I found myself lost in the flavour of the tea and just completely and utterly relaxed/at all (something shou does to me quite often) and I put down the pen/paper and just let myself be more sucked in to the tea. Those are the best sessions; where you’re just engrossed in the moment and nothing else.

I play music when I drink Gong Fu as well, always. Something about the combination of tea and music, especially when it’s music that compliments the tea, seems to make both the music and tea feel richer to me. Cage The Elephant recently dropped a new album so that’s what I was listening to – but this song in particular really captured my attention during the session:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM1S9S-Q2sU

I guess because I know some of the real life history of the song, and because I was very moved by the tea something happened and, during my third listen in a row of this song, I found myself tearing up until I finally just released and just started to softly cry while I was steeping my tea. We were like eight or nine steeps deep at this point, and I just couldn’t take it emotionally. I should stress that nothing is really happening in my life right now to put any sort of emotional stress of any kind on me; I have NO personal reasons to have a breakdown like that. It was just a powerful emotional moment for me.

Tea and music… Damn.

Photos (of the tea & not my breakdown): https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwo5gtVnt5G/

Also, the tea was thick and smooth with surprisingly sweet and dense flavour notes: petrichor/wet wood (my favourite shou flavours!), vanilla bean, blackstrap molasses, walnut skins (still have that nutty sweetness but also pleasantly astringent), minerals, and date paste. Mmm!

Gong Fu, sorta.

7g in an 85ml shiboridashi.

So, I did twelve infusions total with this one – but I ‘stacked them’ three infusions at a time in a large yunomi style cup, so even though there were twelve steeps total I only drank four ‘cups’ of tea. If that makes sense. First impression of this one was something along the lines of “damn this is a really thick and full bodied shou!” The liquor, almost from the very beginning, basically brews up black. Perhaps where the name is from? I don’t know. It’s so thick, and has one of the most velvety, lush mouth feels that I think I’ve experienced from a shou in like… maybe over a year!?

First set of three steeps was sweet and woody, with decaying wood, mineral, mushroom, nutty, camphor, and slightly coffee likes notes to it. And of course very earthy. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. I wanted a little more sweetness, and more of a “wet wood” sort of taste over decaying wood – but the fact woody notes were present at all was still good.

Second set of steeps was my least favourite, but still wasn’t bad – it was a little bit bitter but one of the three steeps that made up this set was pretty over steeped so that could have been the cause. Strongest note in this was a sort of “black coffee” taste, which is probably why it didn’t appeal to me as much – I just don’t enjoy the taste of coffee. Other than that, same ‘dryer’ wood notes and notes of resin, almond skins, and camphor.

Set three and four were pretty similar to me; the smoothest of all the sets, with more of a creamy wood/nut/coffee sort of profile and a lighter and cleaner finish. I liked the creaminess and bigger focus on nutty notes – definitely made for a sweeter and more well rounded feeling overall profile. Also, all four sets were earthy/woody but the woody notes in this particular set were the least “decay” tasting of all of them, and the closest to my ‘ideal’ wood note preferences. Maybe a little cedar-esque?

Really happy with this overall; but I don’t think I like it enough that I’d want to cake it. No matter how cool looking the cake wrap is…

This is the same material as the single sessions, but I really wanted a cake, and CLT was kind enough to oblige. Thank you so much Glen and Lamu! I really enjoyed this experience.

1st steep: Soft, but bright and fruity – perhaps del monte fruit salad… but the one without cherries. very sweet – feel alert immediately.

2nd: This steep has a bit of an edge – sort of peppery on the aftertaste. dances on the tongue – hard to describe – feel immersed in the taste-experience

3: very strong returning sweetness – does not seem to fade

4. need to poop. Sorry to those of you who don’t want to hear that, but I’m recording my experience here, and some teas have that effect on me. The taste (of the tea) is like fresh forest air. clean and crisp. with sweet notes floating on top like a birds song. I feel the effect of this tea mostly in my head, but some warmth in my shoulders and upper back as well.

5. Feeling very stimulated as I start this 5th cup. This is a potent tea. The texture is thick and smooth like melted butter, the flavors open and airy… like standing in the woods with my mouth open. the note of sweetness (rock candy now) is just delightful.

6. now I’m getting a mineral taste, like pottery, and a faint nuttyness… like cashews. The returning sweetness may be stronger than the taste when the tea is actually in my mouth.

