Tea reviews for tea drinkers
Have you ever thought to yourself “hmm… I wonder what would happen if I took some shou and aged it in rum cask?” No? Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about it because Glen and Lamu over at Crimson Lotus Tea have done it for you! Their latest batch of Rum Barrel Shou is something…
Recently I had an online tea friend coming through town, so we decided to meet up and do a tea swap. As I was looking at their list of teas, I saw they had some Whispering Pines shou puerh – specifically, the loose leaf version of Ontario 1357. I have previously had a couple of…
Camellia Sinensis‘ 2003 Orange Label is in new territory for me, being an aged CNNP shou cake. I’ve had another ripe puerh that was supposedly around this age, but, it was of questionable origin, so I’m curious to see if it stands up against this one. As I’ve said in the past, I don’t drink…
Crimson Lotus Tea‘s Dark Depths is a shou puerh that was pressed last year but released earlier in this year. When it was released, I was chatting with Char from Oolong Owl and she was pretty excited about it. I believe she had said she tried it in loose leaf form a while back and…
The time has come for my final tasting of the three one-of-a-kind shou puerhs – Crimson Lotus Tea‘s 2018 Spring Lao Man’E Gushu Shou Puerh. Lao Man’E is a new region for me and one I’ll be exploring a bit over the next few months, but starting out with a shou from there should be…
For part two of my three part tasting on Crimson Lotus Tea’s “one-of-a-kind shou” set, I opted to try out the Lao Ban Zhang. Of the three ripe puerhs this is the most pricey, coming in at a whopping $32 CAD for eight grams. Even though this comes in at $4 CAD per gram, this…
Lately I have been hitting the shou pretty hard. I’ve only posted a few reviews so far, but in my non-critical-review-mode drinking time I have been gravitating towards shou for the last couple of months, and have been doing so in lead up to this. When Crimson Lotus put their three one-of-a-kind shous up for…
Crimson Lotus Tea’s 2017 Nannuo Mini Mushrooms are something that I have been wanting to try out for a while, but for one reason or another I never got to ordering one. I have read many reviews and tasting notes on this before and the notes you see over and over are “vanilla” and “creamy,”…
Today I am taking a look at a shou puerh from a new-to-me tea producer – 2016 Yiwu Gushu Shu from Zheng Si Long. I’ve been on a bit of a shou kick lately (more on that in a few weeks) and a high quality shou made from Yiwu material sounds like my jam, so…
Yunnan Sourcing’s 2013 Yong De Blue Label is a ripe puerh made from (as Yunnan Sourcing says) high quality material from Yong De county. This cake is made with mostly small grade leaves, as well as a good amount of gong ting, which was described to me by a tea friend as “leaves smaller than…