338 Tasting Notes
Just grabbed a random Bana sample, & this was the one. Quick rinse & leaving the leaf to settle for 10 minutes.
Firstly, the aroma. yes, its nice & complicated fruity smells. I’m looking forward to this a lot. I mean it really smells good.
First steep, & its a murky one. Thick-looking liquor, wonderful taste. Its soft & sweet but with just a hint of bitter. Its deep thick & lovely, with a honeyed edge.
Second steep & theres a little intense chi energy building already, but im also a bit hungover so that has an effect. Taste is great, i share some with my friend whos never had any puerh before. She cant place any of the flavours. Its lovely.
Lovely mouth coating thickness, & soft bitter streak on the finish of each sip & a lively bunch of flavours. Its a bit fruity & sweet, leafy & has some great floral/leafy/menthol aroma & huigan, its one of those nice ones that goes up into your head & fills your brain with steamy cooling lushness.
By steep 5 the flavour is an interesting complex menthol leaf flavour. I’m finding it hard to place the flavours but its going down a treat. Theres a lot going on.
Always a subtle bitter outline to the taste but at its core its thick, sweet, fruity, leafy, menthol. I’m basically really digging this, as Moot said its a kaleidoscope rather than one melded flavour & that is something I really appreciate in a tea. I can taste something a bit like green Wine Gums, which happen to be my favourite sweets. Totally making me smile. This was steep 5 with a 20 second around 85c/90c I think.
I LOVE the balance of this tea. I could never work it out, its exciting to drink, i’m relishing the changes happening in my mouth as I type this. The leaf never got ruined, bitterness never became dominant, every steep was a fresh one with its merry-go-round green-wine-gum vibrancy (while still being honey-sweet bodied & also leafy-bitter). I could also taste something akin to high-mountain Taiwanese Oolongs, although I had one this morning so It could be that.
I think I could write about this tea for a while, oops I left the gaiwan brewing on the 8th steep. Still vibrant & drinkable. I ponder if this is the sort of enjoyment animals that eat fresh bitter leaves get?
Also my nose is a bit blocked, is this is adding to the enjoyment by catching the aroma?Maybe sticking things in your nostrils to catch puerh vapour will be my next invention.
Great tea.
Flavors: Bitter, Camphor, Fruity, Menthol, Pleasantly Sour, Sweet
Preparation
No.2: Lancang/Jingmai
Really enjoyed this one, it is less straight-up-fruity than the Menghai, more milky & savoury & bitter. Firstly giving off a wonderful complex almost-floral aroma. The first two steeps were so nice! Then a bitter note crept in throughout the middle of the session.
Quite bitterleaf tasting but with interesting colourful huigan (pink & green, yo). The green from the leaf & with something complex & shiny & aromatic (weird floral) over the top. But this with a milky body that I love in shengs.
Towards the end of the sesh I was left with more milky water (another thing I like in long lasting shengs) & this interesting leaf taste.
I am definitely interested in other teas from around Lancang & Jingmai if this complex floral aroma & huigan is something prevalent in them, the leaf taste was still a bit of an acquired taste but that interesting note kept me entertained. Those two first steeps though, If I can brew this one to keep in that ballpark I will seriously grow to love this one, possible 90+ score. I did use a lot of leaf, perhaps less next time.
Also nice is that the Menghai tasted ‘basic’ and this one didnt, at all, to me.
I sent some Oolongs to LP & Daylon for a blind test. It was my first curating something like this & I learnt that for these to work best you need to send more than one session. Some I didnt even have 10g for both & I think 10g each should have been the minimum.
Anyway here are the teas:
1 Ling Tou Village ‘Bai Ye’Dan Cong – YS Spring 2016
2 Lao Cong Ba Xian – JTS 2015
3 Wu Yi Zi Hong Pao – YS
4 Honey Mt. Royal Oolong – Imperial Teas of Lincoln 2014
5 2014 oriental beauty competition grade – Mountain tea
6 2014 Ancestor Mt. gabalong – imperial Teas of Lincoln 2014
7 AAA milan – JTS 2015
8 Lao Cong Ya Shi – JTS 2015
Bonus puerh:
Sheng – 2014 Rui Gong Tian Chao – Chadao
Aged Sheng – 2006 Xiaguan 8673 – TeaBranch UK (no longer in business)
Shou – 2009 Gong Ting Seven Son – Abbey Tea
Eight was a balled oolong… a Gaba. You sure you did’t mix 6 and 8? Looks like I did well, even got close on the aged sheng guess as they are close in style. Fun journey, now I must up it even more with direct stuff : )
no, I defo didnt! I thought you got yours mixed up though somehow when you review – the last two were done on different times as both JTS & Daylon loved the number 8.
