Liquid Proust Teas

123/365

This one’s been in my cupboard for a while (but let’s be honest, what hasn’t by this time?) I think that’s partly because I was in such a funk for a while, and partly because I’m just plain uncertain about this one. I rarely, if ever, drink coffee these days. I mean, I was a teenager the last time I drank coffee seriously.

It’s actually a lot nicer than I anticipated, though. There is a certain “thin coffee” flavour to it, but that’s easy to overlook in favour of its more engaging properties. It’s creamy, for a start, with a light roastiness, and the flavour of peanuts. Added together, it’s fairly reminiscent of peanut butter. I though this might turn out to be a fight between the coffee and the oolong, but it’s really not – they work together far better than you might think (perhaps because they were roasted together?)

This was my first cup of the day today, and I’m really happy with it. Hopefully I’ll get some extra energy from the coffee, because I could totally do with it right now!

121/365

Figured it was about time I tried this one, since it’s been sitting in my cupboard for literally ages. I loved LP’s French Toast Dian Hong, so I’m pleased to see a return of the vanilla from that blend. It’s deliciously creamy here, and more prominent than I expected. I’d go so far as to say that it’s the main flavour – sweet, heady vanilla. There’s also a fair hit of caramel, and a touch of pecan – and both of those remind me of Swann’s Way, which I finished up recently. Thankfully, the mixed base isn’t as conflicting as I feared it might be. The black sunmoon lake is most noticable to my tastes, but there’s a light, sweet, roastiness from the oolong and a mild earthiness from the pu’erh.

If this is what you get when you mix a few teas together, then it’s something that ought to be tried more often! I can pick out the flavours and characteristics of the original blends, but I think only because I’ve tried them. Overall, it’s more cohesive than I expected – and delicious!

I love the name of this tea! It’s also the only tea on Steepster with that name. It was hard to pick out the smell of the tea dry since it came to me in a traveling tea box where it mingled with the scent of other teas. Once steeped it has a light puer smell with a hint of cocoa and just the slightest touch of leather. The taste is sweeter than I expected and smooth. Sweet with a cave like quality; earthy, musty, lots of base notes with a touch of leather on the finish. The taste kind of reminds me of those indoor water rides at amusement parks! Those have a particular smell. I’m thinking Small World and Pirate’s of the Caribbean types where you are in a boat indoors. The smell isn’t something I thought I’d enjoy in a hot beverage, but here I am!

109/365

I bought this one…ages ago, so it’s a massively long overdue first try for me. I’m not too worried about keeping pu’erhs, though, since they tend to age gracefully. I’ve not tried many pu’erhs like this one before (and by that, I mean of the needle variety). It’s very cool looking! The dry leaf smells strongly of rum, which I’m taking as a good sign because – let’s be honest – rum improves most things. I’m at work today, and it can certainly improve that!

Brewed, I’m pleased to find that the rum is retained. The first steep is like drinking a light-ish black tea with a slug of rum added, with all the aromatic sweetness that might suggest. The pu’erh isn’t earthy or muddy even though it’s a ripe, which is as welcome to me as it is unusual because it allows the flavour of the rum to shine through. This is a smooth easy-drinker if ever there was one, and it’s such a shame it’s no longer available.

Thanks to JK7Ray for selling me this sample. I /finally/ got around to finishing off a bunch of samples that are getting older.

This is a nice jasmine tea, some vegetal and light tea notes. The bitterness shines through in the after taste, but I should have timed it so I didn’t oversteep.

097/365

This is one of the most interesting teas I’ve seen in a while, with its clumps of creamy coloured jasmine rice, scattered pieces of wild rice, and copious cocoa nibs. I’m also intrigued by the fact that it uses both Laoshan gongfu black and Laoshan roasted oolong – this clearly isn’t your typical genmaicha!

That’s borne out in the flavour, most of all. Whereas the roastiness in a “normal” genmaicha comes from the rice, here it’s clearly a result of the oolong. It’s roasty in the best possible way, with just an edge of almost-bitter toastiness amongst a lot of retained sweetness. I imagine a significant amount of the sweetness is coming from the strong malty backbone provided by the Laoshan black, but some of it is the oolong.

Underneath the roastiness is a pretty significant chocolate flavour – to my tastes, it’s milk tending towards dark; creamy, with a hint of deeper, richer cocoa. The rice itself doesn’t appear to be contributing a lot, other than a very light starchiness. It adds to the mouthfeel, though, so I guess that’s something.

