Category: Tea Reviews

Tea reviews and tea tastings

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2018 Spring Wildwood Sheng Puer from Crimson Lotus Tea

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Crimson Lotus Tea’s 2018 Wildwood sheng puer caught my radar fast as they posted a video showing the tea is from a secret remote old growth tea garden. You can only get there by motorcycle and a hike. 2018 Wildwood Sheng is a blend of old and young tree material, all single origin. Of course, I bought a sample, promptly forgot about it, and it has been in my pumidor for months. Leaf and Steeping Method The dry leaf has a tangy and grassy smell. I used 1 gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size, gongfu steeped with boiling water.… Continue reading, hoot!

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Golden Monkey Black and Drunken Concubine Tieguanyin Oolong from Silk Road Teas

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Today’s review is a double review of Silk Road Teas’ Golden Monkey Black and Drunken Concubine Zui Gui Tieguanyin Oolong. I jumped at the chance to review something from Silk Road Teas as I’ve heard many good things about them. Golden Monkey Jin Hou Black Tea First up is Golden Monkey, aka Jin Hou, a Fujian black tea harvested in March 2018. I seem to not review much black tea these days. Vendors seem happy to send oolong and puer my way, and I haven’t been buying any black tea as my black tea stash is large and ageing. Leaf and… Continue reading, hoot!

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January 2019 Eco-Cha Club feat. Long Feng Xia High Mountain Oolong

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This is January 2019 club box from the Eco-Cha tea of the month subscription. I have reviewed their main line of teas years back.  If you are in looking for the gems, that is in their exclusive and limited quantity club teas. Unboxing the Eco-Cha Club, you get 75 grams of tea, and a special surprise (in our case, some sort of teapot scooper). Members are also provided with a PDF info sheet and video tea tasting by the Eco-Cha owner. If you prepay 6 months you get a clay teapot, at 12 months you get a teapot and bamboo… Continue reading, hoot!

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November 2018 White2Tea Club feat. Dark Roast Tieguanyin

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For the November 2018 White2tea club, everyone got 50 grams of the new Dark Roast Tieguanyin and three 7-8gram Mengku orbs. The Dark Roast Tieguanyin is available for purchase on the site…. or not, it’s sold out already, maybe it’ll come back? This month certainly felt poor value. 50 grams of the Dark Roast is $14.50, and the club is $30 a month. My guess is those Mengku orbs are good stuff to make up for it. That and really, if you want value, you aren’t in any monthly tea clubs, especially since small packet shipping prices are rising. I… Continue reading, hoot!

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2013 Aged White Peony Bai Mu Dan from MEM Tea

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Today’s review is some more aged white tea – MEM Tea’s 2013 Aged White Peony, also known as Bai Mu Dan. Leaf and Steeping Method Confirmed Bai Mu Dan as you can see both fuzzy buds and leafy chunks. It looks oxidized to a funny colour and the smell is of forgotten linen left on the clothesline. I just realized MEM tea says to do this aged white at 175F/80c. That is a hard no in my opinion. Most white tea can take 200F/93c+, even more so with aged white teas. However, this tea is also aged. You want to… Continue reading, hoot!

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The Bitter End Xtra 2018 Spring Lao Man E Sheng Puer from Bitterleaf Tea

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Continuing on my reviews of the entire teas that put the bitter in Bitterleaf Tea, our final tea is The Bitter End Xtra. This old tree spring sheng is in maocha loose leaf form. This was sold as a comparison of Bitterleaf Teas’ lower grade Lao Man E – The Bitter End Lite (Huang pian), and The Bitter End. Leaf and Steeping Method The Bitter End Xtra has beautiful leaves that are nice and fuzzy wisps. I took a sniff and it smells vegetal but a big huff and it’s verge eye-watering pungent. As usual, I used around 1 gram of leaf… Continue reading, hoot!

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Rehoot Review – 2015 Pin Sheng Puer from White2Tea

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I drank Pin way back in 2015 when it was freshly pressed White2Tea club tea. Back then it tasted quite watery. I’ve heard it got good in the time it has rested. 2015 Pin Sheng Puer has been highly requested that I ReHoot review. I keep meaning to do more re-reviews of puer and aged teas, but I keep getting so much new stuff in it’s a little tricky to schedule around. As a reminder, 2015 Pin Sheng is Lincangy blend of 2013, 2014, and 2015 material. Leaf and Steeping Method For today’s review, I used 1 gram of leaf per… Continue reading, hoot!

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2018 Wild Tree Purple Moonlight White from Jinggu from Yunnan Sourcing

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I’ve wanted Yunnan Sourcing’s Wild Tree Purple Moonlight White tea since around 2012 or 2013. I kept skipping it due to waiting for a sale or to put into the next big order (then forgot) and even a few times it got yanked out of my cart to meet shipping price thresholds. Other times it simply sold out before I could order. I went hard on white tea for 2018, or at least it became that way as white tea is pretty good and not as painful as puer prices, so I bought a bag. A 250 gram bag. 2018… Continue reading, hoot!

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October 2018 White2tea club feat. fresh 2018 Autumn F_D_T Sheng Puer

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I am guilty of being so backlogged that I wasn’t able to tackle the October 2018 White2Tea Club ASAP. This month is a 50 gram 2018 Autumn material Old Arbor sheng puer. What makes this tea special, other than being Old Arbor 50 gram cakes that are usually amazing, is it got to club members ultra fast which means is it super fresh. It was picked, processed, but immediately pressed skipping a drying step of the Maocha loose leaf. The joke of the tea community is this tea cake is moist. As in, should have been named 2018 MOIST, which… Continue reading, hoot!

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2018 Mengsong Spring Sheng Puer from Bana Tea Company

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I purchased Bana Tea Company’s 2018 Mengsong Spring Sheng Puer a few months ago. This tea is from 100 year old trees in Mengsong. When I see a Vesper Chan production on Bana Tea’s site, I never hesitate to purchase as they are always reliably excellent teas. Leaf and Steeping Method 2018 Mengsong Spring’s leaf smells lightly floral sweet but also has a savory tang to it. Do we have another sweet and sour sheng? I did gongfu style tea brewing, using 1 gram of leaf per 14.5ml of vessel size. That extra 0.5 was an extra bit of tea that broke… Continue reading, hoot!