Various Artists

Drank something from LP’s Mystery Pack that he sent me. I failed at drinking mystery tea, because I checked what it was before I drank it…I’ll do better next time! This was labeled as “Wuyi Star DHP Brick” or something like that. I used about 3g in my 60mL gaiwan. I think I need to start buying more Wuyi tea, because this was really good. The aroma had a decent bit of roastiness to it, which translated to the flavor in a tasty, rather than overwhelming, way. The main flavor under the roast was a mineral-y sweetness, which sometimes also came across as chocolatey to me. This was good – not exactly sure what it was from Wuyi Star, though I’ve seen a few possibilities on ebay.

I mixed the last bit of my samples of the 2015 Poundcake and Milk, Cream, and Alcohol for a nice session (3g and 4g respectively). It brewed up a pretty tasty tea – Very sweet, but had a bit of that bite that Poundcake was lacking. I’m sure many people love it for that lack, and I did like it, but I generally enjoy my young sheng having a bit of a bitterness to it. Fun little experiment to use up the tail ends of my samples :)

Drank a puerh I got from Liquid Proust tonight – not from one of the group buys. It was labeled “2011 Cha QZ – YS” (Also could’ve said 45 instead of YS lol). Neither he nor I could figure out what it actually was. Oh well. Used 4.8g in a 60mL gaiwan, so I was worried about bitterness, but it wasn’t bad. Seemed like a pretty gentle tea, possibly Yiwu. I got lighter floral sweetness with some soft fruity notes mixed in as well. It was pretty good tea, but I have no idea what tea it actually was lol.

Possible spoilers for Liquid Proust Mystery Group Buy ahead

Today I tried the tea labeled #2 from LP’s Mystery Group buy. It was pretty good as far as shou is concerned. I’m finding that I can enjoy ripe puerh, but I sort of have to force myself to drink it, so I think I’ll be focusing more on sheng, oolong, and other stuff as I continue on my tea journey.

Anywho, this one had a slight wet aroma, but nothing bad. The leaves were quite small, appeared to be like gongting grade to my inexperienced eye. A such, the tea got going quickly and died out pretty quickly as well. I did two brief rinses (probably would have been ok with one), then steeps of 10s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 25s, 45s, 60s, 3m(ish). Taste was sweet and woody. Got a small sourish notes in the first couple steeps, followed with a sweet, slightly chocolatey aftertaste which stayed in my mouth. First 4 steeps were that nice jet-black shou color, and lightened up along with the flavor, and more notably the texture, from then. Last steeps were still good, just less thickness and sweetness, more of a clean woody taste.

Not sure which of the three this might be. Like I said previously, I think that #1 is the fake 2015 cake, because it just tasted so wet to me. Right now I’m going to say this was the 2010 GNWL, because #3 had a bit more of an aged, camphor thing going on. Thankfully I have enough to do another session with both #3 and #2, so maybe I’ll get a bit of a better idea.

Possible Spoilers for Liquid Proust’s Mystery Group Buy

I drank the first of my mystery teas – the one labeled #3. Not a big shou fan, but I think this one was pretty good. Leaves had a woody camphor aroma, but I didn’t get camphor too much in the flavor. A bit of mouth cooling during the first couple steeps, but not too much. Later it started developing a nice earthy sweetness. I also kind of got some vanilla notes, and one of the mid-steeps gave me a coffee vibe for some reason. It was decently thick, but also died out rather quickly.

I think I can safely say this isn’t the 2015 fake GNWL, not because I know what a real one tastes like, but because this doesn’t taste wet enough to have been piled just last year. Not sure which of the other two it could be yet though.

Today it’s pretty freaking hot outside, and I had to get out and do some yardwork, which sucked. I came inside and, looking for something refreshing, saw a forgotten cup of yellowish liquid with some spent leaves in the bottom. It took me a bit to even remember what I had decided to cold brew before I remembered it was the remains of my session with the Sesame Baozhong from Dark Matter. I’m not sure it was even safe to drink at this point, as it had been in there for at least a week (covered in plastic wrap at least), but I drank it for science.

