Berylleb King Tea

Smell resinous, earthy and a bit like brown sugar.

The colour of the liquor is a transparent brownish gold.

Western Style – 1 Rinse, 1st brew – 3 min. : Taste earthy green with a sweet black pepper resinous flavour. There are no flavours, at this point, that overwhelm the others — every flavours are expressed equally.

WATER USED: Selection 100% Spring Water

Western Style – 1 Rinse, 1st brew – 2 min. 45 sec. : Gold in colour but a bit cloudy. Tea is smooth, clean, sweet, resinous and has a candy flavour — Taste is really different from the last session ( see previous review ), probably because I used a different parameters.

2nd brew – 4 min. : Slightly bitter with a hint of brandy. The candy taste is almost gone. As the tea cool down, only a mix of resinous-black ground pepper remain.

WATER USED: Nestle PureLife

Western Style – 2 Rinses, 1st brew – 2 min. 15 sec. : Tingling sensation… At the first sip you can definitely taste a mix of woody, earthy and green bitter flavours going softer as you drink it. Plus the smoke flavour has an effect on all the other’s flavours. As it cool down a sweetness develop that change into a slightly honey note. While the flavours are less pronounced after a few sips, except for the sweet honey, the bitterness is slightly too strong for my taste (too much leaves? Perhaps!)

I recommend to brew less leaves for 1:45 to 2 minutes at 200 F (93 Celsius) if you wants less bitterness.

WATER USED: Nestle PureLife

drank this one over the course of the morning and while i enjoyed it – it’s not one i need to keep around. I actually think i have a friend at work who would really like this one as an intro to puerh, sine they’ve been asking me about it lately. So i’m going to bundle it up for her as a holiday mini present.

Pulled this one out for this afternoon after taking the dog on an adventure. Perfect tea for dealing with plants, laundry, dinner and contemplating more tea orders haha. This one certainly isn’t knock your socks off but it’s a good solid puerh for “every day drinking.” Today was a western brew – 3 mins or so …will likely have another cup or two with super long steeps.

Pulled this one out today. I REALLY nee to start going through my puerh, even if it’s just to decide what i keep and what moves on to someone else who will love it more. This one comes in a super tightly packed square – think little chocolate squares :) First steep was almost tasteless – these are packed super tight. Later steeps though, become super strong in taste, though it hasn’t changed much through steepings. Smells a little dirt like but the brew is strong, bold and delicious.

2/2 with Berylleb/King Tea. I have Daylon to thank for his highly positive review of the Wild Dian Hong tea (which I have to review before I run out) for getting me to try this vendor.

This tea is nice. AnnaEA’s review is simple and spot on with flavors—mineral, slight peachy/fruity flavor, and some toastiness.

100g for $17.99 is a solid deal, and I think 100g is enough of a tea to figure it out.

I swear I finished half of my bag of this. I got this tea impatiently because I needed some Li Shan in my life again.

This one is on the lighter, crisper side of Lishans, but the profile is generally sweet, fresh, floral, and fruity. I tend to do this one Gong Fu, going heavier on the leaf for 4-7 grams for 6 oz and Tumbler Grandpa styling it with 3 grams. I prefer lighter temperatures for it personally, but it can handle near boiling temperatures with a heftier amount of leaves. I have yet to succeed brewing this western, but I’ll figure out a method yet.

The lightness of the green oolong is akin to washing fresh spinach or morning dew on green blades of grass in the mountains. I could simply use the word fresh again, but I like to paint little pretentious pictures anyway. I generally prefer a rinse for this leaves because the first cup can be generally water chestnutt-y or grassy, but the rinse is drinkable. The second cups always blooms with delicate flowers and powdery sugar notes from the smell. It vaguely resembles the middle range of the air in the Kualoa mountain’s tropical forests. I know, it really resembles the air in Taiwan, but just think tropical mountains covered in rain and luscious greenery.

