121 Tasting Notes
This was as advertised, with prominent honey notes and some complexity as the steeps progress. I’m going to put this firmly in the “good, but not my style” category. I prefer a more roasted flavor, and ultimately do not care for oolongs that are like blacks with high oxidation. This one is at 80%. The honey scent lasts a while, but in the end it just feels like a nice black tea.
Flavors: Honey
Changes since last time. I use teabags as needed. I also seldom use clay pots anymore. It feels less mystical, but porcelain and glazed ceramic facilitate a cleaner tasting experience. So I tossed the 2nd half of this ball into a teabag and then into a lin’s pottery vessel. After a long hiatus from incense I am back on the aloeswood. While I do think kunlu is an acquired taste, clt’s sample packs have caused me to, over time, be won over. I would still describe the primary opening signature flavor as bark, but there is a distinct pre-taste aura of cocoa nibs or something dry and nutty. And as you steep more, it burbles into a low key vegetable sweetness. It is like a reserved, dry-humored person who opens up to you over time, in unannounced spurts. This is not the giddy social butterfly who makes rounds at parties giving everyone airy cheek kisses or frat boy pats on the butt. It also doesn’t slip you drugs. It doesn’t ever compliment you to your face, but somehow leaves you with the sneaking suspicion that it sometimes gushes about you to other teas when you aren’t present. Like, this tea secretly doesn’t mind that you exist, and you are in on the secret, but we don’t talk about that because remember, it is a secret. It is maybe a cat, not a dog. Make sense? No? Okay.
Preparation
I took far more detailed notes on my phone, which I will add here later. Sometimes, the website will not let me sign in on either the phone or the computer for a few hours, or freeze/refresh as I am in the middle of a tasting note, tell me I am not signed in, and lose the draft. A good practice for everyone for the future may be to either save a copy of everything elsewhere, like in a Google Docs spreadsheet.
Anyway, the first 10-12 steeps of this were quite interesting. There were notes that were unlike most of the teas I’ve tasted so far, though of course most of the time I am not sipping 16yo teas. It did taste like the raw version of the shou labeled “ban zhang” from Puerh Jerky, so maybe even if these two were fake, the sellers used leaves from the same area. But maybe both are real? I wouldn’t know. But they had a noticeably similar energy, and in the raw version from Verdant more of the nuttyness. There was also a low key camphor throughout.
However, after steep 12 or so, a very cigarette-like (more like the bitter ash, and less like the sweet tobacco) taste entered the picture and the tea was done.
Flavors: Nutty
Preparation
Intimidating. Can’t tell if this is raw or ripe. It is certainly old. The smell is intense, primarily of camphor that overwhelms subtle florals. Maybe this was once quite a floral tea. The energy on the tongue is intense also and tastewise is best to discard until the 3rd or 4th steep, when the tingle subsides, flavors beyond old wood open up, and the cloud of camphor dissipates considerably. But it was my 4th tea last night and by then it was time for bed. I don’t feel well this morning so I will have to throw the rest of this session out and revisit my old mystery brick another time.
Flavors: Camphor, Wet Wood
Preparation
It’s an oats-centered spin on the Korean summer drink – misutgaru. I felt pie envy from all the pi day posts, but the local bakery only had cookies as the dairy free option today, and there was laundry to do, so I settled for a dessert-like drink that could be made with ingredients I had on hand.
Just as multigrain bread kept getting more complicated as the years went by, bazillion-grain misutgarus emerged. But this one is just the roasted oats powder (toasted oat flour? but not as dark as the photos I found online) mom sent me a year ago (still smells amazing) that’s been living in the freezer + seltzer + maple syrup + 3 large frozen strawberries mashed with my spoon.
I’m pretty happy. The result is like the last few mushy bites of strawberry ice cream melted onto an oat flour belgian waffle, or so I tell myself as I scroll through the news and wait for my laundry to finish drying.
Went in blind on a pound of this just to have some eg on hand. Not what I expected (stronger bergamot) but not disappointing, either. H&S describes it as a blend of black, oolong, AND white tea. Perhaps as a result, this is more calming than most eg’s you’ll encounter in the wild. It’s not something you drink to survive a grueling meeting. It’s something to have as you curl up with a book.
