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A little history:

Nearly twenty years ago I was a cake decorator. I also worked a seasonal job in a bakery during one fall semester of university. I hate baking. I love when other people bake for me. Not tonight.

Something stirred within me and I’m baking a damned lemon poundcake. It’s maybe 5 minutes from being transferred to a cooling rack. I got a little wild and made a lavender-lemon-Parker’s Evening Blend glaze. I really wanted to utilize the blue dyeing property of the butterfly pea flower and then remembered reading that lemon juice changes the blue to some other color. So my glaze is a light pink. Which probably won’t show up against the golden brown of the poundcake but daaaamn is that glaze delicious.

I can’t wait. It’s like 930 pm and I’m so stoked for this.

Courtesy of White Antlers, thank you :) Spring 2016 harvest, two pearls to 16oz grandpa in a mug.

It’s a smooth cup of cocoa-leather with a dash of pipe tobacco. Gentle nectar sweetness. Hints of butterscotch, malt, red fruits, pine and vanilla. Hot cocoa aroma. Everything about this tea sits in the middle. Some call that Just Right.

Quite a difference cold brewed. Much greener like grass but not grassy. Rich, heady florals and some toastiness. Annoying bitterness at this strength. Do most people cold brew with more leaf than they would hot? I do not but that’s what I did this time. I think I should stick to my typical low grammage for refrigerated refreshment — keep the bitter out.

I have no idea from whence this tea came nor exactly what kind of oolong it is. I’m guessing it’s at least from Anxi.

The dry leaf smells like baked fruits like cherry and cranberry, apple skins and woody cinnamon. Warming the leaf brings forth additions of a sugarcane-like sweetness and flowers. Once brewed, the aroma of the tea becomes very sweet with rich white florals and the woody cinnamon of the dry leaf transforms to a very soft, floral cinnamon. The taste is nonexistent with short gongfu steeps. Switching to longer steeps (starting at 1min) brings out a mild flavor with no distinctions beyond an impression of toasty-woody-vegetal apricot-straw. The aftertaste of unripe apricot is also mild. No astringency, bitterness in only late steeps, no sourness as in a tieguanyin. Slightly mouth-cooling. Surprisingly, the bottom of the cup retains a rich, sweet smell.

This oolong is reminiscent of pretty much any pot of oolong from a Chinese restaurant. In that way, it’s a very neutral tea. The tea’s mild qualities have made it a particularly enjoyable pick for this hot weather.

Seems to be going toward red sweet potato in age. Still fruity as all get out, lots of baked pear. Less spice. Still sweet with that classic GABA tang which is well bridled. I strongly advocate for leafing this one heavy and doing long gongfu steeps or the method that warranted this a 100 rating — stewing for hours. Either way, it’s versatile with no bitterness and only slight drying. This GABA oolong would be great for loose leaf beginners as it can be prepared a variety of ways and at different temperatures. And for the more advanced, there’s complexity in this brew if you want to go searching.

An oldie in a bag with hand-written instructions that I followed: 2 tsp, 185F, 2min. This tea served as a single calibration point for how Nepali teas age. The lone review of this tea is from 4 years ago.

The “zesty taste of orange blossoms” is definitely still there along with a sad perfumey taste. The tea body is light and has a fun, tannic astringency. The base tastes seem to have evaporated. I’m left with hints of wood and malt weaving through the wateriness. Love me some Nepali teas and I’m sure I would have bought this fresh.

Autumn harvest from a state protected forest in the Yiwu mountains.

The sample I have is from just outside the beenghole and has a moderate to tight compression. It smells sweet and cool like an alpine forest with a strong note of baked stonefruits and raisins. The warmed leaf is intensely sweet, same baked stonefruits and now I pick up cherry. A cool undercurrent lies beneath. I gave a rinse and let the leaf steam for several minutes to loosen the compression. Notes of apricot, forest floor, cinnnamon, menthol, pungent herbs and a hint of smoke present. The rinse color is a glowing harvest gold.

The taste is initially somewhat alkaline bitter, umami and nutty, buttery stonefruits with some restrained sweetness. It’s very smooth and round, heavy and light at the same time. Pure osmanthus aftertaste. A cooling sensation grows from a vague feeling in the chest upward along the whole throat and into the mouth. I sit. A wave of sleepiness washes over me. My note for the second steep says only ‘subdued strength.’ I lie down. I can feel the energy in my teeth, electric chatter. My senses are heightened and I’m picking up things I normally wouldn’t, unlike some sheng that seem to gently mute my perception. Can’t describe the feeling well but it feels like coming down from a day trip. I fall asleep mid-afternoon, a bit after the second steep.

