What-Cha

I got this tea only as a sample because it was very intriguing to me. The smell of the dry leaves is really hard to describe. It’s kind of sour but you get a hint of roast. The leaves themselves are pitch black (being heavily roasted).
The first steep (rinse) didn’t have a lot of roasted flavour and I got a lot of the bitter melon flavour, a bit sour. The second steep and the ones that followed the second steep were quite different. They were very smooth, surprisingly, but had quite a very thick roasted aroma to them that was coupled with a rather nice sour-ish aroma.

This tea pleasantly surprised me. I of course prefer the Li Shan What-Cha offers from Taiwan, but this is pretty good stuff. Definitely floral and creamy gong fu with a 15 second rinse followed by a few more steeps for 30 sec, 45 onward, but I got a little bit of a tropical fruit thing going on amidst all the creaminess. The taste reminded me a little bit of a plantain. So, there you have it. A creamy floral oolong with a fruity accent. It would be a decent daily drinker, but I admint that I am a little too snobby and want me some more Zhangpings or Li Shans.

I love silver needles. This is my third try of a regional silver needle, and they are all so different it’s shocking.

The Yunnan Silver Needle has a delicate grassy smell, with light hints of something more leafy and green. Very savory, I would compare it to a vegetable soup broth.

It’s a sweeter silver needle, slightly fruity. There’s definitely a sweet corn-like taste that’s very appealing. Smooth mouthfeel, not as supple as the Kenyan Silver Needle, but definitely acres better than the Nepal Silver Needle. The smokiness at the end is very subtle, so don’t go comparing this to a lapsang souchong. I think the savory sweetness of this one might have won me over, though. This is such a friendly little white.

This is my very first real very young pu’erh I’ve had. I’ve had some aged raw and ripe pu’erh before, but those didn’t appeal to me that much. So, I thought I would get some raw pu’erh and since I needed some more tea I could use for daily drinking, I got an entire cake. The cake is quite loose and can therefore be broken apart without too much work. The smell is very floral, sweet anf fruity and so is the tea’s taste. I managed to get it up to 15 steeps without the flavour changing to a very bad one. The only thing that was added from steep to steep was the astringency. The tea, after a couple of steeps, started to dry my mouth out a bit, but I believe this is to be expected from young pu’erh. The astringency isn’t too bad though.

I got this tea only to try because I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. When I first opened the package I was immediately greeted by a very pleasant and fruity smell, so my expectations for the taste where quite high. I put the entire cake into my Gaiwan, boiled up some water and the smell coming from the wet leaves was just as good as the smell of the dry leaves. The first steep (the rinse) was very light in taste and had a light liquor colour. The later steeps got darker and the taste change from a very fruity and honey like taste to a more dark, nutty taste. I was able to steep this tea 10 times and all of them were very nice.

First impression of the aroma – Wow nutty. Very nutty on the nose with the slightest bit of a vegetal smell.

Very full-bodied taste. Nutty, very slight bitterness but not astringent. What smelled kind of vegetal tastes more floral, probably like a jasmine taste. It doesn’t have that full sensation of covering all of the tastebuds on my tongue like other teas though. Very focused on the back of the tongue.

Second infusion is brilliantly better than the first, as usual for me. A lot more sweetness comes in at the second, and less of the bitterness. Not a bad tea to get cozy with.

Ordered a sample of this with my first what-cha order, and I was pleasantly surprised!
The dry leaf smells like birthday cake/lemon ice cream, very pungent and delicious smelling just like a dessert. I was a bit concerned that it would brew up tasting very different, but luckily the liquor tastes exactly as I thought it would.
Sweet, creamy, custard, lemon, and thick. Like a lemon egg custard or fresh lemon cream cheese frosting, or even halo top’s lemon ice cream.
I brewed this at 190 with infusions that were very very short considering it was a white I didn’t want to push it too far and risking it turning bitter. Luckily the 5-10 second infusions were the way to go.
By the fifth or so steep it starts leaning more towards butternut squash, still good and but not as sweet and a little more savory and starchy (but not unpleasantly so)

I only have 10g of this (5g now!) but I’ll definitely buy a 50g pack with my next order from what-cha. This immediately goes on my “to buy” list, and I’m not even out yet!
Described in one word: Delicious!

The leaves are a mix of broad leaves and a lot of stems and twigs that make for a very interesting and complex combination. The aroma comes off very woodsy and rich but the taste is much sweeter than the smell. Delicious floral front with a slightly oaky aftertaste. I would even say there’s a bit of a plum or raisin taste lingering at the front.

