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Haha. This has to be the most forgettable sheng puerh I’ve ever had. Sandpapery young astringency fades away within several steeps. What’s left is a mostly flavorless, lightly vegetal-honey bitter cup with a whisper of cooling throatfeel.

The only aspect that stands out to me is the returning sweetness and even then it’s like “Whatever.”

Time for a lazy experiment. No control, no reproducibility. The rest of the sample I’ll leave sealed in its bag. The bag will be placed in a compartment in my truck to avoid direct sunlight. It will be exposed to higher temperatures and greater fluctuations than the relatively stable 65-70F, non-air-conditioned storage of my bedroom closet. I will forget about it all summer and probably find it when I clean out my truck sometime in November, at which point I’ll go, “Huh. I wonder how long this has been here. Let’s have a brew.” Or maybe I’ll forget about it all winter. Maybe whoever buys my truck in the future will find it.

What does the proposed treatment hold for such a vapid tea?

Found yet another Jinggu county tea (or is it Jingdong? I’m finding conflicting info) in my stash — 2018 Lao Wu Shan Gu Shu Cha from Yunnan Craft. I’ve not seen Lao Wu Shan puerh available at any of the other vendor sites I’ve frequented.

Dry leaf aroma is floral-raisin-wood. Warmed leaf aroma has a sharp barnyard pungency with raisins and fruit punch? Rinsed leaf brings out mellow apricot, wet wood, more florals and savoriness. Medium-bodied, a lot of saponins in the pot and cup on first pour. Savory, alkaline, dry grass; light creamed honey sweetness and butter. Overall mellow and smooth with a bright mineral finish that later turns tart and drying with growing bitterness. Returning sweetness, cooling in the chest/throat and calming all from the first steep. I’m left feeling indifferent; it’s still young.

Lighter compression, the chunk separated with the rinse so I’ve been poking around the wet leaf. Single leaves, buds, 2-3 leaf and bud sets, some longer stems. Doubt it’s gushu but other than a few char spots, it looks healthy and well enough made. Cloudy brew for many steeps, though.

I wonder how other teas from this area compare.

Japanese teas are not my forté but I usually enjoy them. This was a sample included with my matcha re-order — thank you Alistair :) I brewed the entire sample western in one go before work.

Cloudy brew full of sweet umami and good body. I remember it being extremely smooth and not leaning too heavily in any green-tasting direction. I got 3 great infusions, the first 2 of which ended up going in my thermos. It held up really well for several hours. I’m sure I could’ve gotten a fourth infusion based on how full of flavor and body the third was, but as it goes, I was in my typical morning rush despite giving myself almost 2 hours to get ready.

Typical light and clean gold bud character. It has a very clear, pure malt grain taste and sweetness. gmathis mentioned burlap sack before, though in regards to Keemun. I get that note here plus a bit of lightly floral cocoa and some of that creamed honey Brenden mentions in his description. Second steep brings out baked bread and black pepper. Super smooth.

Now that’s an easy sipper.

Thanks for the sample, Brenden :)

With 630-some tasting notes logged on Steepster over almost 2 years, I can say drinking tea provides me a time for daily meditation and brings me immense pleasure. I drink a decent amount of teabags when lazy or pressed for time and don’t mind if they have added flavorings. If I’m going for loose tea, though, it’s always straight and generally unflavored.

Steepster has, through trades with other members, introduced me to some delicious flavored loose teas I would have never picked up on my accord. Dots and Loops, Butterscotch Potion and Banoffee Rum-ba come to mind. tea-sipper sent Blueberie-zzz my way a few months ago.

For some reason, I’ve retained a vivid memory of one afternoon in kindergarten daycare. It resurfaces a few times per year unprovoked. This takes me back to that day, playing with a blueberry-scented Strawberry Shortcake doll. The aroma of Blueberrie-zzz combines that day with another memory of those candy necklaces on elastic string I’d buy at the Speedway gas station on my walk home from elementary school.

The blueberry and lavender linger long in my mouth and heart. The experience makes me feel things. Perhaps it’s a longing for innocence. I could become addicted to this.

Addendum: 5 grams gave 2 full-flavored steeps

Pretty sure this is the last of my Jinggu teas.

The dry leaf is mesmerizing and shimmery. First several steeps are 1-dimensional drying straw taste with low-sitting, tongue-numbing bitterness and a cooling, metallic finish. Pleasant, quick aftertaste that’s changing from fruity to milk and pure cinnamon. Light-bodied. Later it becomes mostly floral resinous-bitter, dry grass-brass metallic, with a woody undertone and milky-butter minty-cooling finish. Aftertaste of unripe floral apricot followed by a sugarcane returning sweetness and mild spiciness in the throat. Relaxing from the first steep with no floral-induced headache. It was the perfect after dark brew while listening to Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage. Understated in flavor but simply a pleasant tea that I’d like to try again further down the line. Parts of it reminded me of White2Tea’s four am.

Thanks for sharing, Togo :)

Song pairing: Herbie Hancock — Little One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kl4QgMuoBU

Had my yearly review at work the day I had this. I left work in a good mood and this tea made my day even better.

Dry leaf is beautiful. Smells of apricot and honey-powdered sugar. Warmed leaf reminded me of freshly made honey-sesame candies. The rinse was bright, softly pungent, fruity with apricot and also possessed aged florals.