It tasted very light, as I would expect for 2g of spent leaves in a 16oz glass. It was a lightly fruity and refreshing drink, and nice to quench my thirst after being outside in the hot sun for an hour or two.

Drank an 08 Maocha from Liquid Proust’s box of sheng samples. This one was hard for me to drink/define. The 2010 was mostly sweet leather flavors, but this one had an aroma/flavor I haven’t yet encountered in tea. It was difficult to describe – reminded me of roasting vegetables at first, then I realized it was more just the spices/herbs involved. I picked up rosemary and peppercorn (not just black peppercorn but like the multi-colored ones). Taste was slightly bitter with peppercorn spice, though that eventually faded into a bit more of a sweet leather flavor. In the later steeps, the wet leaves smelled of seaweed, and I got some interesting “round” fruit notes. This tea was pretty good, but I enjoyed the 2010 maocha much more.

Drank an anonymous 2010 Mao Cha which I got from Liquid Proust. Really enjoyable session. The first steep was sugary sweet, which really surprised me. After that, bitterness crept in until it reached a crescendo around steep 4. The bitterness dropped off in the subsequent couple steeps and was replaced with a leathery sweetness that remained for many more steeps. Around steep 9 or so, the bitterness returned briefly. The sweetness sometimes acquired a floral quality, but was mostly like leather and sometimes tasted in the back of the throat. Thanks for this tea, LP! :)

Enjoying some ripe pu-erh this morning. Not sure really what kind or where it is from since it was a gift. It has a wonderful deep earthy taste and aroma though.

Today I blended two of my existing ordered teas for the first time. I’m kind of a purist so I’ve never really wanted to do this before but the circumstances were right.

I didn’t have quite enough of Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Farmer Leas Sun Moon Lake black tea for a full pot. But I also have an over-abundance of BTTC’s Alishan Wuyi black tea which I don’t care for so much. So, I decided to add a little of the Alishan Wuyi on top of the Sun Moon Lake just to see what would happen.

The results were fantastic! The blend was a nice earthy black tea blend with a slight hint of malt. But it helped take away some of that greenish/umami flavor I pick up with the Alishan Wuyi black tea. Or it blended with it perfectly.

My ratio was about 60% Sun Moon Lake and 40% Alishan Wuyi black. Pretty pleased with myself.

EDIT: I served this at our book club last night and most everyone agreed. Andrew nailed this tea in regards to capturing the feel of the book. Bravo, Andrew.

Andrew (LiquidProust) had offered to make a custom blend for my tea book club to coincide with the book House of Leaves. I basically told him that I need/want something that is dark, full of depth, and a bit confusing. After some messaging back and forth, he came up with this concoction: a Lui An tea from the 1990s, a ripe puerh from 2006, a 2016 Dianhong black tea, a 2015 Bang Dong, Black tea, a 2014 Shui Xian Wuyi roasted oolong, and Mugwort.

Whew! The blend itself looks fascinating. Despite there being a lot of dark leaves mixed together, it certainly looks like there is a lot going on if you know what you are looking at/for.

I decided to give this two quick 3 second rinses. The smell off of the wet leaves had me a bit worried. It smelled… old and bitter. The old part was okay as I enjoy the sort of old pages of a book smell. It was the bitter that concerned me. Not like an astringent bitter… more like a medicinal green bitter. Maybe that is the Mugwort? Either way, I was concerned.

After the two rinses, I steeped for 15 seconds. The liquor itself doesn’t have much, if any, of the bitter smell. It brewed up a golden amber color not unlike a thick, locally produced honey. The flavor here is very smooth. It does have a tinge of that green, raw plant flavor on the back end put it is not overpowering. I, again, suspect that to be the Mugwort. Maybe Andrew can weigh in here and give his thoughts. The rest of the flavors, as I said, are very smooth. I would say it is a perfect combination of a puerh and black tea flavor. Kind of like drinking an antique book.

