Ilyes Belhoussine Send Message

Palais des thés call this one subtle and creamy,
Let’s see, we steep at 75C with an steeps of 25s.

Second Steep:

Slightly bitter, Jasmin lacks definition, shocking for this price point.

Third Steep:

Bitter, bitter, bitter and gross. It’s not all over the place though, I can see that the Jasmin itself is the cause of the bitterness, like drinking ear wax: ew.

Fourth Steep:

Oh wow, this is just bad, bad bad bad.
Where’s the creaminess ? Where’s the subtlety ?
I cannot describe how bitter this is, it’s like ear wax with extra ear wax.

Conclusion:
Worst Jasmin Tea i’ve had, and I wish I was kidding.

Would you believe me if I told you I tried this tea 4 times in 4 different ways before writing this review? I simply couldn’t believe it was as… mild… as I thought it was, so I tried it again and again, and again, and again.

Brewing Experiments
Gong Fu Style: Round One
“What the hell am I drinking?” must’ve been my first thought. It wasn’t the bitterness that struck me, but the toughness of the tea. It was like drinking a very old, very dry, very woody piece of wood. The taste was so strong, so overpowering, that I couldn’t even taste the bitterness. I thought perhaps I had too much tea in the gaiwan, so I tried again.

Gong Fu Style: Round Two
Okay, less tea, less time, maybe that’s the trick. But no, the tea was still as strong, as overpowering, as woody. I couldn’t even taste the bitterness. I thought perhaps the method itself was wrong.

Temperature-Controlled Tea Maker
Ark! Strong as a hell this one, overpowering, woody, dry, old, and strong, and most importantly, not anything like a Bai Mu Dan.

Regular Teapot
Huh, is this it? Is this the tea I’ve been trying to taste for the past 2 hours? It’s so incredibly light, so incredibly tasteless, so incredibly… boring. But still woody, still like what a Minecraft birch plank would taste like, still not a Bai Mu Dan.

Palais Des Thés Description
From Palais des Thés:
“White peony” is a very fine tea, made up of all sorts of leaves in their natural state: silvery buds, Souchong leaves, first and second leaves and stems. Its woody taste is like the autumn fruits: hazelnuts and chestnuts.

Final Reflections
Not every white tea can be tasted Gong Fu Style, and this one is a perfect example of that. It’s not bad, it’s not good, it’s just… there. It’s a tea that you can drink without thinking about it, without tasting it, without enjoying it. It’s a tea that you can drink while doing something else, while talking, while working, while reading, while watching TV. It’s a non-tea, it’s not light yet with character as I wished it would’ve been, and after trying a stable method, and under these very specific and controlled conditions, I can say that it’s an overpriced tea that does what it’s supposed to.

I would feel it to be unfair to judge it badly, my apprehensions disappeared after the last tasting, but I cannot say it’s good either.

Recommendation
This is a correct white tea, unremarkable, needs more definition, very light and fair

God, I truly hate being this negative, it seemed as if most people liked this tea around here too, making me doubt my preparation.

As such, I first prepared this in a teapot as per the instructions, and then gongfu style which I reported here as well as on my blog.

- First Infusion (20s, 75°C)
I decided to steep the tea for 20 seconds for the first infusion, as I wanted to get a good idea of the tea’s flavor and look, without letting it become too bitter. Now, this is unusual, first steeps are almost always meant to feed my tea pets and warm up the cups, but this time, I was really curious about this famed tea.

The color was a light yellow. The taste was light, with a slight acidity that was quite unpleasant. The bitterness was also present, but not overwhelming. It was definitely not as round and sweet as I expected.

- Second Infusion (20s, 75°C)
Of course, this is the real deal. The second infusion is where the tea really shines, right ?

Well, not really. The taste was still quite light, with the same acidity and bitterness as the first infusion. That acidity I mentioned earlier was still lingering, directly affecting the overall taste of the tea. As I feared, and as I keep experiencing with Palais Des Thés’ flavored teas, it is more about smelling the tea than tasting it…

- Third Infusion (30s, 75°C)
Bye-bye (?) acidity, hello sourness. After this steep, I started seriously asking myself what was wrong with this tea. The acidity was still there, hiding the floral notes, polluting the aftertaste. Unlike a citrus-y acidity, refreshing and invigorating, this one was more like a bad grape juice, leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

- Fourth Infusion (40s, 75°C)
Gone is the acidity, gone is the sourness.

