Tea Urchin

Thanks a bunch to Yang-chu and the rest of the Steepsters who went in on a big TeaUrchin order! And special thanks to mrmopar for hooking me up with the puerh group order thread :)

Trying my first sheng from the shared cakes! YAY! The leaves are slightly glossy and beautifully compressed. (All the leaves from the TeaUrchin order appear high quality to my admittedly untrained eyes.) This is an energetic, punchy young thing with pleasant astringency and slight bitterness. Slight floral undertones and just enough sweetness to balance it out. I REALLY dig this. Very happy I got to have some. I will eagerly drink the rest :D

Can’t wait to try the others!

Dry – Fairly sweet and aromatic for a autumn cake, some floral notes.
Wet – Thick Honey and a more apparent floral scent.
Liquor – Mid amber color.

I got this tea as a sample from my order from TeaUrchin.

This tea started as a fairly surprising pleasure since it started with a very pleasant honeyed sweetness and some thickness although it was very limited compared to Spring offerings I’ve had. The broth had a fairly good hold and the Huigan lingered in the tongue for a while.

After the third steep the broth started going very thin and astringency started to become more apparent. The overall experience was OK, if you want a Puerh for work or to drink on the go this is a good choice, otherwise I’d recommend keeping with Spring offerings to fully enjoy the mouth-feel and apparent deep honey notes that Xi Kong can offer.

I have to admit, I bought this one because me and my wife just loved the wrapper. You should visit Tea Urchin’s website to see what I mean. Very cute. But it is an autumn pu erh, and it shows. It has a pleasant enough flavor, but it just lacks zip and zing. It is very safe to drink now while young, with very little astringency, well balanced and mellow. I still stand by my statement that Tea Urchin teas are outstanding, this one is definitely pretty good.

I am working my way through the several pu erh samples I recently ordered from Tea Urchin. This is another good one! Though I like some of their others better. It is well balanced, and brews a nice golden honey color. It has a sharp astringency, but not over the top. It has a mellow but stern cha qi. It held up well to numerous infusions. Another lovely tea from a great company!

I am really excited to sample this Bing Dao this morning. Hearing all the stories, I am curious as to what this tea is all about. Last night I sampled the 2012 Spring Guafengzhai and, I must say, I was rather disappointed. I found it to be rather fruity, probably too fruity to be true gushu. Anywho, I found it ok, but nothing special. This tea seems to be more consistent with true gushus I’ve had before. The wet leaves produce a subtle fruitiness with a tad of smokiness… just enough to make it pleasant.
The broth is thick in the mouth with a good balance of ku wei and sweetness, a sweetness which tends to linger for awhile. There is a soft citrus note that I commonly come across in gushus that I enjoy. Not much in terms of hui gan but definitely some qi. Really enjoying this one. Would I pay the asking price for a full bing? Probably not. 84/100

Another lovely tea from Tea Urchin. The first three steeps were quite bitter and acidic, and the flavor seemed kind of flat. But on the fourth, it opened up. Just a little fruitiness and honey sweetness. It held up very well to a good 10 infusions before turning a bit bitter again. The energy is strong and stable, not too flighty. For those of us getting into the pu erh thing, I think we are trying to guess about whether a tea like this will age well, lose the bitterness, and evolve into something wonderful. So it is a bit of a gamble when we lack the experience to tell what flavors will develop into. I think I am going to take a chance on this one and order a cake. At the very least, like all teas I’ve tried from Tea Urchin, it wreaks of high quality. In another few years, at least, I will hopefully see how this one ages and add it to my experience!

The vendor description is spot is spot on about this one. Woody notes with mushroom and a slight sweet on the end. This is a very quiet and calming tea that brews a rich amber color. It shows more age and depth of flavor than a cake pressed in the same year of production. I would guess as that having it stored has helped it age faster. Not for a faint of heart drinker! I started with one wash and 15 second steeps to bring this one out.

This is my fourth tea sample from Tea Urchin. The only problem I’m having is that they are all so good I want to order a cake of everything I’ve tried! Pu erh is an expensive passion. This was another high quality tea with a nice feel to it. It is definitely on the more mellow side and seems to already be exhibiting some signs of aging. Got a good number of steeps, each honey colored medium bodied with not much bitterness and some honey like sweetness. The cha qi was solid but not overpowering. Another solid tea from a great company. An added plus – the wrapper is adorable!