After this first steep, I am impressed. This is a tea that, on the surface, could be intimidating if just judging by the ingredients. But the flavor on this first steep lends itself to being very drinkable and approachable even if it is a bit complex and layered (which is what I had requested!)

Second steep (20 seconds) and holy shit. That bitter type of smell that I couldn’t place? I’ve found it. It smells like that earthiness that you associate with a fresh plucked and cut beet. Like a light bulb going off, it hit me. That is exactly the smell of the wet leaves. And that taste still translates into the after taste a bit. The color of the liquor is slightly darker, a cinnamon brown color. Yeah… this is still good. It has such a smoothness to it. I would say that, if you can get over the slight earthy beetness on the aftertaste, this is much more approachable for newbies than just a regular ripe puerh. It isn’t as muddy or heavy. It is a bit lighter, cleaner, and smooth.

Andrew… you could totally blend this and market it as something like “Dream Leaves” or “House of Dreams” or “Leaves of Dreams.” I don’t know… spit balling here. But, really, this is good. And, dare I say it, I’m feeling a bit of a tingly head buzz just two steeps in?? Maybe I’m inhaling too much of the incense I have burning but I am getting something going on.

3rd steep, 25 seconds. Beet-ness is still with us in the wet leaves. Let me just say here that somehow, for some reason, the song “House of the Rising Sun” is a damn near perfect song to go along with this tea. It came on Pandora and it just fits. The color remains the same here. The flavor is mostly similar but a little more beet flavor on the end. But not bad at all. And seriously, I feel ridiculously giggly. I don’t remember a tea doing this to me. I almost feel high… not that I know what that feels like or anything… But this tea is definitely having an affect on me.

4th steep, 30 seconds. Color holds. Cinnamon brown. Interestingly enough, that beet like flavor is slowly becoming the more dominating flavor. This makes me question if it is the mugwort at all. Having never had Liu An tea, perhaps the flavor is coming from that tea instead of the mugwort. I’m starting to assume this simply because I would expect the flavors the the fermented teas to outlast that of the mugwort. Perhaps I am wrong. Again, someone with more knowledge on these two leaves can lend some clarity.

5th steep, 45 seconds. During this steep, I smelled the water and leaves and I finally got a hint of a whiff of a classic ripe puerh smell. Also, because researching things tends to be a love of mine, I went on a search to see if I could find a taste description of Liu An tea. My search returned a lot of descriptions using words like medicinal and earthy. That would seem to fit in with my earthy beet description. So, maybe that solves it! The earthy beetness could very well be the Liu An. Yeah… still digging this tea and the impact it is having.

6th steep, 1 min. So, I decided to switch up my music selection from random to a more relaxing nature/spa sounds. Annnnddd now I just want to lie down and pass out. My brain and my body are trying to tell me, “It’s fine. Just lie down and close your eyes for a second.” Which, I would, but I have to pick my son up from school in about 45 minutes so… that won’t work. In the meantime, I’m in a consistent sweet spot with this tea. Color and flavors have hit a constant at this point. I am happy.

7th steep, 1 min 30 seconds. Andrew, dude, what have you done to me!? Haha this is some light headed, get lost in the clouds, stuff here. I’d give you a hug right now if I could. Seriously, I have never had a tea make me feel like this stuff here. I wish I could say that I am over exaggerating but… my head is tingly and soft, my body is super relaxed. I had a banana and oatmeal square for breakfast so I don’t think I can blame it on that haha. Oh, right. The tea is still good as well. It is getting slightly thinner on the after taste but it is still drinkable.

I would love to keep this up but the time has come to go and get my son. But yeah… Home. Run. Thanks Andrew.

