White 2 Tea

This tea lived up to its namesake. It very clearly tasted like cream and Brandy, and if steeped too long became incredibly bitter. I found after several steeps the bitterness actually increased. It tastes best with sweets, and has a strong and astringent taste reminiscent of alcohol.

Steeped gaiwan style.

Didn’t care for this one at first, so I tried it grandpa style and thought it was tons better. I recommend trying it grandpa style if you thought it was lacking.

NOTE This is based of an old sample so I won’t do a regular note for it

I liked this tea back when I bought it, but god it has come along really well.

The tea has an underlying vegetal note when dry with a little bit of sweetness. As soon as you introduce humidity you get an intense scent of maple (that chocolatey/caramel spectrum of maple) and some vegetal that resembles olive oil and this evolves into a more floral version of it as you keep steeping.

The taste is very similar to the scent, perhaps less vegetal in taste than the scent and you get a lot of that oily sensation together with the vegetal note that reminds me of olive oil, but the taste play between that savory note and that rich sweetness. The taste follow the trait of the scent, evolving into a floral version with each steep.

I can’t say that I recall how it tasted when I first tried it, but I have to say that it is thicker than I remembered.

The tea is very tightly compressed. As a relative newbie, I had difficulty chipping the leaves off.
First steep, DAMN that’s bitter. Not the most bitter that I’ve tried, but it definitely has strong kuwei. It wasn’t unpleasant at first, but I was drinking on an empty stomach and quickly got nauseated.
Ate some food, but the tea is still bitter with flash steeps at steep number 5 or something. Ugh, now I’m kind of sick of the kuwei.

I think I’m more of a cat person.

This was one of the best mini ball type raw I had so far! Very strong, full creamy body and very intensely fragrant. Major notes of Mango and Honey ~ this fellow is for sure very sweet and fruity with a certain spicy Sichuan citrus flowery pepper aspect to it. There is a lot of power within this ball. It can get overbrewed easily – so take care! This young Sheng is definitely strong on the stomach so eat something beforehand. Very long lasting and a good long way to go! Great good quality travel pu – worth to carry one or two within your pocket on your next journey

Scent-wise this dark buddy exhales such a sweet thick earthy bouquet with deliciously deep notes of marshmallows and bourbon vanilla. This whole construct changes a bit within later infusions into a more medicinal aroma with a hint of licorice.

Further on within the actual tasting and steaming scenting phase a very dense forest earthy melody whistles like a really spice strong balsamic breeze over the mossy surface of a with rain soaked jungle covered in mist. This is without a doubt a very rich and well balanced Shou with first impressions of shiitake mushrooms grown on old with moss covered tree barks while a from the mountain leading pure fresh creek wriggles its way through the thickness of this evergreen forest. With its deep creamy texture it literally develops a tingling sensation on your tongue and palatal. On one side it started with balsamic woodsy roots it soon transforms further into a quite milky chocolate note with hints of caramel and vanilla. The aftertaste is very long lasting as expected within a great fusion of sweet and earthy components.
Warming your body and soul it is easy to fall in love with this fellow which makes him a great beginners Shou but also to be enjoyed by tea lovers of any stage ~ You want it chill & cozy add some brown sugar to it!

For a ripe pu-erh this fellow really comes along with such a nice sweetness plus a hint of fruitiness – just lovely. Scent-wise there is a first and foremost chocolatey aroma noticeable – very thick and well balanced. Further a very creamy view into the future one with a herbal nearly minty flavor to it but a bit more like ginseng is playing a very important role within this delicious act.

Like the shu fortune teller foretold this liquor is predestinated to be creamy and thick in its texture with a nice mixture of chocolate, a small hint of roasted hazelnuts, a much more distinct nuance of Chinese herbal medicine flair, a bit of wood and somehow there is a certain taste of marshmallows ready to be experienced – but not that extremely sweet ones – more like we know it in our Country called “Eibischteig”. But the most focus on sweetness definitely builds up again a nice elegant composition of filled chocolates with a fine hint of cherries inside. Like a fresh salad at the end you also might taste a subtle note of fresh spinach. Of course you can’t left out the main ingredients of earthiness and mushroom flavors when it comes to a nice dark Shu but this aren’t the main aspects of this wonderful Pu-erh – more like a known side effect. The balance and the creaminess within its dark magic is just breathtaking and really well put into the spotlight. A skillfully overall rounded concept.

