Various Artists

Today at the store I saw Arizona Tea’s new oak brewed tea, it was an impulse buy once I saw it.

They use honey sugar and honey to sweeten it which is nice, but what is odd is the strong taste of oak it has. I doubt that the tea was in the oak barrels very long because Arizona is too massive to wait for a new batch to be put out. The look of the liquid is murky and taste a bit strong. This would be fantastic to use for a mixed ‘adult’ drink though which is why I may have to buy a few more to mix with my alcoholic lapsang souchong that I bought which is too strong by itself.

I drowned myself in W2T :)
https://www.instagram.com/p/91u9-nRYNE/

Quite a fun experience. It seems that Repave is still my favorite. I’ll be grabbing the 2014/2015 Last Thought samples sometime in the next two months to see if they might be a decent purchase for the 2016 year. It’s interesting how raw can vary so much and ripe has to be very special to notice differences (for myself at least)

So. Damn. Good.
https://instagram.com/p/83udDlxYK7/

mrmopar only wrote Jing Mai Huans Pian, hopefully I will find out what this is since it worked fantastically at work.

Just drank 3 steeps of some 2015 Wild Dehong from Yunnan Sourcing that Dr Jim sent me, but I’m not entirely sure where it is at.

This was a fruity/sweet tasting tea from the beginning to the end notes that sit in the mouth. Surprising taste from a black tea, which it doesn’t taste like one to me. Quite a great tea :)

Just finished 14 steeps of this guy http://www.ebay.com/itm/2012-Yunnan-Xiaguan-Canger-Round-Tea-High-Grade-Raw-Pu-er-Tea-Free-Shipping-/221892872147?var=&hash=item33a9d887d3

Was given as a free sample with my tea tray purchase :)

This has a strong smoke aroma, but the taste seems to lack that taste (which I prefer to be lacking). Unfortunately this tea is quite dry. I knew this by steep three but I kept going because even though it is dry, it taste quite nice. This might need a little restoring to get the mouth feel to dissipate over time, I’m not sure though. T’was a nice experience though, something I liked and disliked at the same time.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I have brewed http://www.yunnansourcing.us/store/index.php?id_product=419&controller=product five times and it is not something I can drink… it’s very close to an Assam tea.

I’m not a fan. Someone please take this off my hands!!!

Today I tested a tea I waited five days to try… and I found out that I failed :/

This tea is being a pain, clearly I’m not a ‘tea whisperer’
http://postimg.org/image/e76tys0i5
http://postimg.org/image/el85ydklp

I shall keep trying.

Drank some extremely cheap sheng the other day and thought about it for awhile. My first thoughts were about the smokiness in the tea and then I began thinking about how it would taste in the future. Anyways, it was the sheng in this set http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-different-Yunnan-Phoenix-Sheng-Pu-erh-Tea-Shu-Puer-Tea-Tuo-Cha-2-100g-P199-/171427613586?hash=item27e9e1cb92
For the price, if you enjoy smoky sheng, it’ll be a great tea in a few years. The issue is that it still needs to settle as it leaves a dryness in the back of your throat and the taste is a bit strong (not necessarily bitter, but just strong)
It was fun to play with :) http://postimg.org/image/5jza5rakz/

Literally don’t know…what???
Whatever, I’ll try:
So I’ve drank http://www.ebay.com/itm/1999-Golden-Tea-Bud-Aged-Shu-Puer-Tea-Cake-357g-P261-/171428508099?hash=item27e9ef71c3 on three different occasions now to try to figure it out. Google wasn’t helping me find out what ‘Chitsu Pingcha’ should taste like so I’m unsure if I have this wrong, but this is one of three things: something I don’t like, a fake cake, or something I don’t understand. I would never tell someone that ripe pu’erh taste liked a fermented vegetable that was gently smoked, but that is what this tea is; which is odd, but it requires a few taste to try and figure it out.
Very confused about this tea… however, there is something I am sure about as I taste this: This tea was absolutely aged in bamboo leaf. That taste is very evident which is nice, but it doesn’t have the notes that every other ripe tea I’ve had contained. Maybe this is a unique type of ripe that I am not accustom to yet and if so, I have lots of it to change that.

https://instagram.com/p/7qs-5xRYAn/

Testing Tuesday with Oolong :)

Milk oolong:
Capital Teas is just succulent and a step above all other milk oolongs that I’ve tasted. Teavivre has milk oolong that is 25% larger than other ones which is interesting, but with tea size tends to mean little to nothing outside of aesthetics. Republic of tea is the lowest of these three and is probably what should be used to introduce someone to milk oolong because it does have a hard to describe taste to it.