Wow, talk about bitter! This tea is not for the faint of heart. It is incredibly bitter, purposely made to be so. Will this bitterness translate into a well aged pu erh? Perhaps! But I would not drink it again for at least another few years. It does, however, have staying power, lasting a god number of infusions, and you can just tell that this is a quality tea. It has a nice feel to it, possesses medium body, and so far is not terribly stimulating. I’m not sure whether I want to buy a cake and age it, but I am considering it! I am not going to rank it because I just wouldn’t know how to.

A lovely tea acquired from Tea Urchin. It has a touch of fruitiness, the good kind of bitterness, and a well balanced young pu erh flavor that held up well to a good number of steepings. It seems like it would have the potential to age well, it just has that feel to it, though I suppose one never knows. The cha qi was really different, it wasn’t overly stimulating but rather facilitated a calm alertness. The only downside is the price – a cake comes in at just over $100. If it were half that, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. The sample came as a freebie with a recent order.

This is my first tea from Tea Urchin. I was very excited to try some teas from them, the company has a nice feel to it. Their wrappers are really fun (I know, don’t judge a book by its cover or a pu by its wrapper. Isn’t that how the saying goes?) Their teas are a bit on the more expensive side, so I was hoping for high quality in return. This particular tea is not one of their own, but rather is from the Langhe factory. This ripe pu erh didn’t disappoint. I’m going to have a hard time going back to Menghai ripes after this one. It is a exceedingly smooth tea. Rich, medium bodied, and not a hint of bitterness or any off flavors. It is just a fine tea! Creamy, very slightly woodsy, and clean. I have several other Tea Urchin samples I will review in the weeks ahead. But this is surely a good start.

Many teas don’t have to be complex to be appreciated. They might display a few outstanding characteristics that make them a joy to drink. Case in point: this 2012 Man Zhuan. Enticingly sweet, thick and oily mouth feel, bee pollen and fruit flavors and slow-building Qi.

I’m a big fan of Man Zhuan shengs and this one in particular. It starts out soft and minty with a hint of lemon. The mid-steeps present a flavor reminiscent of icy-cold mountain spring water with a sweetness that coats the throat and a pleasant touch of bitterness to keep you honest. The tea has a calming energy and good endurance.

I’ve been drinking Shengs for a while now, but other than a couple selections from Verdant tea, most of my purchases have been moderately priced cakes and samples; they’ve been enjoyable but I felt it was time to really explore the upper echelons of raw pu-erhs and from what I learned, Tea Urchin was the place to go. I bought four samples and Eugene generously threw in a fifth and suggested I start with the manzhuan. This is a young tea and I bought these samples with an eye to getting a cake and aging it.

The first couple of steeps were sweet and complex with that lovely eucalyptus taste and a fruity base. Successive steeps became quite bitter (as I expected) but still very rich and tasty. Quality Shengs also generate heat and energy in the throat and chest and this one was no exception. I was buoyed along during the day on a steady tea high.

With this sheng—and, I’m sure, with my other more expensive samples—I feel like I’m crossing the borderland from tea to precious elixir.

Quite frankly my dear friends I should not be drinking something I cannot afford. My love of sheng know no bounds and I had to at least try it. I probably used around 5 grams and the resulting liquor was pale and sweet very light. Do not let this tea fool you. After one tiny cup I went outside and tended to a tiny Korean Fir bonsai that has not been doing well. I was with it for maybe 30 minutes when I realized it was as if time was standing still. This tea was very mild in terms of flavor but it was knocking me to the ground in chaqi department. The body becomes very relaxed. When I returned to the tea I knew to go slow and really enjoy this incredible gem. The pale liquor was now a brilliant yellow-gold and the sweetness intensified. This tea truly creeps up on you in flavor and in its intensity. I started this session yesterday and I am drinking this as I write. Words cannot do it justice. At nearly 300 USD for a cake its by far the most expensive I have ever had. It is truly a magnificen tea. I love the way it makes me feel. I can only imagine buying this and aging it.

Quite frankly I knew I was in for a special tea. The dried leaves are the longest I have ever seen. The initial steepings presented an intense mouth feel and flavors that I can never describe. The later steepings became more subdued but still beyond interesting nonetheless. I have totally fallen for the world of Sheng. Beyond the flavor and aroma profiles you are dealing with teas which are mind blowing. Teas that take your mind and body to places you have never been before. To say I highly recommend this tea would be an understatement.

I have truly gone astray into the world of Sheng Puer a