7 g
5-6 oz water
2 rinses, 10 sec with a rest of 2 min in between

dry leaf: compact, dark, dry, brittle, faint sweet musky scent like dry leaves

1st steep: 10-15 sec, rich dark brown with reddish tones, no bitterness noted
2nd steep: 12-15 sec, same color, light forest floor taste
3rd steep: 15 sec, lighter, more red color
4th steep: 20 sec, same as before. just kinda eh for me.

Drinking a 90s HK stored puer. It’s not labeled ripe or raw, but I’m pretty sure it’s a ripe because of it’s amazing creaminess. School has been extrememly busy lately, I come home at 7 everyday and just fall asleep, so the only time I have for tea is on the weekends and friday.

But this tea just made my morning, it’s so great. It’s like a warm hug, or sitting in a grampa chair next to the fireplace with a kitten in your lap. Yeah, that kind of warmness, haha. It’s colour is so great too. I normally don’t talk about colour, but my word is this one beautiful. It’s like a deep dark red, but when the morning light hit it the red colour started to shine.

It starts out just like a ripe, without too much flavour, but a lot of creaminess, and you get some storage flavour. Except that it starts out at like the pinnacle of most ripes with the mustiness of an aged tea of course. If you’ve ever drank a ripe, you know what I mean. At around the 3rd steeping, it’s just pure smooth creamy mushroominess. If you haven’t tried a ripe yet, it’s deffinately worth a try. Anyways, after the first steep, it brewed pretty consistently up until the 3rd steep where I am now. I don’t have time to review the tea after I’m finished, as I’ll be working for the rest of the say.

But it’s super smooth, thick, and with an oily like texture at the top of your mouth. It dried your mouth leaving it with the great taste of aged puer until you’re compelled to take another sip. Hm, as I read above I don’t think I did a good enough job, so let me explain further haha. It has a chocolaty taste to it, like not milk chocolate but like a sweet cacao bean, with a mushroomy taste afterwards, it’s so calming. When I smell the tea the aged puer note is all I smell, but it has a grape taste to it as well. the aged note is such a great compliment to all the flavours I discussed before, it’s like the bitterness that I wish young ripes had.

Well, I think I’ve summarised it pretty well, this ripe or raw, but probably ripe HK stored tea is probably the best go-to tea if you’ve been working hard all week. I’d recommend this tea if you’d love to start off your day great.

Have a great day!

Oh wow, this is a raw? Haha, this tea is just too good.

Got this sample during Black Friday.

First steep was smokey and tobacco heavy. I did not like it. This is my second aged raw, and there’s a similarity to the other one (Top of the Clouds from Crimson Lotus) but instead of the juicy stone fruit taste, I only got the smokey part.

The next steeps got sweeter and sweeter. Not taste of camphor like young raws. The sweetness changes as well. I wasn’t paying enough attention at first, but it progresses to a more sour sweetness. What’s amazing, though, is how many steeps I got out of this. It took more than double the amount of water that I usually use for raw. I don’t keep track of steep count, so I’m not sure what number I’m on, but I’m currently heating more water for my next steep (previous steep being 20 min)!
Damn, I’m still new to pu erh (especially aged), but I might actually cake this next black friday.

The smell of the brick is beautiful. Gives me strong hints of strawberry. Brewed this gongfu style starting at 30 secs and adding 15-30 each steep.

1st & 2nd Steep: These steeps give a smooth feel with no astringency at all. The flavors remind me of vanilla and berries.

3rd & 4th Steep: The vanilla becomes toned down a bit and a more floral taste appears. Still super smooth.

5th Steep & beyond: Floral taste gets stronger but the sweetness stays around somewhat. A slight astringency sets in as you get deeper.

This is absolutely one of my favorite teas and I can’t recommend it enough.

What a nice puerh it is. The aroma is probably the best I experienced with raw puerhs: no sourness, no dunkiness…. just a very powerful floral and fruity blend that is hard to describe but very easy to enjoy and appreciate. The same could be said for the taste – it is strong and immensely pleasant. Apricot, apple, cherry, mineral, flowers, orange zest. The tea’s emotional profile is of energy and cheerfulness.

This tea is forgiving with longer steepings and in general presents markedly different (but equally enjoyable!) profiles steeped short and medium. It invites you to experiment a little bit. A very nice lingering bitter and astringent aftertaste with floral and cherry notes is present. The only downside is that this enjoyable taste lasts only for the first 3-5 gaiwan steeps and after that quickly degenerate in the all-too-familiar cheap sheng astringency.

I tried this tea first time a year ago and while I liked it back then it since improved quite noticeably. I will have to go back and bump my previous rating up since this Smooch certainly deserved.

It came together with a several other mini-puerh tuos in a nondescript paper with a little picture of lips. It certainly smelled like a raw puerh but it took me some travel acrooss W2T to figure out it was the 2015 Smooch.