7. The flavors have now all rounded out and melded together so they seem like one continuous flavor… this frequently seems to mark the beginning of late steeps to me, as if the taste profile is now fully developed… or something. also, my pen is having a hard time keeping up with my brain, and I keep starting to write the next word before I finish the current word, so there are many scribbles on this page.

8. mineral and bazooka joe bubble gum. Laser focus.

9. I’ll try not to complain about “long” steeps everytime I write tasting notes… but almost a minute!?! cummon! mmm… delmonte fruit cocktail again.

10. My co-worker just stopped by my cubicle to comment on how I’m sitting. Fully reclined in my office chair (as far as an office chair reclines) straight lounging… with my teacup held approximately at eye level, perhaps a just hair above. The real joy of this tea is in between the sips – big, mouth-filling sweetness. I just might still be tasting this tea tomorrow!

11. I think I’ve said enough. I’m going to put my pen down and enjoy these last few steeps without thinking too hard about it.

I was a bit too late to the party for the 2016 iteration of this tea, but once the 2017 became available, I grabbed a bing blind. When it comes to pu’er, I tend to either seek out teas of exceptional quality or ones that are incredibly unique. Based on the description at least, this one definitely falls in the latter category. As I want to save as much as possible of this special tea, for this review I ordered a sample a few months back and now was finally the time to break it out.

The dry leaves are really weird looking compared to your typical sheng. Many of them look like miniature pea pods or perhaps dragon scales, which would actually be quite fitting now that I think about it. The scent is also quite unique. In the pre-heated gaiwan, the smell of black currant really comes through, although most obvious on the lid. I used a single chunk of nine grams in a 130ml gaiwan and gave it a sub-five-second rinse followed by a five-minute rest while I sipped the wash. The soup tasted similar to its smell; black currants with maybe a bit of red mixed in.

I followed up with a total of twelve infusions, the timing for these being 5s, 5s, 5s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s, 2 min. and 3 min. From the first sip of the first infusion, I could tell this is a high-quality tea. It was quite incredible. Two or three sips in, I just wanted to stop for a while, because I felt I needed to take a moment to appreciate the tea. The texture was oily. I could immediately feel the vitality and life energy in this tea. There was a really nice sweetness and a combination of both fruit and berries, apricot and currants to be specific. The soup was super clean and pure and the flavors were really long lasting. The overall impression was very gentle. These are high marks.

As expected, the next infusion was way stronger. The compression seems to be on the looser side, so by this point the single chuck had practically come apart completely. The leaves are also tiny, really tiny, which contributes to the strength of flavor, while the age of the tea trees gives them the vitality they need to keep brewing steadily over multiple infusions. The tea continued being very sweet. The taste was chiefly that of black currants, but the acidic side of berries had become more emphasized. The long-lasting aftertaste from before was maintained.

The next two brews continued among the same lines. The taste of black currants started to become more leafy, resembling the taste of tisane made by infusing the leaves of said plant. Steep five was the boldest one yet. It saw a lot of minerality creeping in. Steep six swapped this with a very prominent acidity, but otherwise stayed true to form.

The seventh infusion, while not necessarily presenting anything new, combined multiple things at once, resulting in what was probably this tea at its most complex. The taste was very leafy with some sweetness as well. The oiliness was back and the soup was quite warming. I could feel a heatwave washing over me every twenty seconds or so over the course of a few minutes, which is totally new for me as usually it’s only a single wave or two. The tea was surprisingly complex with a lot going on and flavors that kept dancing around in your mouth.

The gentle, slightly oily texture characteristic for this tea was maintained for the eighth brew. The taste remained largely the same as what we’d seen before. Leafy, acidic, with a hint of berries in the finish. The acidity reached its peak in the next infusion where the taste was incredibly well defined and an uncanny rendition of the acidity in citrus fruits like grapefruit or lemon, but without the characteristic taste of that specific fruit.

From the tenth brew on we finally saw the tea beginning to simplify and the flavors starting to get thinner. The taste was nothing we hadn’t seen before. Leafy, acidic, with the occasional berries and touch of sweetness. The twelfth steep was the point at which I wasn’t enjoying the tea as much as before and thus I decided to call it there because I only expected the tea to start deteriorating from that point on.

I liked Slumbering Dragon a lot. Although the two Crimson Lotus shu pu’ers I’ve tried I’ve both really liked, while enjoying a few of their shengs to some degree, I’ve never really found anything I’d be seeking to purchase. This on the other hand is a winner. Although a tea I’ve already committed to buying, at least now I can say I do not regret that decision. The quality here is very high and albeit not cheap you are most definitely getting value for your money. I’ve had spring teas close to one dollar per gram or slightly over that while good aren’t necessarily of higher quality. For spring, this is definitely one of the better teas I’ve had in the around 40–60¢/g range.

