Malawi Satemwa Antlers White Tea

September Sipdown Prompt – a tea from Africa

This tea is marked as “the older the better” so I have been in no hurry to drink it, but I have had it at least twice, so I am befuddled as to why there is no tasting note from me.

I have had it with food each time I drank it, usually with breakfast, so I haven’t picked up as much detail as others here. Today we were just having cinnamon raisin bagels so it seemed like this little sweetie would be a good pairing.

My impressions each time have been: 1. Good, medium body with a light creaminess 2. Clear golden color 3. More flavor than I would expect from the stems of a tea plant, certainly enough flavor to pair with food.

Overall, it reminds me of the first shou mei I ever drank, which I liked very much. There is a little nuttiness, and rich, warm hay. It is certainly no shrinking violet so you don’t need to worry about searching for flavor in it, but it is a quite a lovely, soft tea for fall.

This tea feels a little bizarre. I just read through all the reviews and it seems like everyone gets something different from these little sticks. First session, the first note I picked up, I swear to god, was pickles. Maybe this is what everyone else is calling sake, but I got pickles. Followed straightaway by vanilla…I’m sorry, what? But then, everything is so subtle I start wondering if I’m making things up. Bizarre.

Minerals then, and a kind of florality that I couldn’t really place — a taste I associate with white tea, for sure. Maybe this is the lychee others are describing, though it didn’t scream fruit or even sweet to me — more floral. Licorice crept in and my tongue tingled a bit. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who experienced and tried to describe this sensation. Around steep 5 or 6, things got quite astringent, with a pronounced drying effect after swallowing.

I thought I’d erred a little soft on the ratio for my first session; I doubled it for the second — about 2g tea:1oz water. I did get some honey and a more fruity, lychee-esque flavor in this session — but bitterness and astringency were also more pronounced, which maybe stripped some of the more nuanced flavors out for me. I’m not certain at this point which ratio I prefer or would recommend.

I’ll be going back to this tea to explore and dig around. At this point, it feels more like a fun experiment than a straight-up enjoyable experience, but I’m not opposed to a good diversion. I may not invite white antlers over again, but I’m not sad they’re in town for now.

The tea has a unique dry stalk aroma that is very woody. This is the first time I am trying it out so the brewing parameters are very much an experiment. I used 5g of stalks in a glazed clay gaiwan.

steep #1: 80°C, 1 min, 80ml
The smell of wet twigs is also quite robust, main notes being decaying leaves, wet earth, forest, peach and brown sugar. A very unusual and interesting combination. The liquor has medium body and is less robust. There is no bitterness or astringency. It is actually decently fruity and sweet, with roasted butter flavour emerging in the aftertaste. Empty cup smells of compost and beeswax.

steep #2: 80°C, 30 s, 80ml
Similar, but slightly weaker smell. The taste is now more woody and sour in the finish and the texture is a bit lighter. The aftertaste has some spiciness to it too, which is nice since there is no astringency as I mentioned.

steep #3: 80°C, 1 min, 80ml
Ever more fruity smelling, I can now notice the lychee mentioned in the description. Also, alcohol tones appear, especially once the twigs have cooled down. Mouthfeel is again slightly on the thin side, but has a nice mouth-watering effect and cooling aftertaste. Also, for the first time a little drying in the finish. Not much sourness in this infusion, there is more of subtly bitter and vegetal notes.

steep #4: 90°C, 90 s, 80ml
Colour is darker now, more on the orange side rahter than yellow. However, it seems that the taste profile is flatter and again more sour, even though still really pleasant to drink. The aftertaste has some really nice fluctuating roastiness and woody aspects too.

steep #5: 90°C, 150 s, 80ml
Finally, some hints of astringency appear. Taste is more fruity, sweet (honey) with drying, citrusy finish and cooling, alcohol-like afteraste.

steep #6: 100°C, 3 min, 80ml
The darkest, almost brown, infusion yet. The taste is somewhat vegetal and reminiscent of later infusions of a Taiwanese amber GABA oolong. I think it’s time for the last steep over the flame.

steep #7: simmering, 10 min, 150ml
Smells of honey, caramel, rosehip and brioche. Colour is somewhere between dark red and brown. Taste is not extraordinary to be honest, but better than infusion 6. It’s definitely more bitter and quite sweet. It also has a similar quality to it as bug-bitten teas. A nice way to finish the session in any case.