The first steep was light but left a spicy and fruity finish, something like red fresno chili peppers and peaches, straw. I sat with that for a minute and realized I was also tasting sichuan peppercorns — floral and citrusy — which I’ve only tasted once before in a yellow tea. The aftertaste was already cooling and prominent with cream, peaches and powdered sugar. Delicate strength came to mind with the first steep.

Second infusion, a thin bitterness spread across my tongue on the sip, while herbs, gentle forest floor and something similar to tannic redwood bark fleeted through. A light, rapsy throat astrigency developed, leaving my throat feeling very warm and full. This was followed by a vegetal, unripe peach skin aftertaste. Then the throaty astringency crept up to the back of my tongue and morphed into the feeling of eating a green banana or a peach that hasn’t had its fuzz removed. It felt like everything happened on the swallow.

The third steep was intensely cooling throughout my body but also warming — an impression of peppermint mixed with eucalyptus and Saigon cinnamon. Metallic, mouth-watering. Light milkiness to the body and aftertaste.

With the fourth infusion, I found myself paying most attention to the tea’s floral-mushroom aroma. Bright straw taste with mellow meadow florals, somewhat savory, umami. Tingling, ringing tongue. The aftertaste was more metallic; my active imagination noted it as drinking liquid aluminum. How could that be enjoyable? I don’t know but it was! Still that intense spicy warming and cooling sensation that I’m becoming addicted to. It’s a quality in sheng that I just find so damn pleasant and intriguing.

The energy of the tea fit so well with me. I can’t describe it beyond invigorating and smooth with my head above the clouds and a desire to have my hands working the earth. After a few weeks of procrastinating, I finally planted the remaining native shrubs that had been sitting in pots for far too long. I came back inside many more times between planting and watering the entire garden to continue with this tea.

Beautiful. For the current $0.31/g, this is a tea worth trying. Added to my cake list for sure.

Found a few more Jinggu sheng in storage.

The leaf of this is still very yellowish olive green. I noticed the compression of the cake looks a little tighter than others I have tried recently. The leaves also take longer to unfurl, though the tea is full in flavor from the first steep. It’s a very mellow liquor, low-toned in taste and feel. In the mouth, it’s like a gentle mushroom broth with a nutty body and a light honeyed sweetness. Herbal minty cooling, smooth with balanced green woody astringency and bitterness that sits low. It’s surprisingly floral in the nose, bringing a higher pitch to the otherwise savory aroma.

A quality about this tea that stuck to me is the difference in fragrances before brewing. My seasonal allergies were active yesterday after riding my bicycle home from work through invisible clouds of rye grass pollen. When I sat down with this tea, I couldn’t smell the dry leaf at all. When warmed it smelled of rum balls, nuts and faint butterscotch. After the rinse, it was softly vegetal pungent and distinctly reminded me of putting out a backyard campfire in Ohio, like the smell of smokey water running into the thick blades of grass and black, loamy soil surrounding our fire pit. The two entirely different aromas between the warm and rinsed leaf left me perplexed. I would like to come back to this tea once my allergies subside to give it a fair sniff.

Overall, this Jinggu sheng is pleasant and mellow with a very natural forest taste but not currently a preferred profile.

Oh my belly. While I love upfront bitterness, this has a kind of flat alkalinity that my body can’t handle. Five years of EoT storage is apparent in the dark, dry leaf (plus one year in Mediterranean California climate) with notes of forest floor, grain and very faint smoke. The warm leaf smells spicy with pronounced baked bread, some type of citrus (maybe pomelo), licorice root, impression of cherry. Rinsing changes the profile into something very pungent and vegetal. Parsley and celery root come to mind, root vegetables in general, more forest floor, dark soil clinging to tree roots.

From there… eh… flat alkalinity is upsetting my stomach. Thin body, tastes are… eh… thin with that same forest floor, moving later to something more tobacco-leathery but still ever-thin; mild, diffuse bitterness. Mellow aged aroma with a touch of cherry-prune. Light camphor feeling. Aftertaste later is citric sour. This tea is giving me a drowsing, heavy limb effect similar to the other Bangwai sheng I’ve tried though too dopey for my liking.

Long Lan Xu, back to the crock with you.

I’m supposed to be making carnitas.

Right now, this sheng has me kicked back in my chair with my feet on the bed. I’m transported back to Akron, in the old house, winter. Living room, French doors closed, wood-burning stove roaring, tomato soup bubbling away on top, the sound of Skyward Sword in the background. Cocooned in a blanket. My ears are burning from the heat. So drowsy and comfortable, that feeling as you succumb to the fading in of sleep, reality slowly stipples away at your periphery, defocusing your gaze, the fire crackles, eyelids lower, dreamtime seamlessly folds over the diminishing edges of this moment. I think about the wrapping of a puer cake, everything points to the beenghole. A nice package.

It’s difficult to describe the actual tea when the qi is so distinctive. This is very close in profile to the 2016 Bang Wai Gu Cha I tried last night. Much less sweet, which I prefer, more balanced, spicier, brighter. Good returning sweetness and longer lasting, more distinctive fruity peach-mango-apricot aftertaste. The oiliness isn’t as pronounced but it’s felt later lining my tongue. Not yet sure about longevity. Very nice for a young one and arguably worth the tenths of a cent more per gram :P Might cake. Can’t go wrong at $0.14/g. Edit: Will cake this weekend. Please don’t buy them out.

I’m having deja vu. I’ve typed this note before.