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6g, 600 ml Brita filtered water, cold brew Hario bottle overnight

Sometimes things blow you away due to how outstanding they are in their field. Other times, they’re impressive because of something completely unexpected. This tea goes in the latter category.

I ordered a few teas to try from Open Door Tea a few months ago, breaking my own rule of usually avoiding places that also sell weird or flavored blended teas (historically I have had terrible experiences with places that mainly focus on blends and only seem to dip their toes in to single varietals/cultivars) since I really wanted to try a 白毛猴 (white monkey green tea).

In the same order, I added a sample of the Hairy crab oolong, which they’d run out of, so this was substituted, to my dismay and disappointment. I grumbled about the silly name, about the blend itself (why would you blend 3 teas with disparate brewing temps? no matter what temperature you choose, it’s only going to be optimal for one and not the other 2), about how I wasn’t going to be able to try the Hairy crab oolong. Silly, I know. This is my outlet, let me be. In the end, knowing how bad I am with brewing green teas, I didn’t want to risk a standard brew of this, and gongfu and the time to dial in brews didn’t seem worth it so I tossed it into a Hario cold brew bottle and tried it in the morning. I was shocked at what I was tasting, and made a neighboring dormmate try it to assure that I wasn’t crazy about what I was tasting. This tastes wholly like a well-made (not overly sweet or too artificial) taro bubble/milk tea! Nothing like what I expected. I drink a fair amount of jasmine and oolong, but I’ve only tried tea bags of gunpowder green (some economics professor stocks the Numi kind in the lounge which has since been closed for COVID-related reasons), and they’re about as terrible as you’d expect. My dormmate noted hints of jasmine and oolong, in addition to the taro bubble tea, but I was only able to taste taro bubble tea, with a small hint of smoke, and a slightly sweet aftertaste.

In sum, understatedly delicious. Not something I’d drink on the daily, but I’ll definitely order some for those blazing hot summer days when you just want something cool and sweet. Not sure how this would be warm, but given how good it is cold brewed, probably won’t bother warm-brewing.

Yunomi Kabusecha green tea

Saeakari

2.6g, 100ml Duanni rongtian (yes this is the same one I use for yancha but I didn’t want to bother with filtering out leaves in gaiwan and I haven’t used it in over a month so I will assume this was okay)

This is my first Japanese tea that’s not matcha. Dry leaves have an interesting smell. Extremely seafoody (i suppose the umami?), but also slight matcha-ness. when I first opened my sample, I didn’t expect how strong it would be and inhaled heavily and felt revolted. In the pot, it was fine, but also, lesson learned.

Slightly thick brew that’s a nice light greenish yellow.

140f for 1 min like yunomi suggests on the bag first steep (website says 2 min, but 1 min seems to be more common for Japanese greens in general). Light green color. Very strong seafood, then grass, and then vegetables.

176f for 20s second steep. Maybe a bit more since the spout on my pot got plugged and slowed a bit. Forgot to smell the wet leaves before but they don’t have much smell now, just slightly green and seafood. Astringency that hits, slight seafood, and then grassy vegetables. A bit more sweet on the aftertaste.

Last steep: 200f for 30s. Burnt matcha flavor like when I first started matcha making LOL. Aftertaste is light and grassy.

I tried to push it for one more steep, but nothing interesting to note there. I would say 3 steeps is about what it can handle.

A fun experiment! I can see why people drink Japanese greens on the daily. Pretty unoffensive and refreshing. For now, it’s priced a bit more than what I’m comfortable with given the number of “good” steepings, but if the bookstore decided to pay me more than 5% of what I paid for my textbooks, maybe I’d blow it on some Japanese greens to treat myself.

3/11 update:
Since I’ve heard so much about cold-brewing Japanese greens, I decided to give it a run myself. 5g tea, 500 mL Poland spring bottled water overnight in a Hario cold brew bottle. I saw a 1g:60mL recommended ratio for kabusecha but after trying my standard 1:100 ratio, I wouldn’t make it any stronger. Cold brewing enhanced grassy notes/aftertase (which become much more prominent), as well as umami notes. But it also feels like it’s pulling in way too many directions at once, which didn’t sit as well for my personal preference. I would be unlikely to cold-brew this again.

