298 Tasting Notes
5.8g, 100mL duanni. Found a piece of what appeared to be charcoal today. Change of pace from the amount of tea seeds in my Qizhong cake, I guess. No I’m not salty. But I wouldn’t repurchase Qizhong either.
Anyway, this was nicely woody, with some hint of an almost chocolate-like note in the taste on top of the usual trad sheng taste. More exciting than usual. Some bright sweetness in aftertaste. Not mushroomy like the last few times? Died off quickly, which this duanni seems to do.
I encountered my first (I hope) foreign object in a black tea recently. I was scooping the spent leaves into the garbage and noticed a hard, round object the size of a cranberry, but couldn’t get a look at it without going through several days’ worth of moldy tea leaves. I hope this was a tea seed and not something worse!
I find goodies all the time too. Chicken feather was one of those odd things.
I guess that’s why people are supposed to rinse their teas. :)
Ordered from LP as part of XG Kunming vs. TW storage comparison. This note is for the Kunming stored.
5.2g, 90mL gaiwan. Brita tap. Quick rinse. can’t remember dry leaf, but nothing standout. I’ve also been under the weather a bit lately, so a bit stuffy every morning.
wet leaf: BBQ smoke, hay, dark slight medicinal, mushroom. aged sheng taste, slight minty bright taste. Finish was also somewhat mushroomy and grassy initially, but then was more slight bitterness and sweetness on subsequent steeps. Can hit the medicated leaven TCM taste on longer steeps. soup is on the thin side, but not sure if this is a water thing. Not sure what the whole “rock flavor” thing is about.
Very forgettable, but will need to redo with lower ratio instead of 4.5/60. Bad oolong habit of filling gaiwan that simply doesn’t work for these light roast greener oolongs. The greenness and roast tends to coalesce in the worst ways. Seems from the description on the dancong that SR is dropshipping Wuyi Origin teas, so this is probably the same, so if anyone has better ratio/temp. suggestions from those, do share
5.1g, in Kamjove with water poured about 3/4 of the way. palatable, but in a peachy and watery way initially, and then devolves into the boiled minty taste with some charred note immediately thereafter in subsequent steeps. Sometimes drying in throat. Will finish this bag out of spite. Annoyed that it’s not even cheap relative to shous I actually enjoy for how unimpressive it is!!
I bought a Kamjove! I’ve downgraded in terms of setup I suppose, but I’ve come to terms that tea will remain near incompatible with working life without something like it, and it makes me sad to only get to have tea on the weekends. Also, using the thermos for everything was getting old. Anyway, the KamJove is pretty great. Some water gets trapped in the bottom sometimes, but whatever.
5.1g, K201 (about 175mL functional volume w/o leaf). Lower temps. today ranging from 190f-200f. No green tea taste but basically akin to the bottled fruity “teas” (the Brisks and Snapples) I was obsessed with as a kid. I still won’t buy more, but good hit of nostalgia and much more enjoyable than at the boiling temps. before.
4.1g, 90mL gaiwan and random steep times and 190f-212f temps. It can handle higher temps, but for just brownie taste, lower temps + slightly longer times are better. Higher temps bring out raisin-y and stronger floral malty hongcha notes. Anyway, these being noted, I accidentally left the 4th or 5th steep in for over an hour with 185ish water and it was alright, but sorta bitter hongcha and chocolate-y raisins in a way akin to the bourbon barrel shou.
Very happy to have been able to get some of this. Thanks a ton to Andrew for making this available! True to its name, taste and aroma are entirely chocolate and brownie batter. There’s a very slight tinge of alcohol that sometimes weaves into the aroma, but not noticeable unless you pay attention. While this didn’t seem terribly complex to me, it is a very fun tea that I very much enjoyed.
5g, Brita tap in 90 mL gaiwan boiling. 10s rinse.
I didn’t purchase my partial cake from YS (given the annual price increase factored prices, to more or less quote a review on there: “if you have the money why not” but I still paid a pretty penny for this and this was one of my priciest/g sheng purchase at the time), so this may be a prior storage thing instead of LBZ thing but the taste is really bizarre in a way I can’t describe except eau de old overperfumed house and feet. Underneath that, this remains quite bitter (which tbf is how it’s supposed to be?) and not too comfy to the stomach and still feels young and rough around the edges. Taste aside from that and the minty fruity sheng taste, not too exciting. Mushroominess weaves in and out of the background as LBZ is supposed to have. Aftertaste is okay; can last and extend to the throat depending on the steep. LP’s LBZ Maocha was very much tame and pleasant compared to this; this is also stronger in body effects. Texture isn’t ever great and thins out quick, but 1st steep was prickling and warming on the face and steeps 2-5 brought some heating on upper back and forehead sweat. Past that, effects start to taper off steadily, while the taste drops off significantly.
4.5g, boiling, Brita tap in YS 60 mL gaiwan. One rinse. First steep was a watery floral, followed by just astringent minty tastes (not bitter, just a bit dry unless really pushed like one steep where I forgot about it for several minutes) with some barely there peachy and floral notes, so I moved it to a 90 mL gaiwan in hopes that it would improve. My hopes were dashed. Maybe I’ll cold brew the rest, but it feels wrong to do so.
Despite how shou-like this is, this was not good thermos’d. Trad profile is overbearing. As a side note: Have been running through all of my trad stored shou and sheng in my duanni pot and for some reason almost all of so far (incl. this) die very quickly in it (like I’ll get maybe 4 solid cups and then it’s just a watery light color and trad tinged leaf taste), but pot use is just so convenient since you can just set it atop the gongdaobei to dispense…