Here, I tried both drinking it hot and letting it cool down a bit. However, both methods tasted the same.

The taste was now quite light, with a slight bitterness and a slight floral note. No more of that horrible bad grape juice taste, but also no more of the original flavor.

Crazy how good this tea got after it lost all its flavor, right ?

- Fifth Infusion (50s, 75°C)
Less flavor, hot water with a hint of nothing and some floral notes. Honestly, it keeps getting better as it loses its flavor, I really don’t know how to feel about that, but what remains of the acidity reminds me of the reason why I don’t like this tea.

- Overall Impression
Bear in mind that this is not my first time trying a flavored tea from Palais Des Thés, nor is it my first time being disappointed by one. I have tried a few of their flavored teas, and I have yet to find one that I really enjoy. Truth be told, this isn’t my first time trying this tea either, but I wanted to give it another chance by trying it gong fu style.

Palais des Thés, like many other tea companies, has a reputation for making high-quality teas, and I have no doubt that this is true. Their pure teas are excellent, although their Bai Mu Dan and Grand Jasmin Mao Feng disappointed me greatly. However, their flavored teas are a different story: Teas that smell like a dream, but taste like perfume. They’re uninteresting, and more often than not, downright disgusting.

I was really hoping that this tea would be different, but it was not. To be fair, it’s not the worst tea I’ve had from there, far from it, i’d even go as far as to say it’s not a bad tea, it’s just a tea, like an adventure that is only memorable after it’s ended, it’s only good when the session is closing to an end ; it’s too bad really.

I couldn’t be happier I was recommended this tea, as it was a great opportunity finally find the words to describe why I don’t like Palais Des Thés’ flavored teas.

My recommendation: stay away from this tea, and from Palais Des Thés’ flavored teas in general, this is the textbook definition of “mid”.

I first got my hands on this tea a few days ago, a strange close to unlabeled white tea brick, on it was written “White Pu Erh Brick”.

White Pu Erh? Never heard of that before, I paid close to 20 Euros for 5×30g worth of the thing, it came in a chocolate-bar pattern pressed form, each bar being 30g.

After washing a square of said brick with a simple 95C first steep for 10s, I started looking at its color, a beautifully clear peach color.

Here are my Infusion times:

- First Infusion: 10-15 seconds
- Second Infusion: 15-20 seconds
- Third Infusion: 20-30 seconds
- Subsequent Infusions: 30 seconds to 1 minute

And God, it looked exactly the way it tasted, incredibly clear and round, no bitterness at all, no earthiness either strangely enough?

This was so much more white tea than I expected, It’s the most round, satisfying, plain yet stable white tea experiences I’ve ever had, but the pu erh title certainly was misleading.

It’s definitely worth its money, and I prefer this to any Palais des thés white teas i’ve had before, their Bai Mu Dan was rather disappointing, and this is the exact opposite.

The subtly of the flavor makes it so it doesn’t linger too long, making it a perfect tea to accompany with food, its light but very caffeinated, perhaps a good morning tea ?

Either way, I recommend this tea, knowing that it goes for around 10 euros online for 5×30g, it’s probably the best price/value ratio I’ve seen in a while.

Mine was aged from spring 2022.

After a horrible attempt (45s first steep, 10s other steeps with strong bitterness), I tried the following Gong Fu style:
First Infusion:
Steep for about 10 seconds. That’s to quickly extract the flavor without letting the tea become bitter.
Second Infusion (15s) : Very relaxing, as bitter as expected for a black tea, but otherwise a very standard yunnan black tea, nothing seemingly outstanding out of this one.
Third Infusion (10s) : This is where the tea really showed its potential, the biterness is gone, it’s almost light. This is great.
Fourth Infusion (25s): Except for the obvious added biterness, no difference was noted between the 3rd and 4rd infusion.

Overall, it’s a non-exceptional yet pleasant black tea with a bit less bitterness than the norm. Would recommend for a casual consumption.

I had some pretty negative apprehensions when I was about to try this tea,

As many others, I find most Japanese teas to be too herbal, vegetably even; having that typical astringency that you find in especially cheap ones.