White Peony
Little Red Cup tea
3.1 g, 130mL

180f brita filtered water

Dry leaves have a light basic white tea smell. Agreed with the reviewer who noted that the leaves were not of the best quality. Broken, crumbled, sort of dull and rather sad looking, which is disappointing for the price.

5s initial steep: wet leaves smell of smoke and hay, sort of dry
Tastes like a slightly medicinal white tea
Pleasantly slight sweet and refreshing aftertaste

11s: kind of bland. Getting a strong aftertaste reminiscent of celery but I had lunch before so not sure if that’s just that. (I had chicken quesadillas though and there was no celery involved)

18s: similar to before. Celery note still present.

1 min: all in on timing since I decided this was my last gongfu steep. Not much difference from previous steeps.

Tossed the rest of the leaves and rest of sample pack (1g) into a bottle to cold brew overnight.
Cold brew was refreshing and drinkable, which is just about any cold brew, so I’m not sure that says much.

Overall an aggressively mediocre tea, which is disappointing especially after seeing the packet description of a rich brew with honey and melon notes. Mouthfeel was on the thin side, felt a little thickened only when left to sit and cooled after gongfu steepings, certainly not what’d I’d describe as rich. Would not purchase again. Initially I thought I was too harsh in my review (since the 2 white teas I tried from W2T were so good), but it seems like others here have had similar experiences. This started off good and then was downhill and flatlined from there; the weird celery note did not help.

1.7g, 12 oz. 200f water grandpa. Bit of bitterness on honeyed toast (kind of like a liquified honey oat bread haha), just like the description. Pleasant, but probably wouldn’t buy more since it’s just not what i prefer.

Spring 2018
Shi feng xi hu Long jing
Tea drunk

Though I normally prefer gongfu brewing for new teas, I cannot seem to gongfu brew a green tea properly, with most brews turning out too bitter or too weak, so I went grandpa for this. It’s also probably that I just don’t enjoy green teas that much and finished drinking it alongside dinner.

Water at 183-185f, Poland spring bottled water, 4g grandpa style in a ~500 mL glass. Poured water in and waited until the leaves sank to drink.

Dry leaves smell a bit nutty

Apparently it’s a thing that you should never drink “old” long jing, arbitrarily beyond one year. I get that it, like any other green tea, loses freshness particularly quick compared to other teas. But whatever, I drank this. I’ve never had any long jing before and this is probably the most expensive tea I’ve ever had (granted tea drunk’s pricing is ridiculous to say the least, $69 for 4g of 2019 longjing vs $17 for 4g 2018 LJ lol) and likely will have unless I decide on a far more lucrative career than what I plan for currently.

Brew smells like a toasty matcha. Very nutty.

Brews a light yellow, which from what I understand is a characteristic of any true long jing

Taste is lightly bitter upfront and then ends with a nice sweet aftertaste, and subsequent infusions were pretty bland. Overall not too impressed given the price. At this price, I would instead recommend a nice sheng, which if you’re judging just on aftertaste, shengs have some incredible ones.

I will give this a 70. It’s not that it’s a bad tea, even at 3 years old for a green (though that is likely why I didn’t feel a ton of depth). My issue is with inflated pricing (which is just basic economics and the nature of an incredibly sought after product), and what I feel are better options for what you’re paying.

GABA oolong
Tea from taiwan
5.5g, 130mL

190f-198f

Dry leaves smell sweet, a little bit of sweet potato? Having tea with a friend and they mentioned seaweed

First brew 45s: tastes like sweet potato. Slightly thick mouthfeel.

30s 2nd: leaves smell smokey. But also still sweet potato. Tastes similar.

2 min: very very sweet potato leaves smell. A hint of smokey. Sweet potato taste at first. Then a touch of bitter taste, then slightly sweet aftertaste.

2.5, 3, 4min: similar to before

Overall this was very linear, like drinking a sweet potato, but with fluctuating levels of bitterness depending on infusion time and sometimes a note of smoke and sweetness. The reviews for this tea seem to be all over the place (maybe the source has changed over the years?), but anyway. I don’t really like taiwanese oolongs to begin with (most have been pretty linear in my experience), compared to their Chinese counterparts, and GABA oolong is basically just hype marketing, so this was my first GABA oolong and will likely be my last. Will recommend for the novelty, but unless you really like sweet potato, I couldn’t see buying a ton being worth it.