Another sipdown! It was just a sample, but still.
This was harvested spring 2015 from Tai Hua Mountain in Anxi, Jujian, China

I did 5 steeps of 225 mL hottish water (~90 *C) with 1 tsp leaves. Each steep was about 1-2 minutes.

This is a very sweet and creamy (milk/cream more so than salty/buttery). It was the perfect combination of creamy, sweet, grain/toasty, and umami. Not so much vegetal exactly (as in, not grassy), but with a greener or medium oxidation oolong flavour. This is my ideal oolong just because of the perfect balance between all of its aspects. I’ll be ordering this in my next what-cha order for sure. You can’t get any better than this.

Finally getting around to trying this. 10 gram sample split into 5 gram chunks, so I threw a chunk into one of the small gaiwans I recently made, since I should probably use them more often. Smoky and fruity aroma off the dry leaves that persists once the leaves are washed. As the chunk starts to open up, a bit of an earthy aroma arises as well. The aroma definitely has some ripe characteristics.

The liquor is a light gold the becomes more orange throughout the session and it is very light and smooth. Fruity with a bit of tobacco and wood. Very gentle viscosity. I am getting a bit of huigan, as well. Definitely do get chi off of this.

The longer this session goes on, the more the sort of woody, dusty, very slightly earthy flavors push to the forefront. A bit of a lasting throat sensation starts to build up, as well. All in all, I’d say this one makes for a good and pretty affordable daily drinker. rhinkle really likes it, so I’d look into getting more of it!

It seems like I very rarely drink Dragonwell these days, and honestly, I have no clue why that is. Dragonwell has always been one of my favorite Chinese green teas. I guess there are just so many exciting teas out there that I do not spend much time coming back to things that I already know I enjoy. Teas like this remind me that I should revisit the things for which I have an established love. I fell in love with this tea around two or three years ago, reviewed it here on Steepster, and then moved on to other things. I purchased some of the most recent production on a whim earlier in the year and finally got around to working my way through the 50g pouch last week. It’s a still a fantastic tea.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of chestnut, zucchini, grass, sugarcane, asparagus, and honey. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of soybean, spinach, seaweed, and toasted corn. The first infusion then introduced aromas of summer squash and cucumber. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered up delicate notes of chestnut, soybean, grass, zucchini, and asparagus that were balanced by hints of spinach, cucumber, honey, and sugarcane. The subsequent infusions introduced a vegetable broth-like umami scent and aromas of coriander, butter, hazelnut, vanilla, lettuce, green olive, and minerals. Stronger and more immediately detectable notes of cucumber and spinach came out in the mouth along with belatedly emerging notes of toasted corn, seaweed, and summer squash. New impressions of minerals, hazelnut, orange zest, oats, vanilla, cream, green olive, lettuce, lemon zest, umami, and orange zest also appeared alongside fleeting coriander hints. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, grass, butter, umami, cucumber, lettuce, zucchini, toasted corn, and oats that were balanced by hints of spinach, chestnut, seaweed, lemon zest, orange zest, sugarcane, and summer squash.

This was a great and incredibly powerful Dragonwell green tea. Too often, I find that such teas produce a liquor that is overly delicate and subtle, but this one produced a very rich, aromatic, and flavorful tea liquor with consistently wonderful body and texture in the mouth. It was not a stuffy or prissy tea in the slightest. Instead, it was fun, approachable, and a bit loud in the way it came across, but with respectable depth and complexity. This is still one of my favorite green teas of all time.

I just had to get in another sample sipdown today. This was another mini sample I received with a recent What-Cha order. Prior to this, I had never tried one of their green teas. This one convinced me that I should perhaps focus on more of Alistair’s green offerings in the future.

I did not do anything fancy with this tea. Though I have gotten strong results from gongfuing teas like this in the past, I opted for my trusty old Western two step for this one. I started by steeping 3 grams of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 176 F water for 2 minutes. This infusion was followed by a 3 minute infusion in the same amount of water at the same temperature.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted pleasant aromas of grass, hay, chestnut, and soybean. After infusion, the light yellow tea liquor produced stronger aromas of grass, hay, chestnut, and soybean underscored by malt, squash blossom, and asparagus. In the mouth, it was easy for me to pick up on a lovely mix of grass, hay, soybean, chestnut, squash blossom, oat, malt, cream, butter, and asparagus notes. The second infusion continued to emphasize chestnut, grass, and vegetables on the nose, though here there was less of an impression of hay and squash blossom and more butter, oats, and malt with a hint of minerals. In the mouth, the liquor displayed smooth notes of butter, cream, malt, oats, grass, chestnut, asparagus, and soybean with a hint of minerals toward the finish.

