White 2 Tea

Revisiting this “gentle” tea built upon Manzhuan material found in the broader YiWu area. Softer and definitely less aggressive taste with a pleasant rather sweet lingering aftertaste. I always enjoy drinking it on a low-key day. Nice big leaves which have remained in-tact in the loosely compressed cake. Golden yellow tea soup with a sip that is not at all bitter and tastes of light stonefruit. The tea becomes a little sweeter with successive brews but it is never “powerfully” sweet. Not an earthy tea but should be considered a sweet tea carefully processed with high quality whole tea leaves.

Manzhuan + Spring + gushu. What’s not to like? This tea is even better than I expected (since it is a new 2014 tea, I figured I would try it just for fun and then wait a few years to enjoy it). The dry leaf looks very nice; the aroma of the brew is pleasantly fresh and sweet; the liquor is a clear yellow; the flavor of the sip is smooth, sweet, and slightly fruity. This tea is lovely and very easy to drink. What a lovely sheng to own (even though it is rather pricey)!! I rather doubt this particular cake gets much age because I am likely to pull it out frequently to pick off more leaf.

7g used.

The dry leaf aroma promises a very welcoming drink, with fairly strong green, herbal notes.

5s – Lots of flavour! Green, herby. Long green herby finish. Hardly any bitterness.
10s – Getting stronger on the flavour, in a pleasant way. It has some complexity which makes it very interesting to drink.

Later notes: There is a likeness to honey and lemon sachet drinks I have had before, without any of the sugary sweetness of course.

This tea is really good. I find myself liking sheng more than ever before. It was a little fruity as the description says and there were slight notes of apricots. It was just a tiny bit bitter in the first steeping. This was gone by the second steeping. By the fourth steeping it was very smooth. It was slightly sweet too (not meaning sugar sweet). It was good.

I steeped this four times in a 140 ml yixing teapot with 5g leaf and 200 degree water. I steeped it for 15 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, and 20 sec. It had a very pale yellow color.

Dry – Sweet, fruity, refreshing, buttery?, bitter floral and slightly nutty.
Wet – Warm sugar sweetness with very apparent tobacco and some faint smoke, fruits, cream, floral and nutty.
Liquor – Light amber to Amber.

This notes is a summary of two separate sessions in porcelain gaiwan

The first steep in both sessions were sweet and mellow with a fast overtake of the tobacco notes up front. As it went down, the texture was thick/creamy while still wearing the tobacco notes, yet it feels sweeter with fruity and nutty notes.

Following steeps switch to a tobacco front with the sweetness coming in second together with bitter-tobacco and bittersweet floral notes and some nutty and herbaceous hints up front. As it goes down, it has a thick and almost creamy texture, but has some minor astringency to it. The fruity and floral notes a more apparent as the liquor washes down, yet will continue to hold the tobacco notes.

Final steeps are about the same in terms of the notes you find and the order, but much more mellowed down and a refreshing finish easier to detect.

Final Notes

I liked this one, It has strong tobacco notes, but is not overwhelming. I’d say this is definitely stronger than the Repave, but WAY gentler than a Xiaguan the same age would be and has a lasting Huigan.

This is a pleasant enough shou. The predominant flavor is definitely wood with perhaps a little leather flavor. This tea really is very smooth. Almost too smooth for my liking as there is very little that really stands out in this tea, but maybe that should be expected for the low price, which is really exceptional at just $12 a cake. I have had better luck brewing western style which produces a more flavorful cup. Because of the low price I have also enjoyed messing around with cold brewing it after a couple quick rinses which resulted in a pretty interesting iced tea. To give you an idea of how hard it is to get flavor out of this I steeped 7 grams in 24 oz. water for 48 hours to produce a flavorful enough iced tea. It was a fun experiment.

In the end I don’t think I will buy this again, but I surely do not regret the purchase. As the website says, this may be a great starter tea for those new to puer but i feel I am perhaps past this point in my puer tasting journey.

So this was a sample from the lovely and wonderful MzPriss.