Tealife.hk
Hualien County, Taiwan
Mi Xiang/honey aroma black tea
4g, 130mL gaiwan Poland spring bottled water (quarantine water edition provided by school hah)
196-198f water

After reading Jay’s descriptor on his own site, it’s worth noting that my pack was a gift and also opened and says packed 12-19-2020 so I’m not alone in not smelling much dry leaf aroma. I got a small note of dried plum but that’s about it. My review will be nowhere as flowery as Jay’s, but overall this was a fun experience! Kudos to Jay for the brewing parameters which I plan to continue to adopt for Taiwanese oolongs down the line. Brews are generally a golden brown, characteristic of 红茶.

Probably caught sugarcane, but confused it with the honey notes. Didn’t really catch the agarwood, cinnamon, umami, and savory meat that Jay notes but I’ve been away from black teas for a long while so if it wasn’t patently obvious I probably missed it. I don’t like 红茶 too much in general since to me most taste fairly similar.

45s first brew:
-leaves smell of smoke and honey which is interesting to say the least
-brew is pretty thick, which is apparently the minerality (i have never licked wet rocks and can only go off what the fine folks on teachat have described it as)?
-tastes lightly sweet and pleasant, a little bit of smokiness
30s second brew:
Leaves have basically the same smell, sweet potato note I associate w a lot of black teas is present
Light bitterness, slightly sour (acidic?) and floral notes present in taste. Pleasant aftertaste that is a bit drying but also refreshing
Still pretty thick brew
45s third brew:
Leaves same
Tastes more smoky again
1 min 15s 4th brew:
Gonna stop w the leaves because they’re the same and probably will continue that way
This brew has a more obvious sweet aftertaste than the previous ones
1 min 45s 5th brew: not much to note
2 min 15s 6th brew: nothing else, tastes like crisp water at this point, will stop here lol

After stopping gongfu, I tossed the leaves into a thermos with boiling water. I later drank it a few hours later and it tastes exactly like honey water, but watered down. If I hadn’t been the person brewing the tea, so a blind taste test, I would not know that it was tea. I let a dormmate do a blind taste test, and she also thought it was honey water (yay for Asian home remedies!). Still retains a slight thickness like earlier brews, with a slight drying aftertaste. This was my first mi Xiang tea I’ve ever tried, so I’m not sure if every Taiwanese Mi Xiang is like this or if this is top notch or whatever. At any rate, though I do not intend to purchase more since I’m not big on black teas, this was a fun experience and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

10 months later edit: Well reading this from being much further along now is a little funny. It’s clear that I had the misfortune of only drinking bad oolongs from Western vendors from the start LOL. Live and learn. Changing my recommendation given what I now know, though leaving the review up.

4g, 130mL, gongfu gaiwan, brita water off the boil

Made this past midnight one night. Never mind the caffeine. Had an awful day and this was all I could think of wanting to do to alleviate mood. a bit of nose drip so probably didn’t catch everything.

Wet leaves smell of the standard slightly roasted smell, tiny bit of grassy and floral with a note of sweet smoke

Nice yellow to golden infusions

Initial quick steep was light and nice. Overdid the timing on the second, and along w light florals got a strong smokey bitter note that I was not a fan of. If you’ve ever had bitter steamed broccoli before (probably not on purpose, just by misfortune), it tastes exactly like that. Will admit that I had kiwi fruit just before starting this session so I’m not sure if there’s a sweet aftertaste or if it’s the kiwi still oops. Probably at least a bit can be attributed to the tea, but it’s definitely subtler, not very in your face. Later brews are pretty similar, probably shouldn’t have kept up with the water off the boil.

Though open Door Teas did say to use boiling water on the sample but on the site under 180, based on my personal oolong brewing experience, I would likely move that lower to about 195f-200f. At boiling, my brews were a touch more bitter than I would’ve preferred, even with gongfu controlling timing. I misplaced the remainder of my sample, so I won’t be able to redo, but if someone takes my recommendation, do let me know how you fare!

