Time for the second Tea of the Month box to arrive for March – White2Tea!
In this month’s White2tea club box – 2001 7542 P.O. Raw Pu’er, 2004 Yang Pin Hao Raw Pu’er and OBSX Oolong, 10 grams each. It’s a small amount of tea but when you look up each tea you’ll realize all the teas are kinda pricey. Yeah, expensive tea drinking time!
Also with this month, deals for us White2Tea club members – 10% off cakes, 20% off tongs and 15% off the yancha. A pretty sweet deal!
Tasting of March White2Tea Club
Turns out all the teas in this month’s club are complex and intensive to review. With that said, me and the tea owl with drink two of the teas from this month.
2001 7542 P.O. – this raw pu’er is from a small factory under a private order, stored in humid conditions. Right off the bat the tea smells different. I cannot think of a better description than wet kitchen sponge. It doesn’t have that dry near scent less scent I’m used to smelling for probably dry storage puer. Have I had wet stored tea? I should as I have samples of wet storage pu’er… which I haven’t gotten around to yet, sigh. #toomuchtea #teabloggerproblems #ineedtoliveforevertodrinkalltheteas
I steeped 5 grams of this raw pu’er in a 100ml ish gaiwan using boiling water. I did a quick rinse then did a second since it tasted too light.
First Infusion: Pretty dark yellow peach color. What is this scent? The scent reminds me of the beach on a rainy day – steaming sand and a little marine.
2001 7542 P.O. tastes quite different than other pu’er I’ve had. It sips in smooth and mellow woodyness that peaks to an after taste of peaches. The flavor is light, but yet not. the body hums with mineral flavor and stone fruit sweetness. 2001 7542 P.O is really easy to drink with lots of head scratching to figure out the taste and how to describe it.
Second Infusion: Flavor shift! 2001 7542 P.O has a wet leafed forest floor note with peachy aftertaste. I also keep thinking of the flavor of “organic” but not how the word is used these days.
Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Infusion: Best steepings! The flavor stabilized here. 2001 7542 P.O. is stronger flavor and with less leafy taste but with more like wet wood, forest floor, sweet amber with that fruity peach sweet after taste. So good! There’s a hint of dryness that’s drying the back of my teeth. There was a bit of gritty for steeping 4 and 5 when the cake piece broke apart.
Eight, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Infusion: 2001 7542 P.O. is staring to lighten and sweeten more with each infusion getting sweeter. By the end of these infusions I was aggressively steeping them to get every drop of flavor out. The aftertaste is getting stronger either by the duration of the tea session or the aftertaste flavoring winning over the waning main taste of the tea. This tea session was LONG! It didn’t feel like 12 infusions, more like 5 as I took my time trying to figure out what was going on, the long aggressive infusions, then weird tea drunky effects.
I got the relaxing tea feels and memories throughout my 2001 7542 P.O. session. I had memories of walking through Stanley park sea wall, over the beaches on a standard rainy Vancouver day. After all that marine and rain smells, memories of walking by the trees to be protected from the rain in the park, dodging the gulls and crows trying to steal my sandwich. Back to reality, I got big tea owl stealing my tea! Late in the tea session the tea drunk started and I have manic ideas of involving crocheting bigger tea owls and carrying them during the World Tea Expo like I’m at a anime convention.
Obsx Oolong – OBSX (Old Bush Shui Xian) is a yancha (rock) oolong with a medium roast. Sounds like my kind of tea! The dry leaf is super long with black, red and brown hues.
A few of the leaves are really long!
To steep Obsx Oolong I used a gaiwan, 5 grams of tea, boiling water and did a quick rinse.
First Infusion: Obsx Oolong has a lovely woodsy scent with a dark amber color.
The flavor of Obsx Oolong has a light woodsy roast note with a bit of a fruity finish that I cannot peg yet. The oolong is really smooth.
Second and Third Infusion: The fruit is cherry – dark ripe fresh cherries skin and all! There are also leafy woody and roasty notes with a cherry finish. Like I’m nibbling on the cherry tree. I know from experience actually as I used to climb cherry trees to get at all the fruit and eat the cherries with my barky hands. When I had access to cherry trees I’d eat them until I’d get sick then eat more the next day.
Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Infusion: There is a floral essence creeping in the background and aftertaste snuggling with cherry. With each steeping in this bracket, the more roasty notes are emerging along with a bit of buttery. Just when I think the cherry leaf should be going away I get a strong aftertaste of it!
Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Infusion: Obsx Oolong has now developed a roasted barley and mineral flavor (no more woodsy) with the background in cherry and leafy. Each steeping is getting sweeter and more roasted barely in flavor, yum!
Tenth and Eleventh Infusion: The flavor is going fast, so these are long infusions. Obsx Oolong is mostly mineral sweet in flavor with essence of roasted barley. The cherry is barely present, with the 11th round finally dropping the cherry.
Twelfth 10 minute mega steep: Really light that is mineral and barley flavor. Nice run!
I very much enjoyed Obsx Oolong, it was certainly my style! It never got dry and was complex with awesome gongfu flavor changing tea journey. The fruity and roasty notes were nice! Yum!
Comments
March White2tea club was a luxury indeed. I got a glimpse into nice pricey oolong and 2000s pu’er that I probably wouldn’t of purchased on my own. Despite the small amount both teas I had took the entire day to drink and I only used half a sample each, so I felt I got a lot of out my samples.
I’m still very happy with the White2tea monthly subscription tea club. Keep taking my money white2tea!
Bonus: This Tea Owl is huge! Hellhoot is too big to sit in the gaiwan!