It has a very pleasant aroma for a raw puerh with the sourness augmented by some leafy and sweet notes. The taste is tricky: it is easy to oversteep and then it tastes a bit like vomit but in a good way. Since I am not a big fan of even a nicer tasting vomit I switched to very short infusions in a gaiwan (10-20 secs) and it revealed a powerful puerh sourness together with some notes of black currant leaves, raspberry, grasses, orange and spices.

It is way more complex than typical low-cost raw puerhs I used to get from Upton Tea. You can get many resteeps out of it and a long, long lingering aftertaste. So far it has been the best raw puerh I tasted.

The very first thing I noticed when drinking smooch is that it was sweetness up front, bitterness and astringency at the end of the sip. In my experience with most sheng, especially young Lincang sheng, I notice that the bitterness and astringency tend to make themselves known up front, but fade into a rewarding sweetness at the end. I brewed a 7-8g “dragon ball” of smooch in my ~100ml chaozhou teapot. As with all dragon balls, it took a little while to open up, but when it did the material was strong and long lasting. I didn’t count steeps, but I would guesstimate somewhere in the 12-15 steeps range which I think is pretty great. The liquor was thick, and reminded me of green apple (sweet, but with a bite) and a hint of muscatel grape. The Cha Qi is pleasant and relaxing, but not overly powerful. This probably wouldn’t be an ideal introduction to puerh teas, as the bitterness and astringency are quite obvious. However, if you’re not put off by a little bite, Smooch is a lovely tea.

I wasn’t a big fan of my sample of this one from w2t. Very high compression (likely would’ve been less of an issue if I’d received the outer part of the mushroom – I think I got part of the “stem”) and not particularly great leaf quality.

I found it astringent and tough to brew. This is sold out, but I wouldn’t be picking any up if it was in stock.

A bit smoky, reasonably thick, some sweetness coming in in later steepings. Definitely nicer than the other milan dancong I’ve tried, but still not really as complex or intense as I’d prefer.

Ultimately, I think what I’m learning is that as a matter of personal taste I just don’t love most dancongs (though there have been exceptions).

I’m mostly only bothering to post this in case anyone wants me to put the rest of the bag in the mail to them. :)

Cedar smoke and petroleum. It tastes like going camping, taking off your smoke saturated wool shirt, boiling it, and throwing some oxidized oolong in the water. This is good.

This tea is exactly as advertised – sweet, light, and smooth. It even tastes a lot like brown sugar. That said, I don’t really enjoy this tea. It just doesn’t hold my interest. It is really nice grandpa style though, more mineral notes.

I am just getting into puerhs, trying to understand all the hype. This one really helps to do it. I had a sample(25 g) and looked terrific: like a multilayered old piece of something from the strange, ancient forest. When you steep it it does not give you much of smell but the taste is pretty complex and cool. There is mineral, coffee, pleasant sourness and a lot spices. These spices predominate in a long, evolving aftertaste.

Also, if you steep it for 3-4 minutes the brew comes out very dark and tastes remarkably like coffee.

All in all, a pretty good experience that holds through multiple resteeps. I am not sure if I get more of this one – need to try more puerhs to figure out if this one is that unique – but you cannot go wrong with Brown Sugar.

(later addition) I started to steep for 2 minitues instead of 30-45 seconds and the taste profile changed completely: typical puerh earthiness and rotten wood came in force and became main notes. It was not bad but quite different. Note to yourself: this rea produces completely different taste profiles depending on the steeping time (which is not bad at all you can get multiple teas for the price of one).

I had a sample, gor during the free shipping promotion on Black Friday. The cake seems to be pretty tight.
I used a 100 ml gaiwan and 5g of tea. Did the steeps in the range of 30-60 secs. The first couple of them are very light (to be expected), from the steep number 3 the real game started.

The best part about this puerh is the smell of the wet leaf and tea. It is hard to describe but it is very refined. Wood in a forest on a warm day. Not strong at all but quite complex and pleasing – no hint of rot or mustiness.

The taste is along the same lines: it is restrained and refined,. Wood, sweetness, some grass. It is the kind of tea that a successful professional in a suit would sip in their office looking on the spring landscape lit up by a morning sun. And after a short pause turn back to doing Really Important Things, and doing them really well.

The tea resteeps well but is losing its refined complexity rather quickly. If you steep it for 2 – 2.5 mins or thereabout it gains some nice, not excessive bitterness.

Kinda a different puerh from what I am used to. It is good to keep it for a very specific mood but it will hardly become my daily drinker.