Tea reviews for tea drinkers
This post is coming a little bit late – I did this tasting on February 29th, but was wanting to get my ‘first year of blogging’ post up last week, so I figured I would push this one. If you’re tuning in for the first time, this is my ninth monthly review of Bitterleaf Tea’s…
Bitterleaf Tea’s 2019 Don’t Be Sad is a new huang pian brick made out of Hekai material, some of which is huang pian from their Big Old Ass Tree production. Generally speaking I’m a big fan of huang pian teas, especially those from Bitterleaf. These puerhs are extremely budget friendly and I have often found…
Recently I came across a new vendor on Instagram called Tea Joint who seemed to be mostly focused on sheng puerh and based out of Canada. Naturally, this caught my interest so I gave them a shot and grabbed small samples of all their sheng offerings. The first puerh of theirs I am reviewing is…
I’ve been wanting to try out XiaGuan’s 2013 “Gei Tai Hao“, or LOVE FOREVER sheng puerh for a good while now, and Valentine’s seemed like an appropriate time to finally get to this interestingly wrapped and named cake. This cake was pressed in 2013 but was made with ten year aged maocha, so it’s already…
Crimson Lotus Tea’s 2018 Daydream is a multi-year blend raw puerh that I’ve been wanting to try for a while now. I was chatting with Nicole from Tea For Me Please maybe six months ago and she seemed to be really excited about this tea, so I made a mental note to try it ASAP……
Tea Side’s 2013 Unicorn is a sheng puerh-style tea made from old growth trees from Thailand. I should note (as I have in the past) that as the material doesn’t come from Yunnan this tea can’t technically be called puerh, but I have had some wonderful puerh style teas in the past and love that…
A sample of Fangmingyuan’s 2008 Nannuo came to me as a free sample last year from Tiago over at Tea Encounter. I hadn’t heard of Fangmingyuan before checking out the Tea Encounter’s site, but I have been very impressed with the couple of teas I have tried from them so far. Initial Impressions The dry…
Alright, time for another check in on Bitterleaf Teas’ 2019 Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good! This is my ninth write-up on this tea, so if you’d like to read my past reviews you can do so here, otherwise lets just get to it! Breaking the Cake As expected from past sessions, the dry cake doesn’t smell…
When I started getting into tea I remember laughing when I saw people say “Just found this in my pumidor, bought five years ago then totally forgot I had it!” Well… I’m starting to understand. I’m pushing 150 samples and cakes for sheng alone now which isn’t as hectic as many others out there, but…
Crimson Lotus Tea’s 2019 Low Rider is another new sheng puerh blend for 2019, made with the intent of being unique and in Crimson Lotus’ own style. Their description says the tea should be easy going, smooth, crisp, clean with balanced astringency and not much in terms of bitterness. As usual, Crimson Lotus doesn’t give…