At first I didn’t smell the tobacco, but once it was pointed out, I picked it up right away. I do enjoy this one, but I didn’t fall in love. So while I’m quite happy, I went with other White2s in today’s order. :)

I really, really, really, really loved this sheng. I can’t EVEN believe this is 2014 tea. It does not taste like baby sheng at ALL (and I <3 baby sheng by the way). It is so smooth and so sweet – there is hardly any bitterness and a very nice mellow body feel. Warm and contented.

But HOLY SHITAKE!!! This bad boy costs over $120 for a small cake. Sobs. I had to decide between this and the Little Yellow Mark and the Little Yellow Mark won. But this is EXCELLENT and I wish I had more disposable income at the moment, or a cake of this would be mine.

Today is a Smokey Robinson kind of day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly8G9Psdqxw

I did Sary’s combo method for this. The liquor is pale yellow and the aroma to me is almost completely tobacco. Not a strong overwhelming tobacco, but that is the main aroma to me. This is quite sweet and fairly smooth, especially for its age, but I also taste tobacco with a very slight bitterness and no astringency.

It will interesting to see how this turns out in a few years. Just for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oVBvxA0mm0

I like this! I’m not finding it quite as punchy as some – it’s definitely in your face and all over the place. Yeah, it’s bitterish at first but not in a bad way and I LOVE the sweetness. Love it. It’s a baby now, but I think this is gonna be a badass in a few years.

There is an almost grapey flavor, but not quite. There is very little smoke, but some nice tobacco and it keeps getting sweeter.

I’m having a good time with this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk

Oh my. Potting soil.

But it does have a very sweet start, and a sweet aftertaste. It’s what is in the middle that’s just not working for me.

I guess this makes me a dry storage kind of girl!

This tea is a swift kick in the nuts. Woo!

The aroma is very light smoke, but very strong apricots. There are so many flavors that it’s hard to pick them all out. Let’s just say that everything blends together very nicely. It had a stronger bitter finish at first, but it’s only on certain sips and seems to be calming down. It’s not an unpleasant bitterness… it’s hard for me to explain. Some teas have a yucky bitterness that makes you go blargh. This is different. It’s quite nice.

I’m only on steep 3 and this already has my heart pumping. This tea assures me that I am ALIVE!

This was a great way to start the weekend!

Reading White 2 Tea’s blurb about the tea, it stresses the price/quality ratio. While I understand that is important…sometimes I just want to drink a good tea regardless of the price.

While this is supposed to be a raw, it certainly reminded me more of a cooked pu-erh. I think this is the Hong Kong Style coming out. I got the cedar, but more than that I got camphor and fish.

I still have a couple infusions to go on this, but so far this has been my least favorite of the three teas.

With my new ranking system I would give it

70 for the taste
16 for the price
75 for the representation

53.66 new ranking (70 old ranking)

I think I liked this one a little more than the Repave I tried earlier; but I can’t tell if it is because this one is more aged!

It started off with a faint camphor that then grew into a butterscotch sweetness in later brewings, the 4th brewing still brewed a strong color but was a bit light on the taste.

Updated Ranking

Taste = 84
Price = 23
Quality = 78

New Rank 62 (old rank 84)

I have had this tea for some time and have had a chance to spend a lot of time with it. Looking at my email it seems I first tried it on September 29th of 2013 to be exact. Looking at my very first notes on the tea, it appears I was not satisfied in my first session. I was terribly mistaken and must have been half asleep or not used enough leaf because when I tried it again the next week it blew me away. It really stands out in the category of potent, bitter young raw Puerhs made with high quality maocha. The flavor, smells, texture, and body response for the tea really create a personality that I thoughroighly enjoy.
It starts off strong with sweet peach and cotton candy flavors and then fades into an even stronger bitter, burnt coffee flavor that last a long time in the mouth. There is also a delayed bitterness that lasts throughout the second wave of flavor.
The highlights of the tea are the scents that come with the fantastic flavors. Immediately when you wet the laves they smell like candy and fruit that would be almost too sweet. It doesn’t smell like tea. The liquor and scent cup accent all the flavors described above and also radiates a honey/syrup smell when the tea is hot.
I have noticed that after 8 or so months the tea is starting to slowly lose some of the fruity flavors which are being replaced by new cooked peach flavors and drowned out by a growing coffee flavor. Still very similar though. Maybe a 9.3 instead of a 9.5
I highly suggest this tea to anyone that likes their tea very strong and doesn’t mind taking two or three sessions to really pinpoint what you like about it. A little side note: If you enjoy this tea I guarantee you will love Tea Urchin’s teas made with high mountain maocha and Miles’ Birthday Blend.

