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I wanted to like this tea, because it was a free sample that I received with an order, however, I just couldn’t.

The dry leaves were very chopped and very tightly compressed. They had a typical pondy, off smell that one associates with shu-puerh. The tea soup was a deep ruddy-brown with the aroma of wood, chocolate, raisins, and sewage. Honestly the flavor was not bad: sweet chocolate flavor with notes of wood, wet leaf, and raisins; but right after I swallow heavy notes of pond water show up, making the tea taste incredibly…odd.

The ‘pondy’ taste remained through the 4th infusion. I couldn’t bring myself to drink anymore so I called it quits. I should also note that I don’t like the flavor of chocolate, which was heavy in this tea. On the other hand, the mouthfeel was incredibly smooth and thick. Full-bodied and very rich. There was also a minty-cool quality to the aftertaste. I just couldn’t get over the chocolatey-pondiness of it, but if you’re a fan of that then I guess this would be a good tea for you.

The 2006 Aromatic Bamboo Roasted Puerh has a light sweet taste with wooden notes to the tea. The taste of bamboo is hard to describe but I think Jim got it down well as being like a hint of rice mixed in with the wooden taste. As it comes to most puerh stuffed into unusual packages it is not the best around but still an acceptable quality. Not to mention the bonus fun of getting to open up the bamboo to get the puerh out.

One’s impression of Liu Bao is a matter of perspective in how it compares to ripe puerh. Personally I love ripe puerh so Liu Bao comes off as a more plain puerh like tea without as much flavor. I have friends who like Liu Bao more than ripe puerh who say that it has a much cleaner taste. Regardless this is a tea worth trying at least once.

This is the first real sheng pu-erh tea I’ve had so I can’t say that I have anything to compare it to. However I did find this tea very enjoyable.

The leaves let off a very strong peachy sweet aroma after the first rinse. The tea soup was a nice golden-yellow color. The tea itself was full-bodied, velvety smooth and sweet with notes of peaches and flowers. The finish was clean and there was no astringency at all, even at the 12th infusion. There was a bit of chalkiness, but not in a displeasing way.

The strength was nice throughout the whole sitting with the peachy sweetness coming in still at the end. There isn’t a whole lot of complexity to the tea, but it was still very pleasing and enjoyable. A nice daily tea, and for the price I might actually buy the whole cake.

Steeped in a 180 ml gaiwan for 12 infusions.

A sample from Puerh shop. Brews up a dark amber brew that is surprisingly light and fresh for its color. While Fu Zhuan is described as being fermented or cooked, it has a freshness and a slight hay like taste more commonly associated with green puerh yet at the same time a smooth richness and sweetness which is more common among ripened puerh.

Yixing brewed with multiple infusions. I found this one to be smooth as described but overall I was not too impressed with it. Sure it is a good tasting and mid-range quality ripe puerh cake, but I’ve had a lot that were better.

This was the first ‘real’ pu-erh tea that I have tried.

After reading all the criticism of shu pu-erh and brick pu-erh, I was surprised at how this tea was pretty good. The bricks have a little bit of a fishy, pondy aroma but given a week or two to air out and the smell virtually goes away.

After the first rinse the leaves, very chopped, give off a very deep, woody and earthy smell, without any of the pondiness. The same goes for the flavor. Like drinking a piece of forest in Fall: woody, bitter, earthy, smoky and a little sweet, with a slightly astringent finish in the throat. The aftertaste is a long lasting woody bitterness.

The tea soup is a very deep, dark, murky orange brown, which clears up to a clear orange-brown after the first two or three infusions.

The tea begins to give off a sweet flavor in the back of the mouth at about the 4th infusion. The tea does not infuse for too many times, at least not when I have tried it. Towards the end, the woody earthiness is very faint, with a sugar-water-like sweetness on top of it.

It is enjoyable and the price is pretty good ($1-$2 for 10-12 little tile-like bricks); however not a tea for those long tea-steeping sessions.

The first thing that stood out to me about this tea was the very fresh and green aroma of the dry leaf. The dry tea leaves are flat and needle light and appear to be all buds which show signs of opening up slightly when brewed. The taste overall is is light and sweet with flavor notes that are a tad fruity and woody but not grassy. A taste which is fairly consistent with what I remember bamboo tasting like so it is not by any means a stretch to call this a bamboo leaf green tea even though I’m confident that it lacks any bamboo. The tea also has fairly good multiple infusions for a green tea. As expected the first two infusions were clearly the best and the third was still very good. The fourth infusion started to go down hill but was still fair before the tea died on the fifth infusion.

The first round I initially confused the rinse water with tea and it was a very musty brew that was best fit for being dumped out upon the ground. The first real infusion after the double rinse had a medium body with an earthy edge to it. Not that much more to say about this brew as the earthy edge is the only thing really worth mentioning as if this brick were to mellow out more with age I think it would go downhill as it lacks any apparent depth. Overall I tend to avoid earthy puerhs which I typically bash as musty but I must admit that with a proper rinse this is one of the very few good earthy puerhs that I have experienced and one that the price is right as I have to admit that it is better than some of the bad cakes that I’ve had. Still in the end the brick is no value as its quality is still too low to result in a high level of enjoyment.