Due to the high price, I don’t think I will be buying this tea again too soon, but I would recommend experienced drinkers in particular to try it out at least for the novelty of experience. It definitely isn’t bland, which is what I would normally expect from such a tea. Just a bit more on the subtler side, but the complexity is there. In any case, I will try different brewing methods the next few sessions I have left with this and see if my opinion changes.

Once upon a time I drank a green-ish Darjeeling. The first cup was very sour, near unpalatable to me, reminiscent of my first time trying wine (didn’t like it). Second cup mellowed out into a floral-sweet muscatel brew, which dazzled my tongue with its complexities and “can’t exactly put my finger on what it reminds me of” notes.

Drinking the first cup of this reminds me of that epiphany of a second cup of Darjeeling. I haven’t had a good Darjeeling like that in a few years though, so I don’t know why I’m talking about that. This is just such a different tea. It makes me realize I haven’t gotten out of my tea comfort zone in a while. I wish I had more to play with and temper myself to!

Notes that remind me of my experiences with white tea: hay, sweet grass, honey, melon.

Notes that throw me off: plum (sweet and a little tart), a smooth, alcoholic-grain note like sake (anyone ever get the chance to try those limited-edition sake Kit Kats? It’s a little like that), lychee, and an undistinguished dusting of brown spice that tickles my throat (nutmeg? cinnamon?).

Steep Count: 4

(2016 spring harvest)

A very unique savoury white tea with notes of spices.

My dear friend gave a very generous portion of this tea. I’ve wanted to try it, but wow, this amount is insane.

Anyway, this tea works Gong Fu and I’ve yet to do it Western. It is a very dry tea-so dry that I remember this tea is literally made of twigs. ‘Autumn leaf pile’ is right and I get a very fall feel though it’s not bad now in winter. There is a little bit of a fruit quality that I associate with white in the background-lychee is close, maybe honey, but it’s buried beneath the leaves in taste. A bit smoky too. Yeah, it’s on the complex side.

I’m not sure if I like it or not though I thought I would. Maybe a few more tries might get me to change my mind. It’s dry overall.

Definitely one of the most interesting-looking and -sounding teas I’ve tried! The dry stems have a sweet, honey-like aroma. I let the stems steep freely in a cup, and many of them stood up straight like a little forest of tea. The flavor of the tea is initially mild and subtle, with a some honey sweetness and a touch of earthiness. After some steeping, an intense floral-sweet aroma starts getting released. Just leaning in close to take a sip is like taking a deep breath of a summer garden full of flowers after a rain. The flavor feels more complex at this point as well. Very different from other white teas out there, and a highly sensory experience.

Light with lots of sweet, fruity flavor and a distinct honey aroma. Specifically honey, not a generic sweetness but the complexity and depth of real honey, perhaps more vividly than in any other unflavored tea I’ve tasted. The fruit in this tea has often been described as lychee, which I didn’t note specifically, though the type of fruitiness did lean that direction, a tropical juiciness with a touch of exotic floral.

This tea continued to be enjoyable over many infusions. Even the honey aroma stuck around, gradually lightening but still present through many cups. In later steeps, a taste that I think of as characteristic to many white teas came to the forefront, though a more delicate version here.

I used 2.8g in a little glass teapot, around 6oz of 175°F water, with steeps starting at 2min.

Thank you, Zennenn, for the opportunity to try this tea!

This is my 200th review! Rawr!

So, as with all my other milestone reviews, I want to review something rather special. Here goes.

Okay, so… I love the imagery this tea evokes. I love stags. They are beautiful animals and generally just give me an impression of quiet oneness with nature, of freedom and exploration, and tranquility. I am excited about this tea. Straight out of the bag, the twigs smell like cinnamon and spices, even some fruit. It reminds me of the scent of hardened gingerbread that some of the ornaments on the Christmas tree were made out of when I was a kid. And hey, the twigs do in fact look like antlers. So cool!

I’m a little crazy, so I’m going to be gongfu brewing this similar to how I’d brew silver needle white tea, but with longer infusion times like I use with Ya Bao. Why not? I default to gongfu style even with teas that aren’t particularly made for it.