If you are someone other than MzPriss, TTF, or ost and I promised you tea samples, holla back. I am prepping samples now!

Method: 6 g, 6 0z, 195 degrees, rinse-10-10, sheng yixing

Aroma: smoked apricots

Flavor: This started to calm down at the 3-4 steeps. I didn’t finish the first two because they were pretty bitter, even at only 10 seconds. Now I am onto the 5-6 steeps, each were 15 seconds. The tea is a bit more brothy now. It still has a little kick at the end, but nothing drastic. I like this tea. It’s quite good. But I didn’t fall in love with this one like some of the other White2’s.

Dry – Abandoned old wood cabin in the tropics, spice-wood.
Wet – Thick earth notes, spicy-wood notes, bitter wood notes and sweetness.
Liquor – Burgundy.

Gonfu Style — 2 rinses (first 3 secs and 2 secs rest and second just a quick wash)

The tea started with very assertive spicy-wood notes, earth notes with very apparent sweetness and feels smooth going down. Some astringency was present, but it only helped the spicy notes and later the camphor sensation.

The second and third steeps (partly 4th as well), were smoother but maintaining the earthy and wood notes with spicy background. Allowing time between cups allowed me to appreciate the lasting sweetness and perhaps notice some very faint notes I have yet to identify.

Later steeps were gentler that previously, but still assertive to its storage background. No musky notes, just plain wood and earth, with a a sweet finish and lots of camphor.

Final Notes
First sip was confusing and puzzling since I’ve never had a wet storage Sheng like this, I’ve had the occasional ‘oh, there are some floral notes, honey… and ughh, there you are, moist rotting wood note, bitter and saddening’. By the second steep I was beginning to enjoy the sweetness but was still puzzled/bothered by the deep wood notes. By the third,…. I told myself “This Sheng makes a great Shou!” LOL.

Bottom line, if you are all about dry storage… stay away, you’ll just have a bad day. If you are into wood and somewhat spicy notes Shou, I’d try this one.

I purchased 25 grams of this, which for a cake is in the average price range for White2Tea of around $98. Because of the humid storage, and the age on it, I know the tea will be long brewing (lots of steeps) and a little goes a long way. 4 grams in my new 70 ml brown Yixing from Origin Tea. Gonna use this pot specifically for these really aged long soaker puerhs. Proceeded with my 15 sec steeps on forward mostly on a boil and then a little cooler 195-200.

Humid storage flavor and smell evident throughout, but eventually this integrates well into the tea producing a strong aged cigar tobacco smell and taste. A touch of camphor early in the first steep. No smoke in this despite the heavy tobacco smell. Even my strainer smells like cigars with just a few tiny bits of tea in it. Still a good astringency here and mildly bitter, the astringency is pleasant though. Fills the mouth and then turns into tongue buzzing, just like cigar smoke does, most noticeable in the first 5 steeps.

Pleasant qi, warming and relaxing, scalp buzzing around my ears but not highly caffeinated. I won’t need to follow this up with a shou. A drink straight out of the gentleman’ club, not a talker, think John Houseman in a leather chair in “Scrooged,” looking up from a newspaper.

This tea is incredibly clean, and red amber. Still got some years to go to mellow out completely. Almost a shame it got pulled out of the Guangdong humid storage, even 3 more years on this would be amazing.

Technically from the reddit traveling tea box.

So, this pu’er is all YOLO. Seriously. This raw pu’er packs a punch – it’s strong, sweet yet acidic bitter, tobacco notes, hay, gritty, floral, thick, and creamy. Amazing aftertaste. Emphasis on strong flavor – I did 10 second steeps with this pu’er and it only needed to go up in time around the 12th round. This tea cannot be stopped! I got 16 infusions, with the late infusions getting mineral ambery, smokey, honey and floral. New Amerykah 2 is hella strong, but the later steepings are worth it. Might not be for a new pu’er drinker, this one certainly tested me!