This is one of the best genmaicha blends I’ve tried, even though it’s not particularly traditional. The quality is undeniable; it just shines through, and I’m enjoying the chocolate twist. It’s a shame LP doesn’t blend anymore because he had a hand for this kind of thing.

I approached this one with a bit of trepidation. The leaf was very tightly compressed, leaving the first couple of steeps quite light and tasting mostly of storage with vegetal overtones; not the most pleasant of experiences. However, things started opening up on the third steep, where pushing it for about ten seconds rewarded me with a dark, thick liquor featuring a suddenly spicy aroma and richly savory flavor.

Having finally fully decompressed, the tea continued on in this way through the remainder of the session. Periodically, other notes would emerge, like a few remnants of lingering bitterness around the seventh steep, a little bit of a cooling finish here and there, some tingling on the tongue, and a faint sweetness that started coming through as the tea lightened in later steeps. The vegetal notes never quite went away, but stayed mostly masked by the savoriness; remarkably, no sourness ever emerged. Throughout, the qi remained calming and quietly potent, although unaccompanied by much in the way of serious caffeine.

All in all, this tea was a lovely example of well-done Hong Kong storage. The original material seems to have been of decent quality, as well, though probably not the stuff of legends. Definitely worth a try if you can deal with a bit of funk.

200X ‘A’ from the 2018 Sheng Olympiad. An Yiwu raw puer stored in Hong Kong for over 10 years. I don’t have much experience with HK (i.e. humid)-stored pu’er but I enjoyed this one a lot.

Very thick body, a little sweet, reminded of honey a bit, but also dark wood (especially at the beginning). It reminded me of my rosewood tea table. No bitterness and very little astringency. Energy was calming. Lasted a long time and faded out slowly, with the final weaker brews reminding me of the fading brews of a ripe. Taste lingered a long time, but also left a cola-like fizzy sensation in the mouth too.

rinse/7/10/15/20/25/30/45

In the first few steeps I was blown away by the richness. The smokiness was balanced by a sort of deep fruitiness, lovely and smooth. Happy roasty warmth lingered down my throat for a while afterwards. Later steeps lost the surprising fruitiness and got a bit thinner and more mineral, and the lingering aftertaste down my throat got cooler. Overall: this really lifted my spirits on a cold, hard day.

Here we go. Delightfulness on a cold, but not all THAT cold, winter day.

The candied pecan and sandalwood play nicely against that SunMoon base. We could do with more of this blend in the world.

My travel tea for a long long day. Today, it was all creamy caramel praline lusciousness. Truly inspired blend. Well done, Liquid Proust. We miss you in tea world.

Magnificent. Just magnificent. Lovely play of caramel and pecan against the killer base.

I turned everything upside down after today’s hint that the pecans might be on their way to the dark side. But nope, not here. All the gloriousness remains intact. I blame the deep chill that we endure in this part of the planet. There must be a bright side.

If Liquid Proust decided to make an occasional comeback into tea blending, I’d like to see this in his repertoire.

Backlog. Sipdown 2/10/19
212F, 12oz, 3-4 min
This tea is better with longer steeps. I find the shorter steeps to taste too much of dirt and dank. Which is very true to name, but not in my desired flavor profile. Long steeps smooth out the tea.
Dark earth, sweetness, cocoa, with a lingering sweet aftertaste.

Found this at the bottom of the untried tea storage when I was searching for teas for my brother to sample.
This tea is deep, dark, and earthy. The pu’erh comes through on this tea much more than some of the other blends. I prefer A Dark Kitchen Sink better. Since I didn’t like it so much – my brother got a larger share of this one.

Stored noticeably more wetly than its companion Menghai 7542, this is nonetheless a noticeably better tea. The storage taste, while strong on the first steep, dissipates quickly, leaving behind an initial sweetness that transforms into a lively, piney bitterness. The bitterness lingers for quite a while in the finish, although admittedly in a subtle way. There’s appreciable qi in a light, head-fogging kind of sense. The durability’s good, and the tea’s at least a little thick.

I’d happily buy a cake of this, were it not presumably priced somewhere in the stratosphere. I can see why Dayi has the reputation it does.