This is one of the cleanest tasting teas I’ve had. Strength is good, longevity is good. You can definitely taste the clean environment these trees have grown in. One things the tea does slightly suffer from is that it’s not all that dynamic in terms of taste, but I find it less of an issue here than with some other teas. I didn’t get any bitterness or astringency or any other sort of harshness at all, unless you personally consider the acidic character such a thing. The acidity actually reminded me a lot of Bitterleaf Teas’ 2017 WMD which I reviewed recently. Specifically that vintage and not its 2018 counterpart as much. Fans of that tea might want to give this one a try. While I’ve yet to actually try ye sheng (pu’er), I’ve had both purple varietal hong cha and moonlight white and both the aroma and taste of Slumbering Dragon remind me of those teas, so fans of ye sheng might also be interested in what the dragon has to offer.

I think that covers most of what I had to say. I’m interested to see how this tea will age longterm. Crimson Lotus have pressed this tea again this year (available soon), so even if this vintage ends up selling out before you get to buy it, you’re not necessarily in any rush to try it. I may end up sampling the 2018 to see if it’s similar or different.

5g, 100C, 100ml.
1 rinse, and the wet rinsed leaf already smells potent like applewood smoke, ever so slightly sweet.
Steep 1: bitterness up front, but no astringency. Not quite full in the mouth but not thin either, this is on its way to developing a great texture. Already some huigan just after the first 100mL of liquid…well that was fast >_>
Steep 2: sent chills down my spine upon sipping , this has some crazy energetic qi. Still bitter but you can tell it has calmed down from when it was first pressed in 2014. There’s a little bit of umami here…
Steep 4: Sour but smooth. Super high energy, I feel like I’m vibrating. Loads of huigan, but unfortunately the taste of the tea liquor itself is not good to me at this steep.
By Steep 7, became very hoppy. Like…VERY hoppy and bitter. Great huigan but not worth the bitter hoppiness to me.
Steep 12+: died out tooth achingly sweet for a few steeps before being done.
Overall not something I would have been interested in getting even if it was still in stock, but I can see how some of y’all that like hoppy beers would like this. The shining things for me were the 1) qi and 2) huigan

A part of a tasting set put together by LiquidProust. My notes I took while I was drinking this:
6/15/18: Jingmai LOVE, 5.2g/100mL. Dry leaf looks incredible—whole leaves and maocha stemmy. The dry leaf smells like cream and sheng. The rinse was totally drinkable: light, refreshing, sweet, aromatic like cucumber skin and lightly floral.
Steep 1 was slightly bitter but goes away IMMEDIATELY, leaving me with the THOUGHT of sweetness and grass. Its like a sencha minus as much umami, making it a more common drinker for me. I think I want a beeng of this already >_>. There is some cream and herbs in step two, with a bitter start.
Steep 3 reveals some bitterness that wanes quickly. There is ALMOST a huigan to this tea but not quite, might need more time to develop one? I demand huigan though :(.
Steep 4, the lid is straight up honey and cream, but the taste is bitter and clears quick thankfully. The aftertaste was like swallowing vodka to me, cleared my sinuses like liquor.
Steep 5 was better at a faster brew, still like sencha minus the umami but floral, like the Yunomi orchid dragon.
Steep 6 is nose cleaning alcohol still, but not as bad as I’m making it sound.
Steep 7 is trending sweet, drying my mouth a little it but not too bad so I can tolerate it.
8 was vegetal but not like gross stewed leaves. There’s a sour note that I can’t identify like it wants to taste like a sour fruit but isn’t quite there. NOW I’m getting a long lasting aftertaste of…an anxi oolong, which combined with the sourness reminds me of tieguanyin? Which is awesome to get out of a sheng! Eventually this tea dies around steep 13-14, but with a taste of sweet cream, not like watery honey like other youngsheng when it dies. I’m going to pick up a beeng of this once I can. Favorite thus far!
Update: I did actually pick up a beeng the following day…

I’ll start off by saying I brewed this in the Jian Shui and I usually don’t like reviewing teas with the added variable of brewing in clay for obvious reasons. Taste being the most drastic.

So, I cracked into my cake after taking the day off yesterday and threw a bunch of this in the Jian Shui. Smooth, sweet and soft. All while maintaining a thick body throughout the session. Tastes were strong but lacking in bitterness. The lack of Qi was of note. Some mouthfeel.