Shorter steeps of 15 or even 30 seconds early on were grassy/mistier, and later longer steeps were more citrusy and nectar like. The profiles shift and become sweeter in later longer infusions of four minutes gong fu in steeps five or six (my average is 8 cups gong fuwith this bugger). Tasting it, the profile is pleasantly grassy, and very floral notes that are a little bit more like pinneapple for me personally. Passionfruit is much more precise. The fruity notes resemble clementine moreso in later steeps as it becomes sweeter, softer, yet fuller bodied. Plumeria and hibiscus come to mind for me over and over, moreso sweet hibiscus with a plumeria’s creaminess. Lilac is a given, but the florals are accented most by the fruity notes. Mom noticed jasmine, though I might scrap the florals to these few words: Jasmine or orange blossom, osmanthus mid to later steeps, and the usual honeysuckle. Every once in a while, a snickerdoodle notes pops up with the sugar cane, but the honey notes are vaguer for me as they are a collection of the fruity, floral, and sweeter notes overall.

As many cups and as much ceremony Gong Fu brought me, I preferred the taste in my Tumbler a little more because the creamy florals and sugary fruit notes were better highlighted in it. This is why I need to figure out a way to make this western because it probably can handle it, and I can maybe save more leaves.

I’m sorry that I am now just getting to the recommendation, but I recommend this tea as a solid Li Shan with fresher rain water qualities you might pick up with other, more expensive oolongs. The price for this is still hefty, even with a discount ($40 for 150 g and a tin), it is still worth it as a good tea. If only this were sold in smaller quantities…though I am glad that I have this much.

As much as I slightly prefer What-Cha’s Li Shan (WHY DIDN’T I SAVE UP MORE FOR IT!!!!), this was an excellent soft tea worthy of its price. I also love Berylleb as a Tea Vendor and I am so happy to have the tin this came in. For now, I am a happy Daylon.

From the Puerh TTB+ box..

I had a really hard time finding any info about this tea. The label just says “1999 Mengku – Berylleb”. I THINK this is the same one, but I’m not sure -https://www.kingteamall.com/product/1999-shuangjiang-mengku-bianxiaozhuan-brick-250g-china-yunnan-chinese-organic-puer-puerh-raw-tea-sheng-cha/

Apparently the guy “berylleb” goes by different things on ebay vs. his storefront. I found like 3 different names for him. I’m so very confused. Also, I thought “berylleb” would spell something different when it’s spelled backwards but NOPE. Now I wanna go find out how this guy got his name. Speaking of backwards words, did you know there is NO word for a word that is spelled backwards. Even Oxford Dictionary says there’s not (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/what-is-the-term-for-a-word-which-is-another-word-spelled-backwards). I mean.. I guess semi-palindrome will have to do.

Anyway onto this tea. Yeahhhh I’m not feeling it. It’s way too bitter even with flash steeps and lower temps. The leaves are pretty miniscule and broken up which probably isn’t helping. I was looking forward to trying an older sheng but this is NOT it. It probably didn’t help I couldn’t find much about this tea in the first place. Ahh well. Sorry Mengku, it was not meant to be.

I’ve wanted to try this tea for so long. The descriptions were a little confusing with some people not knowing whether or not this was flavored or natural, and I was not sure how strong the overall flavors would be. Berylleb underplays it a little by saying it has a peculiar sweet and buttery taste. After reading the notes and trying it for myself, I can say it has a very pronounced and sweet peach-guava taste in a very floral and buttery background overall. Gong fu is the better way to go because this is a STRONG tea, though Western might be doable with a minimum amount of leaves. Now, I think I might want an amount of it….along with so many other teas.

Considering how long I’ve wanted to try it, I feel validated in that this tea is actually what I’ve been looking for for a while. It is an affordable and sweet oolong with fruit and florals. I’m surprised that not more people like this tea because it is VERY similar to Mandala’s milk oolong-it has a fruit taffy amidst a buttery toffee sweet second steep and gradually becomes more naturally fruity, floral, and vegetal as it is rebrewed. The later steeps are smoother in terms of flavor whereas the beginning is overwhelming-which is why I would recommend steeps of 15 seconds starting off. The body is also fairly thick and sticky in the beginning, and remains full into the later steeps. I got 9 brews, though I went from 15 sec to 30 immediately and brewed it fairly heavy into a 6 minute finale.

The notes that are up: Butter, Fruity, Cream, Guava, Peach, Vanilla, Vegetal, Flowers, is the best description available. Guava is one of the things I picked up immediately, and there were times where I swear it was distinct from the peach. It’s almost like it fluxed from guava, vanilla peach, flowers, and then sweet buttery vegetals in the first four brew sips. Strong flavor is the only deterrent as it really could be too strong for some.