Now, drinking that much milk oolong is rough… the taste just isn’t as appealing after the 10th cup or so, but I had to stay strong and do it. As for a cup of milk oolong, any of these three work which is nice; it just comes down to preference, but there is a quality difference between them as well.

Now onto one of my favorites: Tieguanyin.
Premium Fuji Anxi from Berylleb
First Grade from Tea Table
and
Premium from Mandela

This order is backwards. Now, Berylleb is my favorite Ebay store for sure but this tea was disappointing because it attaches the word premium when it seems that it is the free sample TGY that is used a lot as gifts. Berylleb has sold me some of the best oolong I’ve had at $52 for 250g which is great, but this does not stack up to that quality. The leaf is tiny and rather ripped with a smell that it too strong. Switching to the grade one from tea table was interesting because it was the darkest leaf and darkest color after being brewed. The taste is deep for a TGY, more like an indoor floral and not an outdoor floral. Now onto the Mandela which was the greenest of all, in this case it does say something about what is to come. Mandela’s TGY brewed a delicate cup that needed attention since it was light enough to sip and be too focused on something else to notice it. That’s why the Mandela tonight was a great outdoor and the Tea Table was good for inside. I find this to be true on certain Wuyi as well when it comes to colder weather or warmer weather depending on the notes it has or warmth it provides.

Since I made more packages for bloggers than bloggers that wanted tea from me, I decided to try the special 3 way flavored black dragon pearls I made for them :)

I’m not sure how to classify this taste, but as I am sipping it this is what I think of: Black tea infused cotton candy

Finally writing about this new oolong I have acquired :)
https://instagram.com/p/7EEv7gRYMn/?taken-by=liquidproust

First thing I noticed right away is that the stock that I am being sent isn’t having the massive pieces removed, but I love it this way :) https://instagram.com/p/7EETPLRYLu/?taken-by=liquidproust

At first I was thinking that it would be annoying to get gloves and hand sort this out from the pure leaf and leaf on stem… but, it seems that people would enjoy some stem if I provided it in there. Now as for the aroma, I’m quite unsure how to explain it so the best I can say is a cross between legit anxi and alishan… so not 100% floral, but it’s there. Though, looks and smell aside, the taste is what I am hoping works out. Now I was planning to pair this up with some fresh blueberries and some purple or blue flowers, but as I was tasting it I realized something very strange: this tea brew a thick liquid. The thickness of this tea is similar to that of melted butter, so yeah it does take some pressure to push through your teeth. I’m not so sure how a thick tea would paid with blueberry, but at the very least I need to try right?

Side note: I was imagining how crazy gyokuro would be if it was picked this way…

Oh how I love liquid :)
https://instagram.com/p/7GtgjRxYMv/

So here we go:
First thing I want to say is that Tuesday night was full of different flavors… which was quite interesting to contract multiple things with our taste buds. Much of what was discovered was predicted correctly by me.

For starters, it felt really weird leaving some tea in win. However… I did it because that is how Capital Teas marketed this blend. This became a waste of money, While the idea is pretty interesting and the the blend was a sencha with cherry, wine just seems to be too strong to really get any light notes of a green tea into it. I think for mixing with win, if anything is used, maybe a strong white tea or a light black tea… but I don’t know if I would like a decent wine/tea mixture. I shall continue to try them though.

The jasmine tea ginger ale is very crisp which can provide a smooth transition from being hot to cooling down with a strong mouth feel and taste. Not much jasmine to be detected, but it is there.

Now… that 2013 ripe Menghai Dayi was the main feature! Steep one through four were strong and experimented with some Root which is a lapsang souchong liqueur. I will make a huge caution, this alcohol is 40% which is pretty strong. The taste of that stuff with pu’erh was like WOAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.However, going forward to steep… maybe 16 or 18, maybe even 22, this ripe tea kept it’s deep complexity without falling apart too much after steep 10. The liquid kept a 80% hue to it as we continued to drink it and the smell faded some, but the taste was consistent which is what I am most happy with :)

Bathroom breaks: 5
Time: 3 hours
Liquid: something like 1 glass of wine, half a ginger ale, 40 cups of pu’erhs

I.Am. Trying. So. Hard. To. Acquire. The Liking. For. Black. Tea.

This ‘BS’ is one deep tea, but.. it’s a black base… but… but… I want to taste and experience what others have/will!!!

