Grand Tea

A nice, non-vegetabley green. It looks like frosty sage leaves, and is lip-lickingly sweet and nutty.

The write up of my first clumsy, but not entirely successful experience with pu-erh is up:

http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2070/tea-review-grand-tea-year-2000-7542-green-pu-erh/

I waited till I had a whole afternoon to play with this one, primarily because I wanted to prep a decent review for www.itsallabouttheleaf.com, and secondarily because I understand that pu-erhs keep going and going and going and going …. will be writing about it more gracefully elsewhere, but it surprised me that it wasn’t as peat-moss tasting as I had expected.

compared it to Grand Tea’s 2000 Menghai 7542 traditional stored in Walker Tea Review comparison: Menghai Pu’ers.

compared it to Grand Tea’s 2000 Menghai 7542 dry stored in Walker Tea Review comparison: Menghai Pu’ers.

OK… this tea scared me. I have not been a big fan of pu-erh.

The aroma of the dry leaf is very earthy. The brewed liquor also smells quite earthy.

Taste: yes, it’s earthy. There is also an underlying sweetness to it, almost a floral note and a faint vegetative note.

It’s not bad nor is it as disagreeable as I thought it would be.

This is a nice one, it brews up looking pale and delicate but it ha has a nice kind of bold flavor.
It flavors are slightly vegetal maybe hay like, really sweet honey like notes a little nutty even with a slightly buttery mouthfeel.

http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/2013/07/white-down-silver-needle-zheng-he-by.html

I believe this was another lovely selection The Purrfect Cup sent me! Thanks!!!

This is an exquisite tikuanyin! Just a touch of grassy taste under the fresh floral tastes. It’s not minty but it gives you that freshness you seek in the aftertaste. It’s quite gratifying, really! YUMX2!

Another tea from TeaEqualsBliss
This is only the second kind of Genmaicha + Matcha blend I have tried.
This is good.
Dry leaves give off a bit of dried Seaweed smell, add water and a tinge of bitterness and popcorn shine through.
Taste does not pop but it is a good tea to have with lunch.

I didn’t know I had this until I was going through my cupboard. Nor did I know what to make of it – was it a sheng pu-erh or a shou? I couldn’t tell. On smell, it seemed cooked. On taste…things get dicey. If it’s a shou, then it’s a very good shou. If it’s a sheng, it needs work. But it lasts quite a few infusions…and it woke me up plenty. So, I guess that’s something.

A good finish for this sample.

Here we have another tie guan yin by Grand Tea. These always interest me a great deal, as they have the potential to be so wonderful, and yet many companies’ offerings of this style of oolong fall flat. As I open the package, I notice that this tie guan yin has a much more roasted aroma than the one that I previously tried from Grand Tea (the Monkey Picked Anxi Oolong). In fact, they are almost entirely opposite. That one was far more floral in aroma, and this one, initially, is more dark and roasted. At least so far as the dry leaves are concerned.

I preheat my gaiwan and my teacup, add some of the tea to the gaiwan, and give it a quick rinse. As I pour the water to begin the first steeping of thirty seconds, already I can smell the dark roasted aromas. If I take a deep breath, I can just barely detect an edge of grassy scents and a touch of floral notes. Steeping number one smells much the same, albeit watery and half-hearted. The liquor is bright and a transparent pale yellow. Tasting it, I find that it tastes much as it smells, which is to be expected for the first steeping. It feels incredibly light on the tongue. Steeping number two follows quickly after the first, using the same amount of time. This round, the aroma and the flavor have become darker, picking up more of the roasted flavor. This makes the tea seem richer, in a sense. Mmm, this third steeping (same time used), is full of rich, oolong goodness. It makes me want to sit back and savor this single cup for a long while. However, I know that this tea has more to give! The next two steepings continue this same trend, only changing in making the flavor more rich and intense. This is one of the best roasted oolongs I have had in some time. I certainly enjoyed trying it! On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate it an 85/100.

While I drank the last of this last night, I decided to save the leaves overnight and re-steep this morning. Yum!

Accompanies a nice dinner of chicken and peppers quite well!

Virtual tea time with video chat.