The next day, the liquor is like broth, a tone of honeyed apricot juice mixed with walnuts and tobacco, slightly metallic. This character, along with a drying and strong violet aftertaste and returning sweetness, persists throughout the remaining infusions, fading gradually. The spent leaf reveals some of the fattest stems I’ve ever seen.

The tea speaks for itself and is more complex than I can convey. I hope to provide a more comprehensive note next time. Recommended to the experienced. I don’t think a person new to sheng would fully grasp what’s going on here, much like myself. However! that doesn’t mean that only experienced drinkers would gain great satisfaction from these leaves.

Wildflower meadow dry leaf. The heated leaf smelled like a warm, rich spice bread studded with dried sour cherries and drizzled with a thinned caramel. There was also a cleanliness to that aroma. Rinsed leaf smells like antique wood and aged florals.

Let’s talk about the mouthfeel first. Amazing! Thicker than oil — very pectic. Silky smooth, lubricated the whole mouth. Cooling, only lightly drying. Later developed an acidic-enzymatic feeling like unripe pineapple but still managed to retain that special thick body until I called it quits. The longevity of this tea is impressive. I steeped it over the course of 3 days. The only other sheng that I’ve had such accomplished longevity with was Last Thoughts.

This tea is exceptionally clean. I remember it being sweet but didn’t note it as such; more an impression of sweetness. Light caramel-brown sugar flavor, custard-ish, dry grass, green grape skin, high mineral content turned into a bright-toned brew like apricot and the same unripe pineapple that influenced the mouthfeel. Trace bitterness. The second day, this tea was a fantastic cleansing accompaniment to homemade cardamom-heavy pumpkin pie. Fast-moving tannins. I didn’t notice a returning sweetness until this day. The third day, the leaf steeped out still viscous and cooling with lingering fruity and floral flavors.

In terms of body feel and effects, I became very warm and comfortable with the second steep. My vision developed an orange hue, which sometimes happens to me with shou. By the third steep, a spicy burn developed in my ears and the cooling mouthfeel exposed itself as eucalyptus-like in my chest. With the fourth steep, I was so lost in the way this tea was effecting my perception. Get ready for woowoo. I felt menthol in my spine, moving up and sitting in my cerebellum before creeping up and and spreading across the crown of my head, like the unfolded lotus representation of the crown chakra. I lost sense of time in a most natural way. Nothing about this tea made me uncomfortable. It was like a mother’s love as she cradles her babe. Sleep came easily. (Results may vary!)

This was a delight of a sheng and one that relies heavily on mouthfeel. While the tea lacks a bit in the aftertaste and also in some grounding tones, it never takes off too high either. If you want to explore just how naturally thick and smooth a young sheng can be, I’d highly recommend getting a sample. The price is right. I have no idea how something like this would age, but it seems to be doing just fine in my 2 years of storage. Tea Urchin has fantastic teas and sadly they don’t seem to get much recognition around here.

Smells and tastes like some autumn-themed Yankee Candle in the best of ways. Really. I’m getting a major hit of chamomile in the form of apple, not in the pollen-sweet way and certainly not dusty. Mildly sweet, plenty of cardamom, which in the case of cardamom means there is probably only a sprinkling. Then I notice the warm spiciness and slight drying of woody cinnamon and ginger. The appley taste brightens up in the back of the mouth becoming tart, where it morphs into what I’m guessing is the pumpkin spice flavoring? Some grounding sweet cocoa taste lingers in the aftertaste. Then a bit later comes the returning sweetness of a lightly bitey honeybush in the throat. And lastly, the marshmallow root gives a touch of body. This is blended very well. Smooth flavors! And it can’t be oversteeped! What more could you ask for before bedding down?

The normal low 80s of this week will give way on Sunday to 5 or 6 days of 90s and 100s. At least it will still be in the 50s at night, so this herbal tea will remain in rotation.

Book pairing: The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

When I open the bag, I get hit in the face with wintergreen but it’s nonexistent in taste. It’s mostly autumn leaf and mineral with honey sweetness and florality that are muted, a hint of malt. Can’t place the flower — it almost reminds me of baby powder, maybe gardenia past its prime? Flamboyant this tea is not. It would be good when I’m in the mood for an understated brew. Regardless of its lack of overt character, this makes a fine autumn cup. I’ll have to come back to this one, and I will because I have a whole cake, haha. Stuff the tiny teapot and see what it has to offer. It seems ashmanra had some success 9 months ago.