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Its a small sample given in my last chawanshop order. Smells in the packet very old and dusty.

Taste is quite mellow really, tastes aged – not fruity but just old and stuff. reminiscent of a mellow shou puerh, but with a thinner-transparent soup. A slight oil & salt on the tip of my tongue but generally its unsalty/mellow.

Aroma is mellow leaf-pile. Apparently the mellow is a classic three-cranes style.

Not the best i’ve tasted, lacking depth & richness and the flavour is a bit dusty & old & twiggy, but if you like that/shou lover that wants to try everything, you might like it more than me. Its so cheap!

Checked my notes – ‘Tastes like varnish wooden fruit, by steep 10 I thought yiwu’

Yeah I wont give up my day job to review tea quite yet. ..

I found this to be quite straightforward with its flavour & experience. Each steep did its thing, which was that aged varnish-bitter woody fruit taste (only way I can describe it), without much fuss. ’Twas ok. The front of the sip was the same as the end, not much in the way of a taste journey. It lasted throughout the day, and I particularly liked the later steeps when the taste changed to a hot-dark-milky/rounded base with some sour bitter lift.

It was ok – didn’t set me alight with complexity but its a cheap cake, so yeah recommended for the price – it also might be in sheng limbo-age, I don’t have enough data to know how this will progress when stored for a good few years nicely. Cheap enough to give it a try though :)

I’m finding as I get more into my whirlwind romance with the bitterness of young sheng that I am beginning to look for some with age on it when I want more but different. I find them a bit easier.

This has about 10 years on it which is my ballpark/laymans age where (i) can really experience what ageing does to puerh.

The first few steeps were light, and I was pushing the timing, getting to s5@1:30 where the cakes bitterness suddenly popped up alongside a nice tart/tannic fruit. I just smelled the gaiwan and got subtle cumin & yummy fruit which made me think of mango chutney with cumin & fenugreek. Nom. It doesnt actually smell like that but for some reason makes me think of it.

Classic aged woodsy notes, and tobacco in the bitter taste. I am enjoying the departure from my usual young sheng/region training I have been really working on last year. I am appreciating the bitterness of tea like this more due to that. Slight raisin fruit under all of this as well. Its tannic but a nice tannic.

its a nice exploration taste fruit being the most subtle, wood/age in the middle & bitterness on top. Not bad at all for the price, which is really cheap. At this present moment its even cheaper for anyone outside of the UK. About 10p/gram, really fairly priced.

I was hitting it with 10g/100ml gaiwan & quite long steeps.

This was an interesting tea. Dragon well to me was something I tried first almost 10 years ago & I have always known it to be on the savoury side, while this one had a really good incense-like-aroma, I first thought it had been perfumed somehow I was so surprised at the different taste.

I think the balance between the slightly-nutty green flavour & this roasty-almost-(cinnamon? i’m adding this a day after the fact)-incense was well done. Its rich & good, asparagus, and while I wouldnt say its really zesty zesty, there is some in there (citrus zest?)

I havent got much experience with dragonwell, or green teas in general, but I liked this for its incensed aroma which permeated into the taste experience (i like teas that dont cheat me by smelling amazing but then not tasting good to back that up), or maybe it is just well balanced/good processing.

Thanks to Chelsea/Tastethetea for a lovely bag of goodies :)

Having never tried Balhyo cha before I didnt know what to expect. The chocolate & cocoa aroma is really prominent from the dry leaf. Bit of research there is debate over whether its yellow or black. From the voices I read & tasting it says black to me.

Booting up the tea we have more of the aroma, and when I tasted it I expected malt, but the malt was not there. Instead there was a mixture of some roast & fruit-red-wine hidden in the slightly lively body, like a keemun-roasted-oolong. That’s the simplest way to describe it.. Oh and the aroma has the cocoa. The body is Keemun-sweet-ish with a little salt & fruit.

In fact it reminded me more and more of Keemun or unspoken lapsang as im finishing the cup. But with other things going on. It was really nice!

Steeped 5g 12oz fish-eye bubbles 1 minute which I need to try with some other teas as it was a perfect cup.

I can see why this was on my list of teas to try – i think there was a premium one from what-cha people were raving about last year or the year before.

Its a good black/red tea for people who dont dig too much malt but want a cup of something that envelopes them with soft warmth.

Perfectly described on the website – ‘…smooth sweet clean taste coupled with light fruitiness and a gentle lingering bitterness’

Thats basically it in a nutshell – I found this easy to drink, the vege-bitter was never overpowering, slight cooling menthol-aroma also part of that aspect. Sweetness, decent longevity – i’m still drinking it well over 10 steeps. Also nice price being a tenner for 100g, and UK-based, so good value for me.

Lost me review as it didnt work properly on my phone for some reason.

This was a pretty straightforward lovely FF. Floral & nutty, with a hint of melon & citrus, but leaning more towards the former taste-pair.

There was a slight tongue-lively-numbness going on, and was quite forgiving in the brew (the small amount left in the pot was palatable but seemed to have a bit of a strong caffeine kick)

Nothing stood out as particularly being its forte, but it was defo lush, nice thickness & i tried it with some honey from Paris (some mountain region, cant remember) and that complimented it very very well.

Enjoyed it very much, even thought its a jack-of-all-trades.

Rounded flavours, slightly grassy, with a sweet-bitterness that is backed up by a pretty strong aroma which is not quite tobacco, but somewhere around that region. Not sharp, sweet like candy floss.

Had to shift my perception a bit as steep 1 & 2 were curling my tongue a bit, the sweet oily residue left on my tongue has a bitter edge that needs to met with concentration, like a whisky – If left un-thought about its an ‘adult/interesting/weird’ taste rather than a ‘nice’ one. But this is very much a central part of the experience for me – concentrating & enjoying.

By steep 5 (25 seconds) & onwards It was all about rounded sweet weird-bitter taste. Terrible description, but thats the best I can do.. the flavour started leaving and about steep 8 or so I was doing minutes trying to wring as much as I could out of it, ended up milky-bitter.

I dont know if this is a classic Bulang taste, but was engaging enough for an enjoyable session. Not always nice, and the combination of bitter & milky was sometimes off, with a lack of magic huigan, but there was a little bit of dimension to it – and the price – its cheap!