Session picture: https://www.instagram.com/p/BLv3kr2BixY/

So, I have a bag of Japanese green tea. I have NO idea what kind it is. The bag is all in Japanese, my sister gave it to me with the only instructions being, “My friends husband was in Japan and brought back this tea and she gave it to me and I thought you would like it.” With that being said, I am leaning towards it being a steamed sencha? Maybe? It is a very delicate and silky green that has the propensity to turn very bitter, very fast when over steeped. I’ve been doing 170 degrees around 45-60 seconds per first steep. Anything more than that and it goes bitter.

Anywho, I had some extra ginger root and I really wanted a ginger tea this morning. So, I cut up some of the ginger root, a few grams worth, and added it in with this Japanese green and steeped it by my normal parameters for this tea. It turned out really well! The tea and ginger blended nicely. The ginger was there but not too strong (though I wouldn’t have minded if it were stronger). The green tea was its normal silky green flavor with just a hint of bitterness.

Pretty pleased with myself!

After reading Liquid Proust’s review of the YQH Bulang a few days ago, I decided to try it myself. This was my second session, and the first try was underwhelming (which is pretty much what he said). During the 1st steep, I got a bright idea and pulled out a 2006 6FTM Bulang sample from Tea Urchin to do a side-by-side tasting. These are my notes.

The dry leaf was what you would expect: the YQH had beautiful full leaves that came apart easily and the 6FTM was tightly compressed. The small bits and powder probably are more inherent in the tea than due to my technique in breaking off my sample. First steep (10 s): surprise: the older tea has significantly lighter color than the younger tea. Second surprise: They tasted quite similar; the YQH had more complexity but wasn’t as potent as the 6FTM.

Second steeps (10 s): The colors are now very similar. The initial darkness in the 6FTM is probably due to the powder that’s now in my strainer. Both teas have that smoked meat aroma I associate with Bulang. The YQH is stronger. The YQH also has more flavor. The 6FTM seems just a bit washed out after I tried the YQH. On an absolute basis, the 6FTM is fairly full in the mouth, has good flavor and a bit of complexity. I liked it well enough to buy another sample but not a cake (this is about my 5th session). When I go the the YQH, though, it is just a bit more powerful, has bigger mouth-feel, and is more complex. Kind of like that kid in school who did everything just a little bit better than you did. It’s a bit hard to judge the finish when you go back and forth, but the 6FTM seemed to have a very good finish. After waiting a couple of minutes to let it fade (though it was still pretty good after 2 minutes) I finished the slightly cool YQH. The taste had opened up to be a bit stronger than I remembered, and was showing some stone fruit at the finish. There is a slight astringency I didn’t notice in the 6FTM but otherwise the finishes are comparable, though the YQH seemed to last longer, though of course it is building upon the 6FTM finish.

3rd steep (20 s): This is usually my best steep. I waited 10 minutes for the finish to fade. Very similar visually. Excellent nose on the YQH; less on the 6FTM, though it is quite good on an absolute basis. I like the 6FTM a lot; it is showing some sweetness and the smokiness is less obvious. The taste glides gently into a smooth, pleasant, finish. The finish is slightly astringent, but not really bitter. The YQH is also less smoky, but I’m having a harder time finding the flavor: It is what wine drinkers call “closed-in,” which means you can sense flavor but it’s hiding. When I aerate the tea in my mouth, it shows a slightly vegetative flavor. For this round, I’m favoring the 6FTM slightly, just because it is more approachable. I’m noticing a big, astringent finish that I suspect is due to the combined effect of the two teas. Hard to separate things at this point. The qi is also starting to affect my judgement. Time for another break.

4th (30 s): 6FTM is really nice. Sweet and smooth with a bit of fruit. Fruit especially obvious in the finish. Some astringency. Probably wants even more age. The YQH is very similar to the 6FTM at this point. Slightly stronger, and more astringent. I think most of the finish is coming from the YQH, but it’s impossible to separate the effects, when the finish lasts for 10 minutes and I have 30 sec between tastes. The flavor of the YQH is a bit lighter, with citrus elements, while the 6FTM is more straightforward. I still have a slight preference for the YQH, but it IS slight.