Dragon Well is perhaps my favorite type of green tea. Though I have gotten away from it recently, it was so nice to come back to a tea like this. It was a very pleasant, straight-forward drinking experience. What I got on the nose, I also got in the mouth. Though it may not have packed any surprises or detours, it would have been foolish to expect a tea like this to provide such experiences. As Dragon Well teas go, this one is quite nice. I think fans of such teas would get a kick out of it.

What-Cha restocked this. I had two more cups worth left. I should have realized that Hawkband wanted this because I would have given her more. Anyway, I had two servings left and I am glad I saved the sample because it is one of my favorite black teas thus far. Of course that is perking me to want to get another sample to savor, but there are like eight samples I want to do of What-Cha and three of them are in the same price range as this one. I’ll figure something out.

For specifics, I gong fu’d venturing 20, 30, 35, 50, 75, 2 minutes for 185 F in a 150 ml gaiwan. The profile was fairly consistent starting off at a vanilla lemon buttery thing of a black tea and the lemon continued with more malt in the later steeps as the citric sweetness faded to a present reminder. No bitterness or astringency-just smooth in every way like most of the teas Alistair recommends. And yes, I’m raising the rating and giving it a high one because I like it so much….never mind I did not Tumbler test it or Western test it, though it probably can handle it. However, it’s a special occasion tea that deserves the respect of careful steeping of gong fu. Tea made with skill deserves to be served with it.

I know Amanda added this before. Anyway, Backlog.

I just continued venturing into the world of Lapsangs and found that I actually really like them….they might be a favorite varietal. After Amanda’s ecstatic review on her blog, I decided to throw in a sample with my What-Cha order. She got vanilla, cocoa and heavy citrus and compared it to a Qilan. I got smooth texture, malt, a slight cocoa taste, and an infusion between lemon and orange peel. Yes, it definitely reminded me of a Qilan, but darker. It was still mega smooth and super tasty.

The tea snobs would be happy with this tea and so would newbie tea drinkers enjoy it, but citrus can be dividing for some people. The citrus taste in this tea is almost strong enough to call a flavor in my opinion, but it still tastes like black tea.

I do love this tea and would want it on hand, but I might not buy a large amount of it because of the price and prefer to savor it. That might change as soon as I have it again.

…I had it again with a shorter steep. It was about 30 seconds. I let it brew to lighter yellowish brown maple color, and then had it, and the citrus peel with vanilla and cocoa came through. Now I understand why Amanda was raving. I’d get more of this too.

The rebrew on the second and third time are also fairly complex. Citrus peel and vanilla with a smooth cocoa background. Dang this is good.

Having recently tried the Darjeeling 1st Flush Pasabong Small-Holder Black Tea, I realized that I had a second sample pouch of the 2016 second flush squirreled away in a tote, dug it out, and set about doing a comparison between the two. I also felt like I may have been a bit hard on this tea the first time I reviewed it and wanted to give it a second chance. After polishing off the pouch, all I can say is that my opinion of this tea remains pretty much unchanged.

I prepared this tea in the Western style. I steeped 3 grams of loose leaf material in approximately 8 ounces of 203 F water for 5 minutes. I did not attempt any subsequent infusions.

Prior to infusion, I noted spicy aromas reminiscent of clove and anise coupled with scents of raisin, straw, wood, and herbs. After infusion, I found aromas of Muscatel, wood, cherry, almond, and menthol. The tea liquor offered notes of tart cherry, clove, anise, nutmeg, and menthol on the entry, but by mid-palate, notes of Muscatel, butter, straw, honey, lemon, malt, toast, wood, and almond emerged to provide some balance. The finish offered fleeting impressions of almond, straw, Muscatel, malt, and menthol.

I got more out of this tea this time around. I was hoping for that, especially since I vaguely recalled being rather stuffy and exhausted the first time I set about reviewing this tea. Furthermore, I think allowing this tea to sit for a while allowed it to open up and develop a bit more. There is also the undeniable fact that all of the work I have put into developing my nose and palate has allowed me to get significantly more out of the teas I review. Still, I did not find this tea to be all that impressive. Perhaps it was just a bit better than I initially thought it to be (note that I have bumped up my rating by a couple of points), but something about the two Pasabong teas I have tried has just struck me as being off. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s almost like those responsible for processing the raw materials try to avoid producing teas that adhere to the standards of classic Darjeelings, but rather than producing something new, fresh, and innovative, these efforts work to the detriment of the overall product. I don’t know. I’m still just not impressed.