An enjoyable example of a dry-stored, older Menghai tea. It can be somewhat gentle, but gets a bit of a piney kick when pushed. Some smokiness in the initial steeps, especially if it’s left to cool, but it’s far from overpowering. No real qi, not particularly thick, and it gives up faster than I’d like, but with all that said, it’s nonetheless enjoyable. I’d consider buying a cake, but only at the right price (probably way lower than this would command).

It’s kind of smoky, especially in the back of throat. Like a comforting fireplace. I’m glad I bought this.

Tasting this as part of the Sheng Olympiad 2018 courtesy of LiquidProusts generosity.
I did rinse this, and for most of the early steeping I used 5-10sec and from 8th on I used 15-25sec.

Dry leaf aroma: slight, subtle scents of mint?, I suspect from the isolation in the bag it lost some its aroma.
Wet leaf aroma: pretty interesting, very very reminiscent of “dank” shu but with added dimensions of leaf or herbal essence that is very inviting and intriguing , honeysuckle or
something similar to chamomile.

1-3rd Steepings: soup is of light color with that funny pinkish edge along the rim, starts off closer to shu then sheng, but has a distinctive raw edge to it no bitterness or astringency present which is a nice change from young raw, by the third steep the mouth feel is nice and sweet.
4th-7th Steepings: It is already hitting me, sweats and everything along with the sweet mouth feel, all of these steepings serve to enhance the chaqi and mouth feel, it is not extremely sweet like i hear about other yiwu teas this being the first raw yiwu i’ve tired i’m pleasantly surprised and looking for more.
8th-11th steepings: I’m fully loaded with tea magic, where did you find this liquidProust? its all chaqi and tea drunk now, body sweats and everything

This tea is good for a experiencing good and pretty fast chaqi at least for me, its a very good enjoyable aged puerh.
However its taste profile is elusive leading me to try drinking more before I make anything conclusive.

I suspect however this tea lost its flavor profile in exchange for chaqi, so much so it manages to stand on this alone and would definitely recommend this to fans of puerh.

Another sipdown.

008/365

More Yunnan, which is always a good thing as far as I’m concerned. I said most of this in my last tasting note, but I love the chocolate/pecan/brown sugar combination showcased by this tea. I also love it for its depth, and layers, of flavour – it’s more complex than it first appears (and so very fittingly named.) I’m sad that LP doesn’t blend any more…he’s put some good stuff my way.

Finally getting around to trying this one (it’s been a long time!) I like that the base is a combination of Yunnan and Sun Moon Lake, because those are two of my favourites where black teas are concerned. Any tea with either of those as a base is most likely going to be a winner with me. This one’s no exception, although it’s got a lot more going on than just the base.

I’m still stuck on the base for the moment, though. It’s rich and malty, with heavy, thick cocoa notes that are almost drying – it comes across as a little brisk initially, but that fades as it cools. There’s a really nice dark chocolate vibe straight off. The mid-sip brings more of the other flavours into play, beginning with a prominent nuttiness. That’s no surprise, as there was a huge whole pecan in my scoop of leaf. More unexpected was the fruitiness, which is reminiscent of a thick red-fruit/berry syrup. It’s an interesting in combination with the chocolate and pecan – very dessert-like. Further cooling brings out more of a smooth sweetness – caramel, vanilla, a hint of cream. It’s a great way to round off.

I brewed 1.5 tsp of leaf for 4 minutes in boiling water, and added a splash of milk. I might perhaps try it with a touch of sugar next time – I think that would make it more truly a dessert tea right from the get-go, and perhaps smooth out the initial roughness a little. I like this one, though. It’s my kind of tea.

Sipdown

I wasn’t sure what I was thinking when drinking this late tonight…..I wanted to play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for an hour or two, while drinking tea, and I ended up getting enough energy to play for nearly 3.5 hours…. (o_o)

Notes:

1st Steep: 2 minutes, 195 F. Light roasted notes, slight coffee taste, and a bit of a sweet nutty (almonds? pecans?) note.

2nd Steep: 3 minutes, 200 F. More coffee notes (similar to smelling a tin of coffee), thick mouthfeel, and more pecans and/or almonds.

3rd Steep: 6 minutes, 200 F. A lot of coffee flavors & roasted pecans. A bit mouth-drying, but not too terrible.

As this is my first HK humid stored tea I don’t have anything to compare it to, once I have tried others I may edit my note. This is a good learning experience.

The aroma of the dry and wet leaves was musty.

The tea soup reminded me of wet bark after a rain, petrichor but with Yiwu sweetness.