So, into my gaiwan they go, and I’m not even breaking them up. They barely fit in there with the lid on, they’re so long. They’re in there for 1 minute and back out. This is the longest I ever do an initial infusion with Gongfu style and I only do it with Ya Bao, which are very thick, dense buds, and require a lot of soaking to saturate. I figured since these stems are hard and woody i’d do the same with them. The stems smell a bit fruity and floral after the first infusion. I’m not getting lychee so much like the packaging says, but I can see where that’s coming from, since lychee is both fruity and floral. To me this is more of a plum scent mixed with the scent of a good Japanese sake.

Surprisingly, the infusion is a rich medium yellow after just that short amount of time. The brewed tea smells like sweet cinnamon roll dough, pecan pie, a bit of fig or plum and some other fun decadent things.

Oh wow, the taste comes on really sweet. It’s kind of plum like with a hint of floral and a lingering sweetness. It has hints of cinnamon and spice flavors just like the scent. The sweetness really lingers after drinking, as well as a slight cooling sensation on the tongue. The flavor of this tea has some qualities in common with white peony teas I’ve tried before. There’s a bit of autumn leaf taste and scent that both teas share.

I’m really impressed by the quality of this tea’s flavor and aroma. It’s very delicate but very flavorful, has a really definite presence, and is easy to drink like most white teas are. I could drink this tea daily. I’m feeling a bit of an interesting lightheadedness right now, which could be an effect of this tea, or the effect of this being the third tea I’ve reviewed within a few hours.

Second infusion: okay, lychee. I’m gettin’ it now. The wet twigs definitely have that aroma, but still reminds me of plum wine or a really nice sake as well, and the spice notes are ever-present. The second infusion doesn’t seem to have quite as strong of a taste as the first, but is similar and still really nice. It leans towards a more floral nectar kind of taste, not quite as sweet as before. If you roll it on your tongue there’s a hint of metal in the taste as well. As the tea cools, that note is not detectable anymore and the overall flavor is much more like lychee, with a slight aftertaste of spices. There is no bitterness in this tea at all.

I agree with Alistair of What-Cha, this tea is a game-changer. Who knew that such delicious flavor could come from just the stems of tea? I’ve had Japanese kukicha “stem tea” before, and it was nothing like this, nothing to write home about. This, on the other hand, is something I’ll be after to keep in my collection for years to come. I hope for the continued success of the estate that produces this tea! I’d like to take a moment to say, if you haven’t tried many teas from lesser-known growing regions, you really should give them a chance. What-Cha seems to have a real knack for offering many of those, so it’s a great place to start.

My third infusion of the little tea antlers came out a really deep yellow. This time the flavor tastes a little more green, like young white tea, subtle hints of cucumber in the mix. Overall, the taste is waning a bit, but still nice. Four infusions in, the flavor is still really nice and has gotten more generous again. I could see this one going for many, many infusions before running out of delicious flavor.

For timing, I brewed for 1 minute, adding 15 seconds each time. It worked really well with the amount of tea I used. I ignored the recommendation of 176F water for a slightly hotter 185F, which is what I default to for white teas, and this perfomed just great.

I was really excited to try this, because it’s something different, and I’ve been so impressed with What-cha’s offerings. The package directions recommend 3-4 teaspoons per cup, but this tea is long, spindly sticks, some pieces 10cm or longer, so not really well suited to being measured in teaspoons. I got out my scale and measured out 3g of tea for my cup, just pulling the sticks out of the bag with my fingers (a fork might have worked too – this is no job for a spoon.)

The dry leaf just smells like tea – that distinctive but unnuanced smell of tea bags. Steeped, the leaf is quite pungent, with notes of fruit, peony and wet wood.

The liquor is a rich gold and very clear. Flavour-wise, this is less complex and exciting than I was hoping for. Lots of hay, a kind of generic fruitiness, floral, some earth, and a note that I can only describe as lipstick. The mouthfeel is pretty smooth, but I’m getting a slight throat scratchiness from this.

The second cup was much the same as the first.

Interesting tea. I’m not wild about it, but I’m glad I tried it.