I’d be very surprised if this tea was not flavored, but oddly enough, I think the fruity notes comes from the tea itself whereas the sweet vanilla candy thing is the flavoring. I could be wrong, but the guava-peach thing is something I associate with Dong Dings. It’s why Beautiful Taiwan’s Dong Ding was my favorite at one point. Then again, fruit and vanilla is more pronounced than ‘milk’ is. There were times where the taste felt a little artificial, but the later steeps were very natural.

I’m not sure who I’d recommend this to because it fits more of my personal criteria than a few others. It belongs to Gong Fu Cha in terms of brewing, the sweeter taste would appeal to dessert seekers and those who do not mind flavorings, but it might be overwhelming for anyone if the leaf is not kept down or the brews short. I did not add to much dimension to has already been written about this tea, but all the reviews of it are fairly accurate. It is fruitier than you might expect, and if you like fruity fatty veggie buttery creamy oolongs, this is it for a decent price for $15.99 per 100 grams.

I rate it 95 because of price, flavor, longevity, slight complexity, and preference. I should do it grandpa in a Tumbler Test, or western with less leaves before I make a final judgement, but I have a feeling I need minimal leaves (good thin) and that it is better gong fu. The flavor’s potency and slight artificiality (if it is artificial) is the only thing keeping me from rating it higher or drinking it more often.

Well, this tea is ok… haha, it’s like the most meh puer I have ever tried. It is almost as if you are drinking weird water, like this tea doesn’t have much flavor at all. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t giving me much to work with other than puer. I crave those ripes that give you more than just the regular flavors, a good example would be adorned in red, I enjoyed that tea a lot due to the fact that it gave me a lot of those other flavors, like a little bit of spice, or a mouth cooling effect, you know, just something other than the “regular flavors” if you know what I mean haha.

This was the first tea that I tried outside of Ohio, you see, here in Istanbul, unlike Ohio we stay up very late after breaking our fast. So that gave me plenty of time to fit in a tea tasting. I haven’t been drinking tea at all in Istanbul because the kettle that we had was horrible it was plastic and gave the water a really bad taste. But, today we bought a new one from the mall, so I thought why not try some of the tea that I brought back home.

But since I wasn’t at my usual set up, just to make sure that I wasn’t wasting any of the good teas, I tasted this one first, because I considered this one a daily drinker tea and nothing too extravagant. So if somehow something didn’t go right it wouldn’t be as much of a loss. and well, the tea kettle that we bought was very nice, it did not leech anything into the water like the last one, and heated up the water extremely fast! I had brought over all of my tea equipment in my suitcase from ohio, so I set it up on this little table overlooking the window and started to brew.

The first brew was quite nice, and the fermentation flavor even if it was small gave a very nice essence to the tea, and I actually quite liked it, it was very pleasant. The second brew as you might know with ripe puers was when the tea was at it’s peak. It was suuuuuper dark, but sadly with all of this color there was minimal flavor. I had a chocolate macaroon that I bought with the kettle, so I ate some of that with the tea during this brew, and the two worked absolutely beautifully together. The tea gave an insight into the more dark flavors of the chocolate, and because of the smoothness of the tea it made it so much more creamy. if it weren’t for the macaroon this tea session would have been extremely bland. Unlike most ripe after the 2nd infusion the peak wasn’t there and it fell fast from there. It lasted around 6 infusions, which was more than enough for me, especially since my stomach was absolutely full to the brim from breaking my fast earlier.

Kind of sad that I will have to leave istanbul in a little more than a week, I’ll be in Tunisia which is very hot and I will be stuck in a small house with all of my extended family. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just that sometimes they can be a bit much, haha, if any arabs are reading this you will know exactly what I mean. But, for the sake of the tea I think I will save them for back in ohio, but I will fit in as much tea tastings in Istanbul as I can until then.

Puerh Tea TTB. This was a nice tea. It started out sweet before the leaves fully opened up. Once the leaves opened up it developed a nice orange color and there was a little bitterness. There was a little bit of leather and tobacco in this tea. Overall I liked this tea.

I steeped this ten times in a 75ml teapot with 6g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 minute.