Steeps 5-8: This is where I abandon myself to a tea-drunk to see which tea lasts longer. The 6FTM grew more bitter in later steeps, while the YQH just faded away gracefully.

Bottom line: the YQH is the better tea, but not by a wide margin. The 6FTM is definitely the better value.

Matcha day today with the grandkids. The 8 and 10 year-olds surprised me by enjoying both plain and flavored matcha. They’re now making matcha ice cream. Lots of fun and I got to sip down my caramel matcha. Or, more accurately, “ice-cream down.”

I hit up the Teasouce booth at the state fair since who can resist tea samples AND looking at all the wonderful quilts, knitted and crocheted items, jellies, cookies, and breads showcased in the building. They only had samples of four teas available and all were served iced and sweetened. I skipped the red berries since I’ve had it before, it’s a rather nice berry based herbal. The Minnasota N’ice I had been wanting to try for awhile since it sounded intriguing being an orange and jasmine flavored tea meant for icing. The orange was rather strong in my sample fading into a light. floral aftertaste. I didn’t get much of the base, but it’s been awhile since I’ve gas a sweetened tea so I think I’ll still want to try it on its own before passing judgement. The next sample was an organic lime flavored green tea. I was a little underwhelmed by it, but again may have been the sugar. The last I tried was a raspberry matcha. I don’t care much for flavored matcha and this was super sweet. The raspberry flavor was spot on though.

There was also another tea seller called Log Cabin Teas with a booth. They had a whole wall of tea dispensers for people to dispense their own samples, but I wasn’t willing to fight the mob to try any. They had a sign saying something along the lines of “samples are for tasting not for drinking”, from what I could see it wasn’t doing a whole lotta good. From what I could see they were also predominantly flavored and probably sweetened teas.

It’s finally gotten too hot in here to brew my usual afternoon tea. I’ve been subsisting on cold brewed tea but wanted something a bit more punchy today since I’ve managed to bake a rhubarb pie despite it being 85F and over 50% humidity in here. This is how I found out my Libre tea maker makes a decent iced matcha maker. Between the metal screen and the ice cubes I got about an inch of foam and only a few small chunks. It was only cooking matcha but just about any things refreshing served stupid cold.

When I found out I wouldn’t be able to attend the Midwest Tea Festival I decided to look into some of the vendors from last year that I would be missing. I decided to order samples first from Singe Origin Teas because I’ve seen good things (plus they have a chesnut tea, which I needed). I ended up “throwing in” the Waverly Tea Estate tea grown in Florida because 1) I’m a plant person and I’ve always wanted to grow my own tea and 2) it would be nice to have premium tea here in the US. I figured I have spent more on Kickstarters that didn’t pan out so I might as well try this.

http://www.singleoriginteas.com/Waverly_Tea_Estate_p/florida.htm

My tea was picked 5 days ago, and I got my 6 oz in the mail yesterday. I didn’t give any parameters other than “green” so I got a medium rolled and medium pan fried green. I wasn’t sure what to expect and went really conservative for my first brewing temp since I thought it could be a super bitter spring green.

1st steep: 4 grams, 8 oz water, 100 F, 1.5 min infusion

The tea looked really dark in the package so I almost was going to treat it like a toasted tea, but when I got it out I noticed it was actually dark green and had a really fresh green smell like a sencha so I was afraid of going too high with the temp. It brewed a light green gold color and started to smell a little toasty. It ended up having a super silky mouthfeel and tasted sort of light and buttery.

2nd steep: 8 oz water, 125 F, 1.5 min infusion

The first seemed a bit light so I decided to up the temp for this one. It brewed to more of a green color. There was a bit of a butteryness still there but now with more vegetal spinach notes. The toasty notes are now coming out and it’s like a cross between a summer dragonwell and a lightly toasted oolong.

2nd steep: 8 oz water, 125 F, 1.5 min infusion

I kept the brewing parameters the same here. It was very much like the second steep but now with a slightly dry finish.