Overall, I think this is a pleasantly easy drinker. Again, I prefer to brew in the Gaiwan to review but I wanted to use my clay teapot for a long day of drinking. I should review this tea again down the road.

I’ve talked about this more at length in the past, but I don’t really do that many blends. I believe I’ve compared it to jazz and how I prefer to hear a performance recorded live in studio (or concert) without any edits or overdubs. A lot of jazz is made this way, so it’s not really a huge point of contention (totally different case with classical), but there are exceptions like Bitches Brew by Miles Davis for example. That record was edited together from long jams that Davis had the band do and effects were used as well. While not really a Miles Davis fan, Bitches Brew is one of his records that I do like. However, while I appreciate the experimental nature and musical innovations on that record, the album does not really represent what I appreciate and love about jazz. With all that preface, let’s move on to this tea.

The sample I received consisted of a single large piece of the bing along with a good amount of individual leaves and debris. While not huang pian, the material shares their somewhat ugly appearance in its dry form. I used the single large piece along with some individual leaves to total up to 9.6g in my 140ml gaiwan. A single rinse for just over five seconds, followed by a five minute rest for the moisture to sink in and prime the leaves for extraction. I did nine infusions, the timing for these being 7s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s and 2 min.

Jade Rabbit started off with a salty seaweed taste. It was more salty and mineraly on the front with the seaweed most prominent in the finish. This was a lot like drinking seawater. There was body already and the flavors were pretty present. I could taste both the presence of new and older material in this steep. The second brew was full, creamy and foamy. If you slurped the tea, it produced foam in your mouth, which was a new experience for me. The taste was that of Fairy (dishwashing liquid). Before you freak out, not in a bad way.

The third steep presented some mineral sweetness that turned into a spicy prickling sensation at the back of my throat. Over time the tea started tasting like Greek yoghurt to me. In the lingering aftertaste between steepings, I was getting the Fairy again. Steep four was surprisingly a lot weaker than I’d expected. The tea was not weak, but in comparison to the prior three infusions, it almost seemed so initially. The Fairy taste was now absent and had been replaced by the taste of sweet soap. There was also a sweet floral aftertaste. However, the aftertaste hanging around in my mouth between infusions eventually turned into an acrid dishwashing liquid taste, which I did not particularly care for.

Steep five was bolder, a lot bolder. The taste was mineral, with some sour/smoky aged notes in there as well. The soup was slightly prickly, with a slight burning sensation to it as well. Overall the taste was very clean. This was a product of the notes starting to lose depth, but at the same time becoming clearer and much more easily defined. There was some astringency present in the tea as well. Steep six was similarly strong but simple. It was super mineraly, but there wasn’t much else going on. It had some slight sweetness and savoriness, but that’s about it. Frankly, I was getting a bit bored with this tea at this point. As eccentric as it had been initially, I could now tell for certain we were past all the fireworks already and that’s not really something you want to be feeling at around steep six.

The last three infusions weren’t anything special. Steep seven tasted like mineral soap. It had some sweetness and the body was still decent. Steep eight is where we were really starting to lose flavor. The taste had turned to raw soap, with no sweetness to speak of. The final infusion tasted like cleaning agent to me. It produced an unpleasant sensation in my mouth, so I decided it was time to call it.

Jade Rabbit was interesting – different. Definitely a unique experience, if you’re looking for one. As wild as my descriptions for the flavor notes are, none of them were intended to be negative descriptors, unless otherwise indicated. That being said, was the tea good? Was it bad? For me, it fell somewhere in between. I neither liked or disliked it. It was interesting, but that’s all it was. Most pu’ers I sample I end up not purchasing. That does not mean they were not worth sampling, sometimes quite the opposite. The amount of information you can learn from trying out countless teas is immense and invaluable. There are very few teas I would want to drink more than once or twice. That has nothing (or at least very little) to do with how good they are. I would rather drink fifty different teas than fifty session with one of my favorite teas. Even duds are not a loss. Giving thought to why you didn’t like a tea can be as valuable or even more valuable as why you did like a certain tea.

