HER-CHA is a tea startup from California that specializes in premium teas that are packed in small serving tins to preserve their freshness.
In the HER-CHA line up are six teas – Green Oolong, Dark Oolong, Black, Wild White, Green, and Ripe Puer. Each tin has 1 to 2 servings, comfortably to do a small teapot brewed western style, or a 100ml gongfu style. The Discovery Collection contains one of each tea in their selection.
The packing of this tea collection is well put together and of high quality, ensuring the leaves are kept intact. It is packaged perfectly for gifting and comes with a booklet with more information about the teas and brewing suggestions.
Green Oolong from HER-CHA
HER-CHA’s Green Oolong is an Anxi, Fujian Province tea, promised to be a floral experience.
Opening the tin the Green Oolong is succulently floral and buttery in scent with a vibrant green hue.
The tin has 6 grams of leaf, so I used a ratio of 1 gram to 16ml vessel size, which I gongfu steeped with boiling water. Steeped up, it smells like being at an outdoor flower garden on a hot day.
HER-CHAs Green Oolong starts off as sweet orchids, snow peas, and lightly tangy blackberries, with a milky taste and buttery texture. The aftertaste is fresh floral and cream that lingers, along with a balmy buttery feeling. As this tea progresses, some biscuit notes appear, but overall this tea is quite consistent for each steeping.
At the 6th infusion, the tea finally gets a bit of bitterness as the vegetal notes stew from the hot water. I got 7 solid infusions.
HER-CHA Green Oolong is friendly to steep with a lovely balance of fruity, floral, and vegetal. I enjoyed the aroma and texture. I felt this tea was okay compared to the dark oolong.
Dark Oolong from HER-CHA
Dark Oolong is Wuyi Mountain oolong. Each tin has 7grams of tea, and again I went in with a 90-100ml gaiwan.
The leaves have a sweet roasted nut scent. Steeped up, the rinsed leaves continue with the roasty scent but also a stone fruit one.
For the first three infusions, Dark Oolong sips in roasted peanut shells, and milky caramel, with a long plummy aftertaste. The texture is also thick and finishes with a balmy oil feeling in the lips. With each infusion, this tea gets more fruity and creamy development, while the roasted notes settle into the background.
At the fourth infusion, this Dark Oolong stopped its course to go all fruity and switched to a sharp tasting roasted nuts and starting to open a wet stones flavor.
In the final infusions, Dark Oolong settled into a soft mineral and roasted note with a touch of rock sugar. In the end, I got 9 infusions.
HER-CHA’s Dark Oolong is much more complex compared to the Green Oolong. I dig the range of flavors and how it never got bitter or dry, it shifted between flavors and overall friendly. This tea is good for a seasoned tea drinker to notice this is a great quality oolong but deliciously friendly for a new drinker.
Black Tea from HER-CHA
This black tea is also from Wuyi Mountain. The HER-CHA tin contains 7 grams of black tea. The leaves have a buttered cracker and stone fruity scent. After a rinse, the hot leaves smell of soapy perfume and wood.
HER-CHA’s Black tea is on the logan fruit note, with salted butter, finishing off with a sharp sweetness. This tea feels smooth and buttery to drink. After waiting a few moments, a lightly plummy aftertaste emerges.
With each steeping, this tea gets juicy fruity but also revealing more of a rich malty side, but still holding onto the buttery notes.
The final steepings wane in flavor but finish with a logan fruit, buttery, and mineral buttered rocks flavor. It has a touch of bitterness and astringency at the end of the eighth infusion.
HER-CHA’s Black Tea is a delicious and fruity tasting tea, with a side of comfort food. This is a friendly black tea to steep and interesting flavor notes to enjoy.
Wild White Tea from HER-CHA
This is another tea from Wuyi Mountain, but this time it is a compressed white tea. I have only tried a couple of white tea from Wuyi so this is a rare treat!
The piece of white tea weighed in at 9 grams, so I had to split it in half for my usual white tea brewing to do 1 gram/ 20ml vessel ratio. In the brewing instructions, HER-CHA says to use boiling water which has me pleased.
The compressed piece has a faint herby scent. After a rinse, a strong mouth-watering fruity scent was revealed.
This white tea is juicy and sweet, like chewing on thick juicy green peppers, underripe strawberries with a bit of cream, followed by floral honey sweetness. The honey floral lingers after each sip. The texture here is buttery and slick to drink.