99% my writing was terrible – I barely ever actually write by hand anymore.. prolly my scruffy writing man
things I learnt 2: print better stickers
No worries, t was fun : )
Sweet. Apparently, I like me some duck s$%(^. I haven’t tried the Pu-Erhs yet since I’ve been waiting for the right time for those. I’ve only had weaker Pu blends once a day or a series of oolongs to keep caffiene at a minimum level because I have a hard time sleeping during school.
And also, I enjoyed the selection deeply. :) Thank you Rasseru
No problemo. I enjoyed doing it a lot, yeah that ya shi is proper nice stuff.
I thought I would try out this nice sample set for W2T, take advantage of the free shipping it enables & learn a little more about the terroirs of Yunnan.
no.1 – Menghai. Classic fruity leafy sheng taste. Nice sour note tingling my tongue throughout the steeps, bitter but never delving into too bitter. Slight herbaceous/medicinal/camphor leaf aroma throughout. Lively energy, after 5 or 6 cups the caffeine kicked in & I was a bit wobbly from the stimulus.
A little underlying sweetness, but the soft sourness & slight fruit was the main player in the flavours.
http://www.chawangshop.com/media/heicha/2011_Hunan_Heicha_Zhu_Xiang_Ji_200g4.jpg
Seriously. Just look at that beauty.
If you’re thinking it looks like someone broke apart a couple of wet cigars & shoved them in a bamboo wrapper you are probably on the right tracks.. this one is pretty dank with smoky hints.. cigar tobacco & sweetly sour notes. – Not ‘smoked’ like DHP or Lapsang but just in the background. Also some medicinal & pile flavours but again they all sit behind a plummy Hunan Heicha sweetness. It isnt as strong as a couple of wet cigars, it just gives that impression subtly.
All this is pretty mixed together in the soup, so its either balanced or jumbled, depending on whether you like that or not :) This soup isnt thick & dark & earthy like a shou its more fruiter in the viscosity.
These notes give way to a mellow tea later on in the session, but with a bit of a body feel going on. Crept up on me :) Not massively strong but just noted. turns into library flavours later.
Its not that long lasting. Its not super rich or thick. Its also not expensive & is certainly interesting if you like those old smokey book flavours, while not tasting overly smoked, a slight sweet to balance things out while not being fruity. Maybe its more a bamboo sweetness.
Flavors: Autumn Leaf Pile, Bamboo, Fruity, Medicinal, Pleasantly Sour, Smoked, Tobacco
I am now officially a cheap tea date. 2.5p/g & i’m devouring this like its going out of fashion. Its fruity & old & dank & spicy (like mince pies)… has a slightly tongue numbing sour note, sweet… just so much win for so little wonga.
I mean you just open the bag & inhale the goodness. It’s a bit like the sweet part of a christmas cake or a pack of dates has been transformed into a boggy leafy mess. Raisins? yeah something like that. There is old wet mud in there but because of the fruity flavours it just tastes of win.
Love it.
It does leave me a little confused though – this seems to be closer in flavour to an aged sheng than any 2012 shou could ever be….? I wonder why that is
Flavors: Dates, Fruity, Pleasantly Sour, Raisins, Spicy, Sweet, Wet Earth
Mmm, sounds good! I’ve been wanting to try some more hei cha, they’ve been hit or miss for me though
This one is win from bag to mouth, there is some interesting aromas from my heicha order, that’s for sure
Interesting notes. Heicha was my door to pu’er, oddly enough. Once I found pu’er that I loved, I put my heicha aside to age, which I suppose is the right thing to do. Most of my stuff tastes of medicinal, sweet leaf pile and soil. I’m hoping it will reveal some nuances as it ages.
I really like this. The website description is perfect, on the flowery side but still with a hint of peanut. These floral or fruitier greens are so much up my street! Still has the slightly savoury green feeling but with a much nicer finish from the florals.
Total yum.
Flavors: Floral, Green, Nutty
Only thing bad about this tea is that it was so nice, I drank it too fast im a bit uncomfortable from the caffeine
Strong review! Would you still stand by that score today?
In other words, how tea drunk were you when you wrote that? :D
I must admit the only other time I had some more recently it wasnt as good as the day of this review, which was a perfect session.
Try a sample and follow the instructions on the website exactly, I remember thats what I did when I tried it first.
i’ll have to do it again but follow them to the letter
Will do, thanks. Not often once sees a 100 rating so it made me curious :)
I’m drinking this now. It tastes more floral, bitter & menthol than how it tasted on the day I reviewed the sample. The huigan is a kaleidoscope of flavours, bitter-floral. Its a hard tea to pin as it changes a lot.
Today almost yiwu-esque but without the vegetal roundness, more flowery
Interesting :) Only one way to find out now. Yes I do find that teas not only change over time, but day to day (more due to environmental factors and the state of one’s own palate)
the huigan is super cooling, really feeling it now, steep 6.