BTW, Cwyn did a crazy awesome review of this pu’er – best review on Steepster, IMO.

My blog review – http://oolongowl.com/2014-new-amerykah-raw-pu-er/ Owl mustache!

I was lucky enough to be sent a sample of this by Paul at White2tea. It reminds me of ‘American Flagg’, especially the later ‘Amerikan Flagg’ reboot. Hmm, how do I do reversed Rs on here. I need some cyrillic, stat. I’m sure it’s just the name, and I have no idea if Paul is a Howard Chaykin fan but I cannot get that eighties comic goodness out of my head while drinking this. In fact, this issue best sums it all up:
http://www.comicvine.com/howard-chaykins-american-flagg-9-loose-women-and-b/4000-383555/
Shame I can’t post images here. That would be proper cool and make the point better.

The tea itself smells floral when dry and fruity when wet, and it has a proper kick to it. Cwyn has given an awesome review of it, so I really don’t feel I can add much more to that. I can feel the energy of this tea giving me a kick in the seat of the pants. My mouth has gone dry and prickly, the bitterness lingers in my throat and the rounded, full-on flavour lasts for ages. I’m working on 10 second steeps at 95C (the slider says boiling but that is because Steepster is not communicating properly with Chrome once more) at the moment because I put a lot of leaf in the pot and I am feeling slightly incoherent from the onset of tea drunk. I guess that makes this a party in a teapot. Mmmm …

Oh my, this is a young chick of a tea with her thigh high boots and orange fur leopard trimmed midriff top on, popping apple gum to cover up the grilled burger she had for lunch. I bought this cake, I will admit it, primarily for the label. I am guessing Amerykah=America, but as it happens I was born and raised in a town called Amery. The label is pure video game except that the pixels also resemble cross stitch. This tea looks like home to me, and we had tacky chicks just like this! Except this chickitea is jailbait right now.

Having bought this cake, I happened to get a sample too in a recent order, so I am drinking the sample. Put all 10 g’s into the Yixing, water ranging from 100-115 ml (the max my cup holds). Sample I got is really tippy, lots of buds with some larger leaves, a couple leaf sets and some orange and red-brown leaves.

Two rinses and then first steep, and she kicked me into the row of lockers because I told her that her breath smelled like beef jerky. That first steep smelled like smoked meat. Liquor is dark tangerine. A few small burnt particles from the wok in my strainer. This smell was gone on subsequent steeps. Soup was cloudy until the fourth steep. Intensely bitter and astringent throughout, with cooling on the throat and down the hatch, or maybe I just opened the door to get some air from that hairspray.

Hints of floral and and sweet fruit want to come out of her young PMS, banging on the door saying “Let me out!” I don’t think so. Off to Lincoln Hills for this girl, the local population can’t handle this one. She can have a guitar…maybe in a few years she can play a few sweet notes for me. This definitely looks like a Menghai blend with far less smokiness than you normally get from plantation cakes or tuos. Good cake to age and get that Menghai flavor without the smoke. This is not a usual factory blend, so to me this seems far better than trying to buy a 7542.

Took her to six steeps, 10-15 seconds for all because I had so much leaf going. Still has further steeps to go, but I have had enough. This is an incredibly strong young Sheng, even my strong system is challenged with this one. Gonna need an old man shou later to balance this one out.

This tea will make a nice girlfriend for my son someday if he keeps on the monk track he is currently on. Not gonna rate this young gal yet, she is new with so much aging yet ahead.

Bought a cake of this with my recent White2tea order, based primarily on a very positive review from the half dipper. It is strong, indeed. Very astringent. Nice amber color, and very generous leaves – meaning it gives up lots and lots of infusions. It gets beautifully clear in later steeps. To the extent that bitterness transforms with aging, this seems like an excellent candidate for long term storage. And if you are a fan of bitter teas, like Lao Man E, you will probably like this one, selling for $40 currently.

A fairly smooth young sheng. It is soft and kind of floral, very nice flavor. Bitterness comes through after a few steepings. I think those that like young shengs will find this one very pleasing. I like more upfront punchiness, though this is a quality tea for sure.