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This is quite a good tea. At first, it will surprise you with sweet aroma, which changes into nutty and vegetal (namely asparagus) as the aroma unfolds. It has a smooth feel in the mouth, but leaves a slightly astringent lingering aftertaste.
Even though it is a good tea that I would recommend, I think it is a bit expensive (15 eur /20 usd) for the quality you get.

This is a whole lot better when brewed in a western style. I have quite stuffed nose so I can’t be sure about the smells, but with a teaspoon of sugar, this is not too bad.

A sample of cheaper sencha from Le palais des thes. Wonerful lightness, fresh aroma and vividly green colour. The underlying nutty aromas made me lie down on the floor with empty upside – down cup on my nose, just smelling what is left in the cup.

A decent pu erh. The first cup was a bit boring, since I steeped my 4 g sample for only a mnute. The second cup was somewhere between sweet and savoury tastes, with only a hint of earthiness. Quite “light” for a pu erh. It would work well as an everyday drink, I suppose.

Sweet ginger flavoured sencha. A terrible combination if you ask me, and a reminder why I prefer non flavoured teas. The ginger’s “bite” completelly overwhelms the aromas and flavours of sencha. The smell is great, but when tasting it, I can never be sure if the bitternes comes from ginger or from tea. I do not recommend that tea. At all.

Green Darjeeling. Now that’s something you don’t see every day.
I was given a sample of this tea when I was browsing trough tea collection of my local Palais des Thés shop. (Of course, I went there just to look but bought some Tie Guan Yin anyway). That was few days ago.
So today I was in the mood for something green and decided to try this one. Dry leaves had a lovely rich and somehow sweet aroma. They were also weirdly dark in color and had some hay straws here and there.
After steeping for little less than a minute in my lovely clay kyusu I poured myself a cup of beautifully yellow liquid with woody and slightly “toasted” aroma. Too bad that the taste was disappointing. It was slightly sweet at first, but then unusually bitter and mouth – drying. I thought I may have used too hot water, so with second infusion I was more careful. But the unpleasant itter taste didn’t go away. For the third infusion, I reduced the water temperature even more. And this time, it was much better. It was smoother, still slightly bitter, but much sweeter. Maybe I screwed up the first two steepings with too hot water.
All in all, I would say that this is an above average tea. Lovely aromas and appearance, but gets bitter quickly and leaves very little room for mistakes.

There are so many things that I love about this tea … A single nugget will yield around a litre (if not even more) of tea, with each steep offering you a new experience. I have made five steeps so far, and the nugget is still intact somehow, so I reckon I will be able to make at least four more.

1st steep: 3 minutes, 1 dl of water, cooled to 80 degrees C. (Before that I “washed” the nugget in hot water) The colour war bright, aroma and taste very chocolat-y, quite like some other more oxidized wulongs that I had tried.
2nd, 3rd and 4th steep: tea is getting darker as the nugget is falling apart. Chocolate aromas are diminishing in favour of sweet and slightly bitter overtones. It is starting to remind me of black teas. Really tasty at this point.
5th steep: I may have left it for a bit too long. Almost three minutes. The tea got unpleasantly bitter and somehow earthy. Almost like pu erh. Still ok though.

Even though I am still “mid-session” I am confident to say that this is one of the best teas I have tried so far (but keep in mind that I am still newbie when it comes to teas).

I really like this tea, but I’m not sure why. It is one of those experiences that you just enjoy, without actually knowing the reason.

The first steep was bright in colour and mellow, light in taste, since the “nugget” still stuck together. Tne next one was darker in color and very aromatic. I find it hard to describe the aroma and taste, but it reminded me of black tea aromas and spices. The aftertaste was somehow sweet.

I will be definately coming back to this tea in the future. Nice.

What a tea!

With this one. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I haven’t tried raw pu erh before so it was a completely new experience for me. I would like to go into detail wit this one, at risk of someone calling me a snob. I sometimes like things scientific.

Dry leaves look really neat, quite similar in size, not too dark brown in color and mostly undamaged. They also aren’t brittle, but rather firm and strong to the touch.

Firstly, I washed the leaves (5 g) with a bit of almost boiling water for few seconds. Then I steeped with 1 dl (3,4 oz) 90 degrees C water for 45 seconds. The brew had a wonderfull smoky aroma, almost incense-like. Surprisingly light, without the earthiness I am used to with pu erh (but I guess I should know better by now). The taste was almost sweet, but matched nicely with the smell. It reminded me of dried fruits. The lingering feel in my mouth was somehow bitter, put pleasant.