2022 Lumber Slut

Charred oak, cedar, faint hints of cinnamon, light smoke, and “medicinal” notes all packaged in a surprisingly smooth tea. Nice lingering aftertaste. This reminds me of the Scottish Breakfast Blend from English Tea Store which I tried years ago, which featured Chingwo County Orange Pekoe, a variety of tea renowned for its oaky notes. But this is much smoother than I remember the other tea being, even though I enjoyed that one quite a bit. Woody notes are definitely the name of the game here, but the tea is also so smooth and friendly I could imagine it would appeal to a wide variety of drinkers, even those who are not particularly crazy about wood. My mini weighed in at 6.00 grams on the kitchen scale.

Eating walnuts in a hot sauna. Brewed strong, there’s nice cocoa and saline as well.

The dry leaf fragrance is an antique oak cabinet, a cedar chest full of clean cotton sheets, pine 2×4s, an arts and crafts store, paints and paintbrushes, and a wooden staircase to the attic in an old house.

A lot of raw, fresh, sweet wood. Also some mushroom and dried, brown grass clippings.

The wet leaf aroma: sauna, hot steamed cedar wood, acorns and cracked black walnuts. Very woody, but not dusty or bitter at all. It has a nice comforting sweetness to it, like freshly cut oak planks.

The taste is of black walnuts, cocoa powder, silky saline, charred oak casks, cedar chips, and wood vanillins.

I really enjoyed this (am reviewing the minis). From the get-go, this was a Wow tea that I would want to keep in my collection: I think this is a great tea to share with someone new to shou pu’er, especially doing horizontal tasting with a fruity or sweet ripe pu’er for contrast (for example with White2Tea’s Waffles, which I also enjoy).
- oily, thick texture
- aroma and taste are woodsy, but resinous varnished tropical hardwood, so not just petrichor. there is a spicy, incense quality, medicinal volatiles, camphor, and perhaps brown bread with burnt raisins that adds a welcome edge (no bitterness). I found myself enjoying the pronounced lingering aftertaste of the first steepings for ten minutes before brewing again. Yah, super long aftertaste!

Grandpa Style!

After yesterday’s delicious ripe pu’erh, I felt compelled to pull another one out to enjoy while working. I basically tossed a large chunk of the cake into a mug to brew grandpa style. The tea soup is thick as oil with a pungently earthy and heavy woody flavour that’s rounded out by a medicinal camphorous finish. Low key, sloppy, and all around pretty much the best way to brew this tea up. I guess you could say I was feeling a little slutty…

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CxGk1hlO-ty/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58s3Rn7aVc0

Punchier than the past few years. Has some of that asprin/LaoManE bitterness. A fair bit of that small char like sediment in the bottom of the cup. Very barnyard, very wood. Little to no vanilla. Little to no sweetness. Burly.