For Matchas and Senchas, it’s not uncommon to find herbalness mixed with a strong and direct bitterness that rules over every other subtleties.

But this wasn’t one of those cases, in fact it is one of the only senchas I was able to drink gong fu style — albeit with some consequences.

There are many reasons why Sencha isn’t really compatible with gong fu style, its finely cut needle-like leaves are hard to block and Sencha is usually infused for long periods of time, a kyusu thusly being the more logical vessel to be used and more generally, the tea itself doesn’t benefit much from a tea “cleaning” per se since the leaves are already broken, so I’m gonna drink that 1st steep anyways.

With all that in mind, I tried a different method. First, I would infuse for 2 minutes at 70C, then I would make two more 20s steeps, any more would be too bitter.
Here’s how it went:

1st Steep: The herbalness is particularly clear here, with surprisingly almost no bitterness — Airing the tea a little bit gradually makes the tea more and more bitter however.
2nd Steep: Now the bitterness took over completely, it’s almost undrinkable, the vegetable-like taste is still however completely present.
3rd Steep: No herbalness whatsoever now, it’s completely bitter, like drinking ear wax I guess…? Cannot describe what could possibly be worse that this.

Alright, although it may seem as if I hated this tea, this is truly one of the most suprising ones I’ve tried so far. The first thing that came to my mind when I drank that first steep was “fresh”, it was just fresh and very vegetably, like cucumber water. Just for that first steep, and the shock that it caused, this tea deserves more recognition.

For this one, I used a gaiwan and I admit I tried something a bit weird on this one, 80C 4g/100mL for 3min on the initial steep (then thrown) and then constant 10s steeps.
This, retroactively not so smart idea, caused the following results:

- 2nd steep: plenty of jasmin upfront, strong clove-like taste too and some floral notes. Unfortunately, it is ruined by the incredibly bitter aftertaste…
- 3rd, 4th and subsequent steeps: A lot more floral, the jasmin is now dominating completely, letting no room for any other aroma.

Obviously the first steep is the cause of such strong bitterness in the 2nd steep, and I expect actual proper gongfu style brewing to allow for better results, taking that into account (and the fact this was a sample) I cannot wait to try it again and maybe edit this comment !

Overall though, I definitely appreciate this blend, the second steep had, appart from the bitterness, a lot of complexity and that’s not something you can say about most teas. Very pleasant.

This one is quite a shocker for me, mostly because my experience doesn’t seem to fit that I’m reading around here.
It’s sweet and subtle, both traits that are important for a tea that describes itself as inspired by oriental hammam’s sents.
Here’s my issue, out of the four elements of the tea, only two seem to be noticeable with one overpowering the other, the green date (aftertaste) and the rose (subtly at the front of the taste).
The green date is something I never expected in a tea and it’s a very refreshing form of sweetness, the rose is very hard to get but it’s a nice touch that add for that Hammam-like taste — but no signs of orange flower water or red fruits.
This is a recurring theme in PDT flavored teas, they’re too perfumy, lacking much needed substance, they proved multiple times that some recipes of theirs can hit that note well but this isn’t one of those cases.

I have tried this tea twice, once in a gaiwan, 30s steeps at 75C and 2.5g/100mL and once in a teapot (6g/300mL, 75C, 3min) — both have been disappointing so far.
I am sad because I deeply wanted to love this tea, but for PDT teas I think I’ll just stick to their pure teas.

I love this tea so damn much,

The peach is clear, and yet it does not overpower the Elderflower which is also very noticeable.
I went for an initial 95C for 2min steep, then consecutive 30s/1min steeps, 2.5g in my gaiwan for a bit less than 80mL.
Point here was to try how concentrated the taste could be, and it was worth it.
Very subtle, yet very distinctive taste — could be a perfect morning brew.

This is my first pu’er and maybe my last dark pu’er for a while,
I’m only starting in tea but it’s a though one for me, perhaps my steeping was wrong but while the earthiness wasn’t too strong and I could distinctly sense the typical puer aroma, I admit it’s just too out there for me.
It is, however, an overall good tea that needs to be tried.

30s steeps, 4g/100mL, it’s okay.