2015 Pin

Finally getting around to this one. The wet leaf smells apricoty and maybe a little bit tobacco-ey. The first steep is so light and pale, it reminds me a little of “2 Late”.

The first and second steeps are a little tough for me to actually pick out. This definitely isn’t a casual fruity sheng. It has a little bit of those notes but it’s mostly this odd, kind of body centered taste that feels like it has a little bit missing. I’ll try steeping a little longer.

Later steeps actually didn’t really change too much. This particular session was a bit of a miss—next time maybe I’ll try leafing and steeping a little differently.

My puerh pick for Friday. And it seems it was the puerh pick for many this past weekend! The sweet, fruity, floral fragrance of the sample bag had me looking forward to this one for quite a while.

Steeped 7 grams of this at work and decided to sip the wash, because I sometimes do that. Glad I did this time, as it was full of flavor. Very light gold in color, but with a mouth coating viscosity, floral head notes, sweet hay body and light honey finish. And that flavor just lingered. Needless to say, the rest of the wash was consumed.

A nice sour fruitness developed in the first proper steep, with a spiced herbaceous aftertaste that began to mingle with the lingering aroma and huigan.

The florals and hay start to take on a bit more of a piney-ness after a few steeps, and the exhaled aroma is that of spinach.

Some bitterness starts to come out in later steeps, but it doesn’t eliminate the mouth coating sweetness.

Eventually, the flavor mellows out to a nice lingering peach. I practically flash steeped this entire session and Pin rewarded me greatly for doing so!

Brewed this up about a year ago when I recieved for Tea club and remembered it being sweet light and floral. Just drank it last night and boy did it thicken up. Great floral aromas with a mushroomy base. Strong Lincang character to the flavor. Gan and other mouth characteristics are developing nicely. I really like where this tea has come in the past year.

Just finished a pretty heavy session of this one to kill off the last of my sample and feeling a little teadrunken silliness. A pretty tasty sheng from W2T. At the same price level as If You’re Reading This It’s 2 Late. I would consider this one a little bit more interesting and complex, but not as tasty.

Early steeps are mostly vegetal with a thickness that builds up quickly. I also got slight notes of lemon zest on the finish in these early steeps. When they combined with the creamy thick texture around steeps 3-4, I got images of lemon meringue pie dancing in my head…the tea doesn’t taste like that, it’s not quite so sweet, buuut I was reminded of it anyways. With a higher leaf ratio, the vegetal quality was more woody, like if I were to chew on squash stems maybe.

I would call steeps 5-7 or as pretty easy drinking – nice chuggable tea. It does get a slight bitterness, especially with higher ratio, but there’s also an apricot fruity note that comes in just a little bit, along with sweet vegetal notes.

Steeps 8-13 or something like that, whenever it ended, remained nice and thick, with light green vegetal flavors accompanying the heavy texture. Clearly the tea has a nice bit of qi to it, as I’m feeling plenty teadrunk after this session. I’ll have to go heavy leaf on some other W2T productions and see what happens. Should be fun lol.

Anyways, as I said above – this one was good, but at the $49/200g (at time of writing) I’d take If You’re Reading This over Pin. Both gave some good vibes – Pin more interesting and greater range of flavor, 2 Late just flat out tastier.

I really enjoy this cake, so much so that I have been plowing through it much faster than I planned when I saw it in the White2Tea club. Like 2dog wrote in that month’s club description, following this cake as it settled down from pressing and lost a lot of water content has been informative.
This cake has a lot of the positive aspects I enjoyed so much in the 2015 Smooch. The two of them being my favorite Lincang material I’ve tried by far. A very thick mouth feel and sharp flavor. I’ve found the main difference between this and Smooch is that Pin is a bit less astringent and bitter, however that may just be from the lower leaf:water ratio I usually use with this compared to the full ball steeped at once. I may come back to this review and add more specific flavors I get out of the cake after a full year of settling down.

wasnt super into this one when i brewed with 120ml vessel, but now that i am revisiting this with my 60ml gaiwan i got today, im more able to drink it, simply because less water.

dry: light- med press based on sample. kind of yellow looking, maybe looks like an owl pellet. smells kind of sour with a floral after effect.

wet: light olive green leaves. a fair bit of stem. aroma more impactful, sweeter, honey, young moss after rainfall.. if i remember what moss smells like.. lol

taste: it is astringent at the front, and bitter invades your afterthoughts, and coats the tongue. kind of makes me press my tongue to the roof of my mouth. i should experiment with temp, as in bring it down some.

i dont think this sheng has much going for it. too young, maybe in time..

but simply because it has some puerh qualities, and i havnt tried a temp change, i’ll give a generous rating.

So I got this tea right when it came out. The wrapper design and the contents of the cake really grabbed my attention.

When I got it I tried it. I remember that it was bitter so I stored it away. Now 2 months later I got it back out to give it another round!

It was very spicy with a grassy/floral note to it. Overall, I liked it and thought it was a great experience. However, i probably wouldn’t buy it again.

A light and friendly sheng with mineral, floral, and pine notes in the early steeps. Lingering sugarcane sweetness and maybe just a touch of smoke. Later steeps reveal a tart vegetal note like green olives that has me thinking of a dirty martini. It really excels in the later steeps, both flavor and buttery mouthfeel opening up.

If yall are looking for a fresh sheng on the go, 3gs of this tea grandpa style in a to-go cup works absolutely beautifully. This tea is becoming my favorite very quickly

This tea is so good. I think my favourite from all the monthly teas so far. I’ve done quite a few infusions of it today. It has a nice creamy taste to it. There’s also a bit of fruitiness. Earlier steeps have a faint bitterness in it but it doesn’t detract from the tea at all. I am pretty impressed when such a young sheng has hardly any bitterness and that was only after one quick rinse. That faint bitterness disappears really quick and it’s just creamy and fruity forever. I don’t know what steep I am on now. I think I’ve had far too much tea but it still tastes soooo good.