Been trying out some Taiwanese oolongs lately and after those, I do prefer Chinese for the most part. I like the little bite that the Chinese roasted oolongs have compared to the flatter (to me), more floral vegetal Taiwanese oolongs that I’ve tried so far.

That all being said, this is a relatively solid okay leaf quality with no frills oolong for anyone who likes or would like to try an oolong representative of the general category without breaking the bank to do so. would I personally keep a stash long term? Probably not since I like the sweetness (huigan if you want to be fancy I guess) in my oolongs to be a bit stronger and lighter bitter note, though preferences can change over time so we will see!

White2Tea Iron Arhat (铁罗汉)

4g in 100 ml Duanni pot

Filtered brita water off the boil

Dry leaves smell chocolatey and sort of inky but also some semblance of dried fruit notes

Wet leaves just smell like smoke

Infusion tastes lightly smokey with a sweet aftertaste

Some backstory. I’ve figured out by now that deeply roasted young yancha is just perhaps not for me. This note overall was pretty lame but I can’t seem to pick up the notes others get on these. I read all these beautiful descriptions of heavy roasted oolongs and yancha but whenever I try them for myself, I’m like “Man, this is some heavy smoke” and I can’t pick out much else. My parents got a Lao Cong Shui Xian that they love and my only thoughts on it were along the lines of “this is like drinking smoke, but medicinal tasting”. They no longer share their LCSX with me, haha. The best tea I can remember having is a Chinese yancha that was apparently packaged in 2006 and not opened by me until 2019 (a gift with 2 mini packs one of which I will always regret gifting away), and I suppose that with what I read about the smokey notes fading with time, made that the best thing I’ve ever tasted, except I can’t put my finger on why. Though I’ve been drinking teas all my life, I didn’t start writing detailed notes (and anyone who’s been gifted Chinese packaged teas will know why; many of them are packaged very nicely and yet provide little usable information on production and origin (let’s talk 100% legitimate info, it’s hard to escape fake marketing of which there is plenty of in tea and in general China) so it’s hard to tell apart the pyrite from the gold) really until I made my Steepster account and going bigger on my own purchases as I gained more interest in the brewing and culture. Because before, tea was a habit, not a hobby. A gram scale to standardize brews and gaiwan were the best bang for buck investments into the hobby I’ve made.

Anyway, I veered pretty far off the course, but overall I hope these reviews help some people, especially since many teas can be rather unremarkable and sellers can overhype like mad. Do the Ducklers legitimately taste the 30 notes they include on each tea? I don’t know (no hate, I love their (mostly) well-priced teaware but haven’t been blown away by any teas they offer), but I include what I do taste, and I would assume untrained palates are more like your average drinker. Yeah, drink whatever you like, and premium product for price whatever, but this is for fun, so I like the non-academic hobbyist aspect too. Hope Steepster’s able to get back to the olden days of less spam and more reviews, because when I can find reviews of teas I want to purchase, it’s nice especially as a student with a limited budget. Life’s for exploring after all. Teaforum, teachat, and r/tea are nice, but I do believe Steepster has the best setup for reviews (some things could use improvement and streamlining, but that applies to most of the world at large).

I veered off again. I’ll stop here and recommend this just for experiencing the unique and very pleasant aftertaste and now I get to claim that I’ve tried 3 of 4 big name Wuyi Yanchas hah. (da hong pao, Lao cong shui xian, and tie luo han). Maybe when I’m older and appreciate more smokey mellow things I’ll give rou gui a shot, but for now, I’ll save my money since I know I won’t like it in particular.

2020 nightlife mini 7g, brita water off the boil, gaiwan gongfu

Smells like floral leaves. Tastes of light honey from the first infusion. Lovely, wouldn’t hesitate to buy a full cake on my next order from W2T.

Okay unfortunately I have no more notes as I had to finish an errand and forgot the tea. I stuck the leaves in the fridge and added them to a thermos with boiling water a few days later (no i didn’t die drinking tea brewed from couple days stuck in the fridge tea, I survived and still wrote this review). The brew turned out a little bitter and slightly sour, but it was okay I suppose. I wish I had more, but I will definitely order a full cake next time from W2T! if I had pleasant thoughts on Tiltshift, I remember this on the initial steep was even more obviously sweet (because most white teas have that subtle sweetness, but this was a bit more in your face).