I got a free sample of this along with my recent oolong order. The dry leaf has a really intriguing aroma, but I can’t get it into the cup. I can tell there’s a good tea in there somewhere, but I haven’t tasted it yet. I’ll rate it if I can ever get it right.

3/6/2017 It just arrived!! 6g/3oz gaiwan/195F/10-15seconds

Delicious. Mineral-marble and floral/peach with a hint of toastiness. Again, one of my absolutely favorite teas.

Backlog

Reminded me of smoke and Barbasol shaving cream.

I have a full Gong Fu tea set now! I have a tray, utensils, a Cha Hai, 9 sipping cups, and a Gaiwan! Finally, a proper gaiwan. Though Gaiwan is glass, it has worked out nicely. Can’t wait to show it off.

So I christened the set with this tea, and got twelve yields out of it. I was able to balance the profile far more with these materials than I have with my Xiangfu tea pot lately. It was so nice that my roommate, Rich, really liked it and he’s only had oolong once. Mind you, it was flavored, and he thoroughly liked this one.

My only complaint about this tea is that it is a little on the lemon grass side of jade, but I continue to enjoy it. Now to see if 50 grams the right amount of or too little of a purchase.

Note to self: finish you’re other tea before you decimate your expensive ones. Though you are savoring your Dayuling, be smart about it. Yes, you are getting all kinds of florals from this one. Yes, you might want to try Berylleb’s other Gaoshans. You’re next big order if you run out of things will probably be Berylleb and or What-Cha…

Osmanthus. Osmanthus was the floral I was thinking of. Many of the same thoughts applies to this note as the last note. I might have overleafed just a tiny bit, but I enjoyed my two long sessions today. I might plow through this rather quickly.

I have so many notes I gotta backlog…Well, I went to the Coffee and Tea Festival at the Detroit Institute of Arts and enjoyed some frickin’ amazing cardamom Turkish coffee, jasmine, Taiwan Assam, and Alishan tea after a ceremony. This sampling with the gorgeous art and atmosphere that is already at the DIA made for an awesome day…especially with really great quality Mediterranean food afterwards. Plus more tea including this tea.
I finally get to try this one, holy crap! This has been on my wish list for so long and I finally had the courage to get some.

I knew that this tea was going to be on the veggie side, but I did not expect the tea to be as GREEN as it was. Unlike a few other jade’s I’ve had, the more grassy qualities matched mint more than anything else which impressed me. The hyacinth and lilac were there, but the florals were a closer to lilies and maybe rose for me. The rose is also a bit of a weird note, which I will update after more experience with it. The fruit quality pops up way more in the third steeps, and they are the usual Li Shan nectar fruit notes, but I am not sure how to describe them. How that sweet fruit note combines with the florals and the mintyness makes me think of blue cotton candy a little bit, but grassier and tarter. It made me think of cotton candy flavored floss like Rasseru described.

The Summary: a flexible resilient “clean head, clean feeling” tea with a great display of notes in a light, green body. I actually agree with Rasseru’s 86 rating, though I might put it at an 88 depending on how I am feeling. I have had Gaoshans that I definitely prefer over this one considering the price and the green taste. It was almost closer to a green tea than a regular oolong for me. I know it’s a jade oolong and they are more like green teas by default, but this tasted greener than some of the BaoZhongs I’ve had. I wonder how might it have tasted if it were fresher, but for $19 for 50 grams, this was a deal that I am very content with for great quality.

You know I will write more notes of this one for the future.

Well, this is very interesting. Got 5 grams of this as a sample from someone’s stash, I believe. The dark, rolled leaves smell a bit vegetal to me, and once washed the roasted aroma emerges. Since we only had enough for one session, decided to give the wash a taste. It’s sweet. Like stevia sweet. rhinkle is not a fan.

First steep still has some of that sweetness in it. It’s smooth and light in flavor. It has a hint of something that reminds me of the aged ginseng oolong we had recently—guess it’s the age—but, overall, it tastes like diluted Throat Coat to me.

Third steep tastes like what I would imagine roasted stevia to taste like. I guess I can grab some stevia out of the garden and roast it to see if it actually /does/ taste like this. Getting a hint of something like cocoa/coffee-like, as well.

Again, very interesting. I’d drink it again.