Happy American Thanksgiving! Forget the turkey, let’s gushu. Today is a comparison review of White2Tea’s 2018 Arbor White and Arbor Red Tea. Yes, red and white rolls off the tongue better than white and red, but I am drinking these from light to dark!
Though I got the cake of Arbor White as I knew that is a safe blind purchase for me, I only bought a sample of Arbor Red for review purposes. I do like black tea, but not enough to want to shell out the cost of a full cake blind.
Both teas are the same Old Arbor material, just one is processed white and the other black. The Arbor Red is $7 more a cake, I am guessing since it required a bit more processing to get to black tea. The community feedback on both teas have been excellent, so I have been looking forward to drinking both. Plus we got a tea education fun using good material.
I wanted to take my time and have a nice full session with each, so I am starting with white and then red instead of a side by side.
White2Tea’s 2018 Arbor White Tea
The smell is floral and fruity with notes of a freshly washed fleece sweater. The leaf has multiple beautiful tones leaning more darker than the other 2018 white teas.
I was warned Arbor White has a brutal tight pressing but found it was actually not bad. It was tight, but I had no problems prying off chunks. I have had A LOT worse (cough, 2017 Turtle Dove brick, cough) and I prefer my white teas tight for aroma holding potential. This cake has a good middle ground, it isn’t a puer pick breaker, but I can see the beenghole being bad.
I used 1 gram of leaf per 20ml of vessel size, gongfu steeped in boiling water. The hot leaf smells like warm white wine, and bruise fruits and books. I could mistake this almost for a sheng with a year on it by scent.
First and Second Infusion: The flavour of Arbor White is captivating. It tastes somewhere between an asian pear and meatier mealy pear. It starts bright and sweet and develops a more mellow richer peaty taste with a meaty chew to it.
Arbor White tea immediately has a physical body feel. I can feel it loosen the jaw, sink my body down to bear hugs, and giving me a buzz from the surrounding honey bees.
The aftertaste is a lingering stale fruity sweetness which is really nice and uncommon. More often than not, white tea doesn’t linger in the aftertaste.
Third and Fourth Infusion: Arbor White is heavy. The body is creamy, but each sip is like drinking cement mix. The notes are still pear-like with a bit of boiled down cinnamon sticks. It has an interesting spice and dark backgrounds, despite looking light and sipping sweet and fruity. The energy is really frickin high. My vision is almost blurring and I’m wired.
Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Infusion: Each steep seems to get darker looking and tasting. Arbor White resteeps richer and meatier, being less cutesy fruity sweet and getting more spice and molasses. The aroma is of mulled spices, wafting up the sinuses as I sip and lingering a touch with some sweetness. It also has a woodsy quality to it. Some sips have a slight vanilla essence to it but it’s way back there with the soggy wood and spice.
This tea forces you to take your time to drink. It is dense AF still sipping like cement mix thick and dark closing in on black tea territory.
Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Infusion: The eighth infusion hit maximum darkness. This leans bitter. Arbor White tastes like simmered pieces of peaty wood and spices that lost their sharpness. It has a mysterious dark honey sweetness and the feel of trading gut punches. The texture is chunky thick, but the aftertaste leaves a dryness in the throat.
Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Infusion: Arbor White tea has thinned out some, with a less heavy body feel. The texture has thinned to an oil instead of chunky cement. It finally has gone to bitter and dry status, like I over steeped a black tea in later infusions, without the tannic element. Arbor White is woodsy and bitter stew in the finish.
The extended twelfth and thirteenth steep got light and I’m back to “this is white tea” as Arbor White is sweet, cottony note, with a dry finish.
Gut Rot – High. I felt the gut rot by steep 3. Young white, and especially since we got old tree material made for puer, has a lot of caffeine and is butt kicking. You need a full meal before this tea and more than a soggy protein waffle that I had 40 minutes beforehand. I need a full breakfast of beans, a slice of ham, couple eggs, sausage, hash browns, and a cinnamon bun to line the stomach before drinking Arbor White. My stomach was cramping violently and I actively felt like I was dying.