Brewed in a gaiwan, I found the Yunnan Silver Thread has some complex flavors in it. My first impression was wanting to day that it was light and sweet almost like white tea but then I picked up on the richer fruity taste that was also in the mix.

I brewed this tea in a gaiwan and got 3 infusions with fairly good results, although the 3rd brew was not that good. The tea has a medium light body with a sweetish flavor to the brew with a few fruity overtones.

This is excellent and as the vendor’s note states, you can taste that it is starting to age.

Pretty smooth, touch of sharpness in aftertaste somewhat like a darjeeling, but smoother. Good flavor, all-around good tea.

This tea had a nice minty aroma and tasted like chocolate/carob and sweet in the first 2 infusions. It was boring by the 3rd infusion, tasting like little. I had to stress the tea with long infusions to get any flavor, and it did have some bitterness and astringency when pushed, but not much mouthfeel or aftertaste. The leaf quality was surprisingly poor upon examination, its broken leaves looking a step above tuocha grade material. Nothing I’d purchase again.

Despite an orange liquor (5 years age doing this, or ?), the flavor and bitterness taste like traditional big factory sheng, in a dependable and comforting way: punchy, floral, bitter, and a tad smoky, I think this tuo’s flavor will go somewhere with more age. I lament at its dry storage and am curious how one of these aged in Guangzhou might taste.

More deep orange-gold in color than pale, but I suppose that will fade on later steepings – still, a lovely color. Definitely getting the fruity/muscatel flavor, and maybe a bit of amaretto nuttiness as well as the roastiness of a Formosa. Good, but not my favorite oolong

3oz cup… this is my last!:( Had the 1st infusion (20 sec) w/ a chicken in peanut sauce tv dinner.

My daily cuppa pu erh. 2g/2oz water. 15 sec rinse, 20 sec 1st infusion.

I have a major sweet/chai tooth both plain and w/ milk (chai), but after drinking chocolate and a dirty chai misto, my stomach is begging for something lighter. It just can’t handle those teas all day. I can’t believe I’m making pu erh as a palate cleanser and stomach settler!

I have 7oz of this left, so I decided to make a 2oz cup.

2oz water just under boiling water/2g leaf. Rinsed for 15 sec. then 20 sec 1st steep. A 2oz cup is hard because it’s hard to heat such a small amount of water. I don’t think I got the water quite hot enough because the liquor is extremely light. Lighter than most white teas even. Still very good though. Very light and sweet taste. Carolyn suggested increasing the steeping time for additional infusions, which I did last time, but since she suggested keeping it the same for cooked pu erhs I’ll try that this time and see what happens.:)

I checked carefully and there’s no mold so I decided to continue what I started last nite. 4th infusion, 50sec. Oh so sweet!:)

My 1st raw pu erh! Thanks to Carolyn:)

Parameters and Preparation:
>It came in a one cup serving (she gave me 2) and she said to make a 6oz cup, but since it weighs 5g I decided to make a 5oz cup.
>Rinsed it by pouring 5oz just shy of boiling water (Carolyn suggests boiling) over the leaves, letting it sit for 15sec, decanting, then dumping the water.
>1st infusion is 5oz just shy of boiling water steeped for 20 sec (Carolyn suggests boiling again).

Rinse water: I’m shocked at how light this is compared to the rinse water of my cooked pu erh experiences! Looks more like a white tea than the black I compared the cooked pu erh to.

1st infusion: Liquor is nearly identical to the rinse water. The aroma is earthy, but also light and sweet. Looks more like a white or green tea. There’s a lot going on in the flavor… the sweetness that showed up in later infusions of the cooked pu erh is present right away. It doesn’t taste anything like a black tea, more of a green. It’s light and sweet, yet a bit earthy… and even a little bit bitter. It reminds me of Kukicha.

Conclusions: Very different from cooked pu erhs, although I don’t like it any less or more. Just as complex as cooked pu erh even though it’s lighter. If cooked pu erh can be compared to a black tea, this can be compared to a white, green, or green oolong.

This is very nice. It has a sweet honey melon flavor. The liquor is pale yellow moving to golden as the tea resteeps. I’ve resteeped it several times and each time the sweetness and fruitiness are more pronounced. Sometimes it is more like honey. Sometimes the flavor is fruitier.

Update: Apparently 12 resteeps are enough to overwhelm the leaves. My twelfth re-steep was listless and barely flavored. So I’m moving on to another raw puerh.

Yesterday was such a great adventure that I feel that I should be a bit more adventurous in my morning tea choice. So I’m trying this Tanyang Gongfu black, which is quite a pretty tea with small twisted leaves and little golden tips mixed throughout.

Later on I’ll be doing more puerh exploration with my new Xiying tea pot which I seasoned day before yesterday. More on that later today.

In the meantime this tea is quite nice. It has a very sweet fragrance with notes of a very light fruitiness and a slight coconut or vanilla note. It brews up into a reddish brown liquor with some slight murkiness. A slight bitterness and astringency mars the sweetness of the tea but it is otherwise a fairly nice black tea with complex notes of fruit, cocoa, raisins and something else I can’t identify. It gets sweeter as it cools.

This brews up into a beautiful golden liquid that smells sweet with notes of guava and honey. The taste is true to the smell. It is sweet and tasty with subtle notes of fruit.