2016 Daily Drinker Sheng Puer from White2Tea

Today’s review is one of the new offerings from White2tea – the budget friendly 2016 Daily Drinker Sheng Puer. This sheng puer is the cheapest tea in the 2016 line up with a promise of you guessed it, being a daily drinker. Before I went to review this tea I just finished drinking a sheng and a black tea. I went into drinking Daily Drinker completely tea drunk, which is different compared to getting tea drunk while I write the review. Unwrapping All of the 2016 White2Tea shengs have great wrappers, but the 2016 Daily Drinker is certainly a statement piece… Continue reading, hoot!

2016 Diving Duck Sheng Puer from White2Tea – Tea Review

After sleeping a night on it, I ordered everything from the 2016 White2Tea lineup, barring Old Arbor (due to no sample size) and Poundcake (it is apparently the same recipe and I own a cake of the 2015). My mail comes early here in Seattle, unlike back in Los Angeles where I’d get mail at 5pm, so I can actually drink tea the same day I get it! The Haul! A photo posted by Char (@oolongowl) on Jul 12, 2016 at 2:53pm PDT I settled on trying the 2016 Diving Duck Sheng Puer first. I almost didn’t buy Diving Duck.… Continue reading, hoot!

June T&Co. Subscription Box – Tea Review

Today’s review is a brand new tea subscription/ tea of the month club – T&Co. T&Co is different than other tea clubs as each month gives you an experience to go with your tea. Each month is a theme, and following the theme the club comes with a tea curated with a treat, activity, and music. I got the June box, so the theme was Father’s Day. The packaging is lovely! It also came with a nice basket strainer and yellow mug (note, I unwrapped the mug for photos, it was safe in bubble wrap when it arrived) The tea is… Continue reading, hoot!

June 2016 White2Tea Club – Tea Review

For June 2016 White2Tea club we got cute 50 gram cakes! 2016 Mengsong Raw Puer and 2016 Mengsong Black Tea. This month sounds like another tea education piece as we can compare spring 2016 Mengsong – same producer and leaf, but processed differently resulting in a puer and black tea. The puer was traditionally processed to be a sheng, whereas the black was made for traditional Yunnan Dianhong style. These were pressed in mid-May and the notes stated resting would be a good idea. Since I am behind on the club, I am drinking this end of July, so these little cakes… Continue reading, hoot!

Rosali Tea Subscription Box – Tea Review

Rosali Tea is a tea of the month club / subscription box. This tea club has a quiz model, so you fill out survey and they send you a tea box to match your tastes. However, I recently got an email from them talking about the next box having Yaupon and Kenya Purple tea being included in boxes so maybe they got themes too. First off, awesome packaging! Wow, you get a box with a pull out drawer! I love this box, I will keep it and store things in it. Inside is three teas, 1oz each. I got Milk oolong,… Continue reading, hoot!

Hooty Tea Travels – Floating Leaves Tea and Blind Tea Tasting Oolongs. Part 2/2

My second visit to Floating Leaves Tea was to one of the monthly tea tasting classes, which was a blind tasting of 2016 baozhong and high mountain oolong. I thought a blind tasting is the best way to figure out what oolong you like without bias of the mountain, grades, and price. It is really cool that Floating Leaves Tea has classes. The class I went to was 7 people including myself. We were the second class of the day as the first one was full. Tasting the tea was great, learned some things, but it was also great to meet… Continue reading, hoot!

BeMatcha Organic Ceremonial Matcha – Tea Review

This is something you don’t see too often – a matcha seller who sells a couple different types of ceremonial matcha. BeMatcha has 3 different ceremonial grades of matcha as well as a culinary and a spring/2nd grade. I am tasting two of the BeMatcha Organic Ceremonial matchas today – Mana and Ten Yu. I sampled both matchas not knowing the differences, but it is likely suspicious which one is nicer when one comes in a bag and another in a tin. Both BeMatchas are from Uji Japan and Certified Organic. Apparently even their fertilizer is GMO free. Packaging Mana came in a resealable… Continue reading, hoot!

Zendori Ceremonial Matcha – Tea Review

Matcha time! Zendori Matcha sent me a tin to review and I took forever to find where I put it during my moves around Seattle. Zendori does sell their matcha on Amazon, yay! Free shipping and Prime for fast matcha hookups. This is the regular matcha. Zendori also sells a cheaper culinary grade, organic culinary grade and organic ceremonial. I tend to favor non-organic matcha as the quality tends to be better. They admit the organic one tastes different: “Conventional matcha has a vibrant green color and has a more full-bodied flavor, while organic is a bit lighter in flavor… Continue reading, hoot!

2008 Bana Tea Company Limited Edition Sheng – Tea Review

This tea was another Bana Tea Company purchase during my time at the 2015 Los Angeles Tea Festival. I don’t remember whether I sampled the 2008 Bana Tea Company Limited Edition sheng at the festival, but I’m not a hard upsell on a cake that is in the $50 range. The 2008 Bana Tea Company Limited Edition Sheng is a 200gram cake of Jinngu Mountain material. Dry Leaf The Limited Edition Sheng has a light sweet dry scent. This cake is also lightly pressed so it was fairly easy to break pieces off. The ticket wasn’t pressed with the tea but also came with… Continue reading, hoot!

Hooty Tea Travels – Floating Leaves Tea in Seattle Part 1/2

Since arriving in Seattle, I have visited Floating Leaves Tea twice – the place is just that cool! Floating Leaves Tea is located in the Ballard area of Seattle.  Ballard is a little out of the way to get to from downtown Seattle, but once you are there it is a fun area with lots of interesting shops and food. Floating Leaves Tea’s shop is small, but the first time I walked in I was greeted by the scent of roasted tea – the owner Shiuwen was roasting some oolong in the shop! Fresh roasted tea has such a nice smell!… Continue reading, hoot!