4th steep: 8 oz water, 160 F, 1.5 min infusion

Whoops, I wanted to up the temperature a bit, but didn’t mean to go this high. I honestly I thought I ruined it. It turned a dark gold color and tasted like a smooth hojicha or even a darkly toasted barley tea, it was a little bizarre. I had a bit more of the dryness at the end.

5th steep: 8 oz water, 140 F, 1.5 min infusion

I just had to find out. It’s gold with a green undertone. It’s still very full flavored and now has a buttery mouth-coating ending followed by a fuzzy dryness.

Assesment: An aromatic, full flavored, chimera of a tea. Not quite like anything I’ve had before, and really resilient to my playing around with brewing parameters. I’ll use up the remainder in a gaiwan session once I have the time. Now that I’m not afraid of getting a super bitter cup I’ll probably start with a temp of at least 140-150.

Decided to throw a few snow chrysanthemum flowers into my mystery Hong Kong hei cha after reading the chrysanthemum tea thread in the discussion section. Neglected to rinse it first so the brine flavor of the dark tea combined with the strange and inexplicable briney flavor of the snow chrysanthemum to make super brine.

Subsequent steepings were much better with the flowers adding a pretty red color. I didn’t add enough to pick out its flavor, but it did round out the dark tea nicely. I even threw in a few more during the later steepings once I thought the first few were spent.

Been a rough week at work and I’ve been hitting the caffeine a bit hard so I brewed some hibiscus for my iced tea. I buy large bags of dried hibiscus “flowers” (I think they are technically sepals) from the Mexican grocery downtown. They are labled as ‘flor de jamacia’ and come in big 1/2 lb bags for only a few bucks. I like it better than any hibiscus blend I’ve tried since it brews up stronger almost like a tart fruit juice. A few cinnamon sticks pieces add a nice bit of spice.

It’s pretty forgiving to brew. Time, temperature and such don’t seem to matter much. It makes it a good weekday tea to brew while making dinner where juggling making pasta and trying to get precise brewing temp/time may not be much of an option.

Everyone has their own ideal masala chai. It is one tea where people rarely see eye to eye, and that’s even before the black vs. milk and sugar difference that can make a harsh chai awesome or a balanced one weak. My local tea store while having a good selection of what I’m sure are good quality masalas just seemed to lack what I was looking for. In my mind masala chai has lots of cardamom and little or no allspice. This is rarely the case as cardamom is usually the most expensive spice in the mix. As for allspice I imagine it must either be cheap or a lazy way of trying to get a well rounded flavor (maybe both). I like the spice itself but it’s presence in chai usually puts me off.

So in order to find my own personal “just right” chai I’ve started to blend my own. It’s actually rather easy if you have access to a strong black Crush Tear Curl tea such as the loose leaf Lipton sold in Indian groceries (not the American one!). As well as access to a spice store or Indian grocery that sells whole spices. I cook a lot so I actually already had everything I needed in my pantry first time around. I’m just now getting to the end of my third batch and I’m ready to make another. I make it starting with 8oz of “Kilimanjaro” a CTC Tanzanian tea from Gong Fu tea then roast and crush spices including cinnamon (both true and cassia), cloves, black pepper, fennel, star anise, the nibs from ground down whole nutmeg, and yes even sometimes small amounts of allspice. To the final blend goes ginger (either dried or candied) and sometimes bay leaves.

Tonight’s cup I made with an almond/coconut milk blend and sweetened with some Mexican cone sugar (a close approximation to Indian jaggery). I like the extra molasses flavor the sugar brings but wished I had used whole milk. I also simmered the tea in water and added the almond milk after which I think makes for a less creamy and aromatic cup than simmering it spin straight milk. Despite this it was warm and sweet and slightly spicy. Perfect for a late winter Sunday and best yet almost exactly tasting how I imagined it should.

