Shang Tea

This was a sample I picked up when I went into Shang’s store last. I wrote a note at one point and then it must have gotten deleted before saving. I remember liking this enough to want to buy more. It was a sweet green oolong flavor. I will have to add another note if I get my hands on another sample.

Tea #21 from HHTTB2

This is a quite dark leaf for a white tea; it’s a gradient of light to dark greens.

The flavor is dominantly jasmine, but it’s not an overpowering perfume, more of a delicate refreshing floral. There’s also a very subtle salty/sweet note. The base is slightly creamy and doesn’t have any dissonant hay or straw notes. A shorter steep definitely helps keep the jasmine under control.

I’m glad I had a chance to try this, as I hadn’t heard of the company previously. The price point is fair and there is a definite resteepability to the leaves. This would be a pretty fair day-to-day jasmine.

I do not like floral teas. Shang’s Tangerine blossom surprised me so I thought maybe I would enjoy this one, but not today. This was way to strong and overpowering for me.

I do not usually go for floral teas, so I had put this sample to the back of my tea drawer and forgotten about it. I was in a hurry one morning and didn’t have too much time to brew a cup of tea with my steeper so tossed this sample in my bag to make at work. Boy was I surprised. I must have steeped this 4-5 times and every cup was wonderful. It was sweet, citrusy, with just a hint of floral. I am going to have to try this again just to be sure the rainy day wasn’t affecting my taste buds.

Here’s Hoping Traveling Tea Box #8
Wow this one got high ratings. I hate to rain on this parade… But it was wayyyyy too perfumey for me. I love jasmines but this one tasted quite bitter, extremely overwhelmingly floraly and very perfume like! :(

Side note: my tonsillitis is back! It hasn’t even been a whole month yet since my last encounter! This is getting out of hand!

Even if I’m not sure (probably because of my English and my lack of Culture regarding tea harvests) of what the tea is made of (white , black tea, mix, black tea cultivated with white teas?) I really enjoyed it.

It has such a lovely scent and taste so fruity (citrus to me). It’s a solutely smooth with a hint of pleasant astringency.

Thank you so much Nicole for sharing this one with me in one of our trade.It was ages ago but better late than never to taste good teas :)

This wild green tea is surreal. The flavor is just so unlike anything else I’ve tasted and no matter how familiar with it I become, I feel like I’m experiencing this tea anew every time I come back to it. I’m always pleasantly surprised all over again.

In a few words I would say this tea reminds me very much of a broth. The buttery texture is generous. It’s quite herbaceous and vegetal with lots of umami and there are grassy tones underscored with a rich sweetness and hints of roasted seaweed. All the flavors come together to create a very complex taste that is well-balanced and multi-faceted. There is a top note of lemon that adds a fresh, bright quality to this tea.

At the time I am writing this review, this is my absolute number one tea, the favorite I keep coming back to. I had a little trouble initially getting the brewing formula right to get the most out of it, but after I figured out what worked best for me, I have had a perfect cup every time. It is wonderfully soothing and it overtakes my senses in such a welcome way. I get so excited about it whenever I first taste a new cup that I joke that this tea is my catnip. Purr, purr, purr.

Best brewing method I’ve found (I’ve tried so, so many with this tea) is 2g per 100ml water at 176F/80C for 45 seconds, then add 15 seconds each time.

on to the wish list for this one. Thanks again to Nicole for sending this my way. I am a fan of this one.

mmmm thank you Nicole for sending this my way. Still a fan of this tea…it’s like drinking a warm cinnamon bread…something in this being sweet, and slightly bready. Not sure why i’m getting cinnamon out of this one, but i am. so there. ha!

boychik sent this one my way and fulfilled one of my wishlist teas. I’ve been wanting to try this one again since i had it almost a year ago and didn’t get the chance to write much about it. this is a great tea. this is smooth and clean…there’s a bit of a note in here that could almost be floral but it’s not…if that makes any sense. There’s a sweetness here to, making this a unique cup of tea. thanks for the re-visit boychik!

this was a sipdown from nicole the other day. dying here from being sick and working 12+ hours days this week since sunday…can’t tell you anything about this tea besides the fact that i took 2 mins to put it on my shopping list. that should be all you need if you know the kind of teas i like.

thanks so much nicole

SIPDOWN! Another tea from teh lovely nicole I was worried a little about this one because teas with the word “blossom” in it tend to be floral in nature. This one is no exception, but not so much that i didn’t enjoy it. I REALLY liked the citrusy flavour of this one and the base is a very smooth black that didn’t overpower the taste of the tea or interfere with it. It was a really nice afternoon tea to be drinking. There are floral notes in this, at least as far as my tastebuds go. it is also one heck of a delicious smelling tea! Thank you nicole!

On a cloudy summer eve here in Kansas City, we are sipping on this tea which is one of our newest additions in the shop. Six years ago, our owner Shang pressed tea bricks with white tea from the da bai/da hao cultivars of the tea plant (the traditional white tea cultivars), and they have been slowly aging and developing some nice earthy undertones with the smooth finish that you have come to expect from our teas.

The process for making this tea is very similar to a sheng or raw puerh except that we use the white tea varietals to process this tea. We are really enjoying it here in the shop, so give it a shot if you enjoy pu-erh and are looking for something different to try.

With one round of snow and ice just now beginning to recede and another barreling toward us at full speed, something with a little “spring” to it is needed. Tonight, this smells fresh and tastes mildly floral—-bringing to mind the scent of potting soil and greenhouses.