I love a good oolong, and I love ti kwan yin more than most oolongs. Just to clarify for those not well versed in Chinese geography, Anxi is an area in the Fujian region of China. Ti kwan yin, or one of the other many spellings, is one of the famous teas of this area.

This tea seemed perfect for brewing with a gaiwan, so I grabbed my trusty ceramic “covered cup” and opened the shrink-sealed package of tea. The smell that wafts from the foil packaging is amazing. Bright and floral, it urges me to continue onward to the tasting. Adding a tablespoon of leaf to the bottom of my gaiwan, I pour the water across the leaves, then quickly discard this water, rinsing the tea and helping the leaves to begin to open.

Deciding to go with typical steep times for the gaiwan, my initial steep lasts for thirty seconds. The resulting cup is light, floral, and laced with vegetal notes that are so characteristic of ti kwan yin oolongs. The golden-green liquor is bright and attractive. In the flavor of this first steeping, the smell is reversed. The vegetal notes take the upper hand, accompanied by the floral smell on the edges. This tea has a smooth finish, and the flavor, especially the vegetal aspects, linger on the tongue, long after the sip is done. The flavors are not intensely strong, as expected from the first steeping.

The leaves themselves have barely begun to open. With that, a second steeping of thirty seconds is begun. I notice that, even after this steeping, the leaves remain a bit stubborn in opening fully. The tea is darker by a few shades, and the aroma is now more balanced. The flavors of this steeping are not much stronger, but they are sharper in body, revealing the source of the lingering flavors. The third steeping tastes much the same, with the flavors being a bit more developed.

The fourth steeping is rich with these same flavors, and I finally notice the almost-creamy edges. I am sure that this tea will last through several more steepings. I really enjoyed trying this Monkey Picked Oolong, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a nice, green oolong. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate this tea an 89/100.

This one is a veggie-sweet with sweet-floral combo yet it’s smooth and gentle and juicy all at the same time. This is very good! It stands out more than I thought it would. The quality is top-notch!

Ok this one was interesting I liked it most people would probably not like it at first or at all even. It don’t really have good aroma to me just an odd smell like that of ancient books in fact that exactly how its starts out tasting also almost stale tasting like an old musty book smells, dull and just odd. As steeps went by it got a little better even got quite lively and smooth and refreshing, almost as if were dead at first and came back to life. An acquired taste i’m sure but I liked it ok, it’s worth a try for anyone who enjoys odd flavors. Also pretty much no steep time at all for this one really just pour the water right over it through the strainer into a cup over and over and over.
It’s been a long time since I tried the worm tea, it still taste the same like some old books or newspapers, earthy. Not bad.

This Liu Bao is very good, nice aroma and taste, not quite as dark or rich as other Liu Bao I have but still very good.

Thanks LiberTEAS!

This is very sweet, a bit creamy to swizzle in the mouth, and crisp but there is a hint of hay or wheat texture to it at the beginning of the sip and it rounds out at the end. It’s very nice. It’s a great inbetween “cleanser” tea (especially after all of that chamomile I have been drinking! oye!)

I like this! It’s a goodie! :)

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea.

This is alright. Not the best Uji Genmaicha that I’ve tried, but, it’s not bad either. Unlike other Uji Genmaicha, I can hardly taste the Matcha in this. It is very toasty and delicious, but considerably lighter in composition than what I expected. Good, but not great.

This is a really good silver needle: sweet and with a strong flavor, that is to say, stronger than I would have expected from a typical silver needle. The leaves were soft and fluffy. There are flavors of hay and of grass, these are soft flavors that mingle with the sweetness. A very lovely white tea.

Light, Crisp, Clean, Refreshing, very pleasant! VERY satisfying! I really like this! A Nice mellow and soothing green tea. No bitterness…no grassiness. If you think you didn’t like greens before…give this one a try! It’s a different sort of a green! NICE!

This is surprisingly refreshing. It has a very light taste to it… far more subtle than I usually experience from a green tea. This is very reminiscent of a white tea … both in flavor as well as the appearance of the dry leaf, which were light green, wiry, covered in silvery fuzz.

A sweet, crisp, refresher!