After three infusions, HER-CHA white tea has a wonderful medicinal herby almost rosemary note, with it settling back into cream, tart strawberries, and floral honey. The finish has a sandalwood note. With each steeping, it gets more medicinal and woodsy but keeping the honey aftertaste.
In the last four infusions, the white tea got quite tart and bitter here, tasting of bitter aspirin, gritty textured astringency, but then settles into a honey floral aftertaste. I got eleven infusions!
HER-CHA’s Wild White Tea is ridiculously good with so much complex and aroma, I enjoyed every drop of this tea. I regret not breaking this into 3 and using a tiny gaiwan. I wanna drink this tea aged as with medicinal notes now, it’ll be a dark datey lovely tea in 7 years. In addition, This white tea has a crazy amount of energy to it, giving me the feeling of my head being massaged and my shoulders stretched while I drank it.
A set of this white tea would be a great tea gift for me, someone who has all the teas, as this is just luxury to drink. I wish they sold this as a full brick instead of individual pots, but I am curious how well they would age in the pots as they are sealed well.
Green Tea from HER-CHA
This is an Anji White green tea from Anji, Zhejiang province. The leaves are beautiful here, perfectly intact with a sweet nutty aroma.
I used the 4 grams of leaf in the tin and steeped with 190F water. Steeped up the leaves have an artichoke scent.
Wow, this is incredibly sweet! The first few infusions sips in juicy mineral crystalline rock sweet with a gentle grassy and artichoke taste. The texture is like drinking butter and the notes are so vibrant and fresh.
With each infusion of this tea gets mysteriously sweeter and more enjoyable, adding pine nuts, butter, and artichokes. It has a lot of savory notes but on the sweetest side of the spectrum of those vegetal notes. The aftertaste of fresh baby spinach lingers after each sip.
I love the pale green leaves, like an air plant!
After five infusions, this tea all of a sudden got very dry and scratchy to drink. It still tastes fresh and nutty, but the texture just hit the wall. In the end, six infusions in total.
To a non-green tea drinker, this HER-CHA’s Green Tea is one of the best I’ve had as the freshness was out of this world. The taste experience is comparable to the times I’ve had green tea a month or two old, so their air sealed tins did an excellent job preserving the freshness of the tea.
Ripe Puerh from HER-CHA
This is a bulang mountain shou. Ahhh I love bulang shous so this will be a treat. HER-CHA says this puer is aged but stated the year as 2017. Each tin has two 5 gram squares.
The brick smells sweet and earthy. I used one piece and my 75ml gaiwan, clocking in at a 1g/15ml gongfu ratio. I did two rinses and seemed to have little effect on the colour and leaf unfurling. Steeped up, the aged shou smells of hot soil and clay.
It took three infusions to open the compression of the tea. That said, HER-CHA’s Ripe Puer starts off light and a bit minerally, with an earthy chocolate sweet background. The aftertaste is mysteriously nectarine and earth.
Once the brick finally fell apart and the tea finally got stronger in flavor. It is chestnut shells, bittersweet chocolate, and earthy. The fifth infusion was incredibly strong and the nutty note turned into tart medicinal. The aftertaste is still a unique nectarine essence, which is quite deliciously unexpected. I’m finally noticing the tea has a buttery texture.
The middle of the session settled down to smooth bittersweet chocolate but still has a tart medicinal and fruity aftertaste.
This ripe is finishing up light, bittersweet, with a long rocky mineral flavor. In the end, I got twelve infusions.
I suspect HER-CHA’s Ripe Puer wasn’t fully oxidized, then started to settle into interesting flavors of medicinal. I love the fruity notes in this shou puer and the complexity.
Comments
I felt all of HER-CHA’s teas were excellent, high quality, the packaging is fun, and you can tell it holds in the freshness in the teas that need it. I would love to get more of their white and shou puer, but I wouldn’t say no to more green either.
My personal ranking of HER-CHA’s teas:
- Wild White
- Green Tea
- Ripe Puer
- Dark Oolong
- Black Tea
- Green Oolong
On paper, the Green Tea would be in the 1st position.
The HER-CHA Discovery Collection reminds me of those expensive fruit gifts at Asian grocery stores – a small selection of high-quality perfect fruit that got played classical music as it grew for $$$$.
For someone who just wants to buy awesome tea, HER-CHA has the quality, but the price is extra high due to the fancy individual packaging, with each tin costing $5.83. I would love to get more bulk options, but understand the teas would likely change flavor as the tins add freshness.
(tea provided for review)