Chrysanthemum has a very strong flavor—not unpleasant; but it’s opinionated. Knowing that, I tossed a pinch of peppermint white tea in the mix when making a cuppa this evening. (Operating on the mint-makes-everything-better theorem.)

It’s gonna take a larger mint-to-mum proportion to drown out the stemmy flavor, but it’s still a palate-cleansing change of pace after a day with too much junk food.

Giving this an opportunity to prove its calming and anxiety busting properties. Flavor is growing on me. Sort of like a sharper and sterner version of chamomile.

I am a hairball of anxiety this evening. Cancer found in my mom’s routine x-ray; moving into lungs and liver. Looks like an additional round of bureaucratic warfare is looming to prove that we paid to have our post-tornado ruins privately bulldozed and that we don’t owe the city for (not) doing it. Just when I think we can finally put all that behind us…

My mom (82) is facing the news wonderfully: “I know how it ends,” she says. My God has promised to provide for my needs and I believe that includes whatever it takes to slog through another tornado-related worry. Now if I could just get the Not Knowing Monster to remove his fangs from the back of my neck…

If this is as calm-producing as purported, I may have to buy it and tulsi by the bushel for the months ahead.

(P.S. Speaking of needs provided for in wacky and wonderful ways…a neighborhood stray cat, black with a few streetwise scuff marks, wandered into my yard for a cuddle earlier this week and has extended his hangout. Climbed into my lap and did that paw-paw thing that lowered my blood pressure 10 points. I haven’t broken down and bought a bag of Fancy Feast yet, but a friendship may be developing.)

Either a) this is an acquired taste or b) this cup had a few more chrysanthemum heads than the previous couple, but this round is a bit sweeter than the previous ones without additions of any kind. Less leaf mulchy. I think we’re finally getting acquainted.

Chrysanthemum has some powerful health mojo: (www.bewellbuzz.com/wellness-buzz/10-health-benefits-chrysanthemum-tea/)

Tastewise, I’m not sure what to make of it. My first experience with chrysanthemum tea was a bagged version that tasted like stale dead flowers. This one from Shang Tea has a savory dried herb taste. I keep thinking it reminds me a little of unsalty chicken or beef boullion.

However, if the good-for-me aspect is really as good for me as I’m reading, I’m willing to keep experimenting!

So…what does chrysanthemum taste like to you? Do you sweeten?

Backlogging I got this from either Azzrian or Nicole in of the free christmas offers. Sorry I am not good at keeping track sometimes who specificly sends me a tea. So please I hope you don’t feel insulted or offended. Thank you very much for gifting me this.

This is a good tasting black tea that is a tad strong to what I used to. Its still good though and kind of tastes like a yunnan tea. And has a good brisk flavor. And I did add some sugar.

We have debated for awhile about whether or not we should post notes about our own tea, but we thought it might be fun to just occasionally share our thoughts on a particular tea that we carry (without rating the tea that is!).

So we thought we’d start off with our newest tea, our special reserve green tea. While our owner, Zehua Shang, was on his friends wu-long tea farm, they visited a wild growing section adjacent that hasn’t been used for commercial use in 10+ years. We decided to pick some of these wild tea leaves and process them as a green tea and the result was better than we could expect.

The taste is incredibly fresh with a delicious buttery and sweet grassy complexity. We sipped it throughout the evening tonight and brewed it about 5-6 times, enjoying the changing flavor and color of the tea. We love this tea and hope you will too!

Wow! I’ve said that I don’t much like darker oolongs, but clearly I’ve been drinking the wrong kinds! This tastes amazing! I love that this weather allows for me to enjoy my teas both cold and hot. Had a nice cold brewed lemon green tea in my thermos for a long walk in the park with my puppies. Frozen blueberries make an awesome substitute when you are lacking ice cubes!

And now, the evening has turned chilly and I’m turning to a hot beverage to relax me and warm me up for bedtime. I had originally planned on some Neapolitan Honeybush (yummy!) but I was also in the mood for something new. Time to break into some samples form Azzrian! I know it’s late for a caffeinated tea, but what the heck.

This tea is fantastic. I can’t believe the flavors here! It’s like roasted chestnut, sweet and creamy. It’s also very floral. I suppose it’s supposed to be orchid, but to be honest, I’ve never known an orchid flower to smell like anything. Am I smelling the wrong orchids?

What a wonderful comforting tea. I hate to add another tea to my must buy list, but this is definitely permanent collection worthy. So few teas have that honor since I’m all about variety.

I just had my husband try it out. I’m trying to train his tastebuds. :) He says it tastes like caramel and vanilla. He also says it reminds him of Japanese tea only not bad (He dislikes Japanese teas). Awesome. :)

Off to try my second infusion now!

Mmm.. still good!

The Great Cupboard Cleanout continues. After (ahem, no, I am not going to admit how many) years, this has finally lost all but the smallest hint of honeysuckle flavor, but hints are all I really want in a floral tea. Was excellent new, decent aged.

Life lately hasn’t been conducive to lingering, reflective cups of tea or notes about them. After a day in jet-engine adrenaline overdrive, I grabbed this hoping that a cup of something delicate and elegant will help crank down the blood pressure.

I was going to write that the flavor is spot on, but that’s stating the obvious—it is honeysuckle, rather than honeysuckle flavored. The scent is wonderful and I keep wondering where the bees are.