It is Old Ways Tea Club time! The fourth tea club box has 2020 Shi Ru Stone Milk, 2014 White Tea Brick, and 2020 Niu Rou Huang Pian – 2 oolongs and a white tea! I was most excited about the white tea and the huang pian.
2020 Shi Ru (stone milk) Oolong
Well, I was dumb and the package exploded when I opened the tea packet. The leaves here have a roasted caramel and plum scent.
Both oolongs in the club I went with a gongfu ratio of 1gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size, steeped in boiling water. I didn’t feel like over leafing today. After a rinse, the tea is milky and fruity in scent.
The 2020 Shi Ru is a very creamy tea – it sips in oily and dense, with a milky, tree twigs, and plummy taste. The tea is perfumy with the fruity stone fruit notes, along with a slight astringency like plum skins. While drinking this tea, I get a feeling of a throat chop then lulled to be calm.
Each steeping gets a bit more fruity until it hits an intense bitter peak but still smoothed out by the creamy texture.
By six infusions, the flavor shifted greatly to be mineral and rocky, with a splash of maple wood. The aftertaste is back to the plums. It is a little dry here to make my teeth squeak, but the tea is overall pretty smooth. The final infusions got light, rocky, and a bit bitter, but still hold onto the fruity aftertaste. Likely I could keep going with this tea. I got nine infusions total.
Overall a great Stone Milk – one of the better ones I’ve had with excellent texture and stone fruit fragrance. I got slightly tea drunk – the kind of tea drunk that goes online shopping.
2014 White Tea Brick
I saw this White Tea Brick has been creating a buzz in the online tea community – a lot of people enjoy it.
This is a flat pressed square, the scent is light, but I get a little bit of wheaty honey.
I went with my favorite white tea gongfu ratio of 1 gram of leaf per 20ml of vessel size, always steeped in boiling water. Once there is water in the leaves, it smells of barley and honey.
The Initial sip of 2014 White Tea Brick is light – like drinking minerally spring water. I left the teapot to steam the square open, as I wandered off to Stone Milk tea drunk online shop.
The second infusion is straw, wheat, and dusted honey. The oily texture comes out drinking like I’m drinking olive oil instead of tea. The aftertaste is fleeting, but it is of milky honey.
From here, each steeping getting stronger, this tea is rich woodsy, autumn maple leaves, tree sap, and honey, with a dense oily texture. Sometimes 2014 White Tea Brick tries to have a sticky texture, but it gets weighed down by the oily texture. Overall, this tea has a sinking feeling to drink, like I drank cement blocks or ate.
By the ninth infusion, 2014 White Tea Brick is getting lighter in flavor but still cranking out. Finally, the 2014 White Tea Brick is showing the more aged flavor of decayed maple leaves, tree sap, while overall being honey. Each steeping gets more of that maple leaf and mineral flavor.
I ran out of time, so I power steeped the final infusion instead of cranking out a few more steeps. A 30 minute, eleven infusions in, steep of 2014 White Tea Brick is simply honey maple wood.
The material is a bit chopped and stemmy sticks, but there is a nice mix of buds in there.
2014 White Tea Brick is a superb white tea as it has great dark honey notes and keeps on steeping. This would be great for a stove boil or thermos tea too if you love even darker notes.
Old Ways Tea Club Niu Rou Huang Pian
This is what makes tea clubs special – getting interesting teas normally we don’t get our hands on. Snuff all you want at huang pian (unattractive yellow leaves) we still get a famous Wuyi region tea.
I had to switch out of a teapot for this tea as the huang pian leaves are big. Before steeping, the leaves have a honey roast and peach scent. I didn’t rinse the leaves, so at the first infusion the scent is the same as the dry leaf, but a bit acidic.
Niu Rou Huang Pian immediately sips in thick and creamy with a soft roast, white chocolate, and birch trees, all with an oily texture. I got distracted with Animal Crossing in between infusions and noticed what I thought was a fleeting aftertaste was actually a delayed but strong stone fruit aftertaste.
A few more infusions in, Niu Rou Huang Pian’s texture is more like cotton batting – it is thick, bit astringent and sticky, gluing the flavor to the teeth. I find that white chocolate note unusual and pleasing with the waves sweet, mixing with the honey and birch wood notes.
After five infusions, Niu Rou Huang Pian heavily shifts, losing a lot of flavor. It is minerally, tasting of woody rocks with a bit of acidity. The texture is still thick and cotton batting, but much drier making the roof of my mouth feel rough. I went for an extended infusion as a seventh steep, but there wasn’t much there besides a creamy texture.
Niu Rou Huang Pian was fun tea to try. It is a pretty subtle taste but a lot of texture and aftertaste. Like the other teas in this month’s Old Ways Tea club, Niu Rou Huang Pian was another drink slowly tea to enjoy all the elements.
A banger of a tea club, I loved every tea! Check out the previous Old Ways Tea club months here.