I pulled out a Upton Tea sample that someone gave me in a swap… Chinese Sencha, sounds good you know? Well, I began to be skeptical when I saw the date: processed February of 2012. Maybe I thought too much of it, but three year old sencha seems outdated to me… but I actually don’t know and I’m being too lazy to look it up on Google. This tasted a bit too strong with a wildness to it that didn’t seem to be its desire to give to my taste buds. I only brewed it for 60 seconds in 24ounces so I don’t think it was my steeping.

Leave it to me to mix Whispering Pines’ Imperial Golden Bud Dian Hong and Tea Urchin’s 1989 Shan Lin Xi…
Whatever, it was fun :)

This turned out to be a weird cup of malt, caramel, and toffee.
In case you are wondering, they were previously used leaves from an earlier session. However, there was a good 14 grams together packed into my pot which provided some strong results.

Birthday tea #3-15

Went to a Filipino BBQ and iced tea event today through the tea meetup group of Columbus. It’s hard not to smile when the events done and I realized that both times I’ve gone to a tea event that my teas are completely gone while others are still half full.
http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/8/7/4/highres_440734932.jpeg

So… I have a Japanese curry and 1989 Oolong from Tea Urchin event August 22nd at my place, but at this event I was convinced to host an introduction to pu’erh. I’ll be putting together some hand outs and a PowerPoint to go along with the different teas I will be sampling out. Nobody has drank pu’erh outside of blends from Teavana here so I have a lot of work ahead of me to keep the integrity of what pu’erh is and should taste like with an audience.

Anyways, I am very excited :)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153042355267361&set=a.10150154286322361.285086.714617360&type=1&theater

With my birthday coming up I decided to do what I do every year by intellectually stimulating myself with the issue of ‘suicide’. I read a bit more of western and eastern perspectives on the issue in terms of philosophical ramifications for such things as ‘life’ and ‘death’. This is a topic I strive to know intimately as I believe life is the most important thing period (aka time) and therefore I try to understand it as much as possible which leads me to the study of suicide… blah blah blah, more stufffff

Anyways, tonight, for whatever reason I blended Yunnan White Yasmine from Verdant and Tangerine Guayusa from Butiki. I doubt anyone else would try such a weird thing…. but hey, I am a crazy person when it comes to tea.

Sipped away at this while my niece was over… I literally cannot imagine the experience of having your own child go through all the stages of life. I’m emotional over all the simple things in life such as a child learning to use a new sound. People are just amazing, I’m pretty glad I am one of them.

I JUST COULDN’T WAIT!!!!!!!

Opened up Nostalgia for the first time in weeks to see how it is doing and let’s just say that I am quite excited to share this with as many people as possible : )

http://postimg.org/image/g4fkwyoin/full/
^ Isn’t it pretty?

and yes… I brewed cup ;)

FAKE MEAD:
So… I tried to cheat and taste this 14 days early… the mistake was leaving it in the water for 7 minutes :/

I’ll just wait until it’s ‘ready’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAyA2ocGHeY&feature=youtu.be

Side by side pu’er test tasting !
2007 ripe bamboo fragrance from RoyalTeaBay vs Random old ripe cake from grocery store

The 2007 RTB stuff is pretty massive, but when you look at it… it’s like it was broken up and then pressed which is a little bit of a let down. The liquid it produces is not very appealing as it has a very basic taste.

However, basic… can be the best! This random cake I purchased is a HUGE surprise because I did not expect it to have a decent quality. Personally, I would have paid $25+ for a tea cake that brews a liquid such as this; I paid $5 though!
The 2007 got trashed at steep 8 because I was not feeling it. This other tea though… liquid fermented brown sugar at steep 12 and still going beautifully. :) :) :) :) :)
https://instagram.com/p/5mkUAXRYM2/

Right now I am eating my favorite cookie… which means 99% of teas taste bad right now because I would rather have this cookie taste in my mouth.

Anyways, oh hey StarTrek is on!
Okay, so I am drinking a milk oolong that a potential supplier has sent me… not sure how they made/treated this tea because it’s really faint on the taste which can be used as a strong point or act negatively. Dark green, hard to pick up aroma, and a light taste; for many this would be a plus because great milk oolong has a STRONG flavor that may not be appealing as I have found with some.

Went to my reserved stashed and grabbed an oolong with no cares because I am rather upset…

Spent a good amount on a tea tray after researching a few hours over the last two months for which one I wanted… finally ‘a tea tray’ comes in the mail today and I was excited until I saw a tiny package that had some baby tea tray that doesn’t match the specifics listed by the sellers or anything. I will get over it eventually, but it is something I put time and effort into that I was looking forward to.

Anyways, this oolong has a Beautiful Taiwan Tea company logo on it and it’s rolled… frickin’ good like always, I just needed something amazing to help me not think about this.