Just speaking of quality, at forty cents per gram, this tea is not cheap. Then again, with the increasing prices of pu’er, it’s not that bad. As this is a blend, and especially given that I hardly ever drink blends, I find it a bit harder to evaluate the exact quality of the tea, but I’d say it’s certainly well above entry level. Ultimately I think the value represents the price fairly well. This is not a tea I would purchase for myself. Frankly I have no idea when I would even drink it. The only occasion I can think of is to showcase to people what sort of different things tea can taste like. While I don’t think this is a casual brew, if you are looking for something to drink now, you can certainly do so with this tea. Aging it is an option as well. The results would certainly be… interesting, if nothing else.

Is this the Bitches Brew of pu’er? I leave that up to you.

You can read my full review here…

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/2018/05/16/Follow-the-Jade-Rabbit

I cannot believe I didn’t write my tasting notes down for this, but the short of it is that I loved it. Most shou that I’ve had so far has been “high” leaf gradelike gongting, gnwl. This is expressly not that, and felt very different. I see that someone else referred to this as “barbecue chip” scent which isn’t….wrong I suppose but I thought it was interesting. Overall this tasted very savory, rich, umami, almost like tomato paste and almost salty? Good stuff, try some if you ever get the chance. Very clean, not fishy at all, and not sickly sweet like some shou. This is definitely on the savory spectrum.

Been looking forward to this for quite a while, thanks fidgetiest!
Steeped 7g/100mL, 100C
I ended up drinking the rinse because I didn’t want to waste a drop of this black gold—as expected there’s wo dui funk up front, but gives away to incredible sweetness later but I was only able to drink a few sips of this. I was curious!
I only wrote minimal notes on this tea but what I did write down was that this is thick, and dark like coffee and burnt sugar in the back of my throat. Whenever I took a break in the early steeps (1-3), there were some distant plum aromas in my nose which gave this a tiny bit more depth. Also in steeps 2-5 there were some really intense camphor notes, and I felt super relaxed but hyped at the same time. This tea reminds me of a mocha latte now: thick, creamy, dark chocolate going down with only very slight sweetness. As the tea faded into the very late steeps, there were some sweet cocoa notes too! To note, this tea lasts forever unlike some of my other shou puerhs, giving me about 1.5L off of the 7grams. Super impressive!

Gongfu, 100C, one planet (>8g)/110mL.
I was intimidated to try this because I’ve heard that puerh from the Lincang region is really punchy when young but a great candidate for aging….and this is a 2017 and I don’t like astringency but I decided to go with my small gaiwan rather than lowering the leaf:water ratio in my bigger gaiwan.
I liked this a lot :).
After loosening the planet up, I noticed that most of the material is really tippy
Steep 1 after loosening up the leaves with a rinse, I sniff the lid and think I’m stuffing my face into some cotton candy! The sip isn’t super flavorful, but after swallowing leaves a clean, crisp, sweet sensation like sugar snap peas which I love
Steep 2: still clean but more herbaceous, not astringent at all yet which I had been bracing myself for so…shrug. I like this a lot so far.
When I take a sip of Steep 4,…whoa. I immediately think of Italian Wedding Soup as weird as it sounds, this reminds me of basil, maybe a hint of thyme too. This also has me feeling like whoaaa! loads of energy. Also the cup smells like cotton candy when sipping down. I will note definitely don’t steep this too long, steep 5 was definitely too long, and the liquor came out cloudy and bitter.
By steep 7, the herbaceous bite left. I think I’m used to having bitterness up front from young sheng followed by a late sweetness. This is reversed here—intense sweetness up front that gives way to some crisp bitterness but not totally unpleasant.
All in all this was pretty damn good, and I definitely learned something about my tastes in puerh. Maybe I’ll start exploring the Lincang region more…

Got a sample of this with my shou puerh sample package from Crimson Lotus. I rinsed twice and started my steeps.

The first steep I would describe as very clear in taste. It had a sweet mineral taste with some light muddiness and mushrooms in the back. The second steep brought out the earthy flavors. It’s incredibly smooth and almost creamy.
The earthy flavors disappeared around steep 4-5 and that left me with a very sweet mineral taste. If anyone is familiar with White2Tea’s Brown Sugar, it reminds me very much of this tea. While Brown Sugar is a bit more muddy, the MEGA Brick has the same notes but is very clean in comparison. It’s incredibly sweet and at around steep number 8 the soup got lighter and very clear as well.

The tea also gave me quite a sweat. It is summer, but it’s not particularly warm (18 C) but rather windy instead. Still, I needed to wipe the sweat off my forehead after drinking this. It’s very easy to drink, impossible to overbrew and incredibly smooth.

Would I buy the whole brick? If it’s winter and I get a bonus? Sure. It’s affordable and delicious.