Comments
White2Tea’s Arbor White isn’t a green delicate pretty white tea, this is drinking motor oil before you start a bar brawl. This white tea gets dark and rich quickly.
This is a white tea for people who lean more towards darkly aged whites, black tea, and maybe even drier stored aged puer. Arbor White has that depth, thickness, aroma, and energy of puer, but a strong black tea essence, but light fruity like a white tea. It’s certainly not for someone hoping for delicate floral white, but there’ are plenty of other white teas that fit that bill.
I really want Arbor White in 5 years and in 10. The already dark element and the crazy good material is very promising for awesome aged white.
I had a break to go get Hawaiian food. Hawaiian food is the greatest gut rot killer due to piles of meat, macaroni salad, and the indecent amounts of white rice to suck up the grease and sauce.
White2Tea’s 2018 Arbor Red Tea
The dry leaf of Arbor Red smells fruity and bookish as well. The compression was on the tight side but not unreasonably bad.
For Arbor Red I leafed it 1 gram per 15ml of vessel size, gongfu steeped in boiling water. The hot leaf smells ultra peaty and a bit smokey.
First and Second Infusion: The tasting notes of Arbor Red is of cigars, wood, and peat. It is like I took Arbor White and left it to oxidize up in an oak barrel. Some sips are sweet but on the molasses and wood range. The texture is equally thick and cement dense, leaving an oily texture in the mouth. It doesn’t have as much aroma as the white yet, and already has a slight dryness to it.
Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Infusion: Arbor Red has gone full peaty. This is strong peaty, tannic, woodsy oak, and malty. The fourth infusion was hella strong concentrated punch. This tea is an airhorn to the fast wakeup call to the face just on flavour alone. Arbor Red is thick like gravy, but the flavour is mostly slowing me down as it’s just packing so much richness. Each steeping gets a bit drier, finishing with a dry back of the throat. With the extra dryness, I get a bit of fruity cherry wood aftertaste leftover.
My eyes are popping awake. I keep thinking about chest hair. Arbor White gave a numbing snuggle effect, but Arbor Red is slapping me around. It reminded me of my Brazilian Jiujitsu days and how much I hated getting rug burned by chest hair when I sparred with men who failed to wear a rash guard. Goddamn, this tea is strong.
Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Infusion: Arbor Red is starting to get sweeter with each infusion as is slips flavour. The sweetness is like brown sugar, but it is with the bitter, tannic, and brisk.
Tenth Infusion: This is the final long infusion. Arbor Red is brown sugar and a bit woodsy. It is pretty dry though but overall pleasant.
Gut Rot – Moderately High. I felt Arbor Red on steep four. I just had a massive lunch and my stomach demanded dessert. Arbor Red is just strong and full of energy and really wants something sweet with whipped cream to counter it.
Comments
White2Tea’s Arbor Red is a black tea on steroids. It is strong black tea in more ways than one – flavour, texture, and feel. It packs a dense breathless punch as the flavour is so rich. Normally, and like what I did today, you start with light teas and finish with darker teas. Arbor Red drinks like a like a meal, with room for dessert.
This tea has a type and setting. Our setting is by a fireplace, in a silk robe and cigar in hand. Our type is black tea or shou/aged sheng drinkers who want the best, darkest motor oil that steep with more leaf than water.
Arbor Red is a young black tea though. This one would be worth revisiting next year to see how it settles down. I’ve been finding pressed black teas round out in a year or so.
I do enjoy like black teas, though white tea has been more my jam this year. I prefer to own just the Arbor White as it has more unique qualities of a white. Owning a cake of Arbor Red would put more hair on my chest and I have enough of a hair removal routine as a lady or I simply don’t have enough chest hair to compete with.
I wish I had put both of the spent Arbors’ leaf to side by side for a fun comparison, but they were both long tea drunk sessions. All leaf went into the bowl along with the teapot cleanings and tea rinses. This bowl has Lucky Puppy (from the day before) and both Arbors.