Within the last week, I ended up with a couple of 10 gram sample pouches of this tea. I think I bought one and the other ended up coming as a free sample with a separate order that arrived a couple days later. Whatever the case, I have already finished one of the sample pouches. I am thinking that it is a good thing that I have another one left because I do not feel I was able to get this tea quite right in terms of preparation.

I prepared this tea three ways. The first method was a two step Western infusion in which I steeped 3 grams of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 203 F water for 2 minutes. This infusion was then followed by a 3 minute infusion at the same temperature. I then attempted an extended one step Western infusion, steeping 3 grams of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 203 F water of 5 minutes. The final preparation was another extended one step Western infusion, this time steeping 4 grams of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 203 F water for 5 minutes. Of the bunch, the second preparation was the best. The two step infusion produced an extremely mild liquor that was decidedly lacking in flavor. The third infusion was so astringent that I had to take a few sips and add a little extra water to tame it a bit, and even that was not entirely successful. The description below applies exclusively to the second infusion.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted extremely light aromas of straw, lemon, and herbs. After infusion, I detected slightly stronger aromas of straw, lemon, and herbs coupled with traces of Muscat grape, oak, and roasted almond. In the mouth, I detected notes of roasted almond, straw, toast, black walnut, lemon rind, malt, butter, oak, and menthol underscored by a delicate Muscat presence.

Compared to most second flush Darjeelings I have tried, this one was nuttier, mintier, and more lemony than most. It was also more astringent than I was expecting. At this point, I have grown accustomed to second flush Darjeelings that present a heavy Muscat aroma and flavor, but this one did not. I cannot say that I was thrilled with it, but since I have an extra sample pouch, I will keep playing around with it and report back if my opinion changes.

This is one of my all time favourite teas. It has a really thick roasted kind of taste and it’s very savory. The smell of the dry leaves kind of reminds me of cocao which is really nice, but that taste is not present in the actual tea when brewed.

This was a really nice tea, you could re-steep it a lot of times and it has a very nice flavour. It’s very smooth and sweet

Hoalatha’s note got me excited for this one, and after finishing off the last of my GABA oolong, I figured to try some more. Alistair’s notes were also promising and my gut feeling told me this would taste on the Oriental Beauty side of Formosa/Taiwan oolongs.

It did, and for me, was very grapy. Thank heavens it lacked the drying effects that an Oriental Beauty normally has, and is less malty. The taste and the tea’s color reminded me of red-skinned pears and had a fruit sweetness. The texture was smooth and thick. I partially understood the vanilla note because it has the boozy rising aftertaste vanilla does, but without the sweetness. Instead, it ends with more with the grape note.

I’m quite happy with my sample and would probably order this again. It was very similar to the GABA Oolong Taiwan Sourcing sells because the oxidation and the roasting were very close. I like it period.

Now there are so many other teas to write about…

“Autumn Flush: The Best Darjeeling Tea You’ll (Likely Never) Taste” smugly proclaimed an October ’16 Tea Tuesday NPR story. Boulderdash! Shame on you NPR. This plain old Virginia boy has just imbibed the autumnal nectar of the Darjeeling gods!
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/04/496451715/autumn-flush-the-best-darjeeling-tea-you-ll-likely-never-taste

The dry leaf had a sweet, sugarcane aroma with a suggestion of dried fruit. I used a rounded teaspoon (1.25 tsp) to 8oz of spring water. I use only spring water for fine Darjeeling. The suggested steeping time was 2-3 minutes. I steeped for 2 minutes and 45 seconds at the recommended temperature of 95C. The result was a very richly flavored Darjeeling. There was a red wine sweetness reminiscent of a fine dessert wine with notes of dates, black figs and wildflowers. Positively splendid! Hands down one of the greatest Darjeelings I’ve ever had. And NPR said it would most likely never happen. Ha! Piffle! Stuff and nonsense!

I love What-Cha Teas. They are simply the best! Very fast international shipping. Plus a much appreciated kind and thoughtful note from Alistair, who happened to mention that Red Thunder Darjeeling is one of his personal favorites. He also included a generous sample of a Nepali tea that I cannot wait to try. Thank you, Alistair!