My sig fig brought me a hei cha bing from Hong Kong. I’m not sure what it is since everything is in Chinese characters other than “201305” on the back of the wrapper. It’s chopped leaves with some stems and the cake isn’t pressed super tight so I can pull off chunks with my fingers. I don’t know what’s popular in Hong Kong but regionally I would guess maybe this might be a liubao?

I’m just now starting to get into dark tea so I only had some basic affordable pu erh from Gong fu tea to compare it to. I shop there a lot but they by no means specialize in pu erh which I can’t exactly blame them for since the most interest probably comes from dieters who would drink motor oil if it was said to be ancient Chinese miracle whatever. The flavor of this cake is very similar to the pu erh I’ve had. It’s dark, earthy, with a strange brine flavor. No astringency or bitterness, and it’s good for multiple infusions; at least five even with a rinse and some of the infusions being 2-3 minutes. The leaves after are still dark and distinct despite being cut in small pieces.

My guess is that this is a decent everyday drinking tea. I enjoy it and think it does well as an after dinner tea (so long as I don’t need to sleep anytime soon) and probably would go well with some fatty porky dim sum. I’m very happy with it.

2016 Sheng Olympics

As part of the #2016ShengOlympics organized by LiquidProust, I decided to do a side-by-side tasting of all three Verdant “old tree” shengs. I figured with 50ml gaiwans it should not be overwhelming (I was not entirely correct; it’s still a lot of tea!)

Here’s the teas before the start of the session:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBePGVTFi—/

And here’s the aftermath showing the most intact and largest leaves I could find:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBe44bnliwW/

I took each tea through 11 steeps over several hours in round-robin fashion using 3.5 grams of leaf in each 50ml gaiwan with 205F (+/-2F) bottled spring water heated in a clay boiler. I let the tea guide my steep times, ending up with 10/10/10/15/20/30/40/60/90/120/300 seconds for each one.

All of the teas were quite mellow with mild aromatics and easy on my stomach. And the energy imparted was moderate; I never felt too wired.

Summary:

300 Year Tree: Light yellow liquor. Aromas of pine in the first half of the session, turning tart and fruity in the latter half. Medium bodied, slightly oily mouthfeel. The flavor started fruity, turned to sweet-tart citrus with slight spice in later steeps. Some faint astringency in the beginning and again near the end when I pushed the steep times. Overall a decent mild young sheng.

1000 Year Tree: Medium yellow liquor. Aromas of pine in the first half, turning to old books, then spicy-tart near the end. Medium bodied, fairly oily mouthfeel and a soothing feeling coating the throat in most steeps. The flavor was primarily sweet-tart with slight spice and pine notes appearing at times, and citrus and herbs arising in the later half. Faintly astringent in the longer steeps. I liked this one just a little better than the 300 Year, mostly because of the feeling in my throat.

1800 Year Tree: Medium-dark yellow liquor (but not quite amber). Aromas were primarily tart, sweet, faint pine, woody, turning fruity sweet in the long steeps. Medium bodied, slightly oily mouthfeel. Flavors started as a sweet-tart balance with faint pine, citrus emerging in the mid-steeps, some herbal notes, ending with light sweetness and slight pepper. No astringency. This one edged out the other two in terms of flavor, but just barely. My notes repeatedly show “a mellow, smooth cup”.

Any one of these would be a good beginner’s sheng since they were all quite mild and well behaved. In truth I cannot pick a winner since they were all so similar. I had to really focus to pick out the differences. Also I did notice some slight camphor mid-session, but since that can carry over in the mouth from one tea to the next I could not attribute it to any one tea.

So what did I learn after drinking about a liter and a half of tea in one night?

(1) When I closed my eyes I felt I was swooping around the cosmos with “Rocket Man” playing in my head.

(2) Drinking this much tea leads to truly epic pee sessions. (Wife: “Did someone leave the water running?” Me: “Go back to sleep dear”).

(3) A few of my Steepster friends keep weird hours on Instagram as well.

(edited to add “2016 Sheng Olympics” at the top)