This is kind of an oolong-like raw puer, an interesting balance of the astringentness you expect from raw puer plus a bit of roastiness, with a florally-cherry sweetness underneath. Very unique, maybe worth going in on a cake of... but I have such a huge tea backlog....
Tried having this with a cookie because I felt it brought out some more notes in the Valley I had the day before, but this one is still pretty sharply bitter with a smooth, slightly thick mouthfeel, keeping it in line with the luxe dark chocolate it's named for.
Had a cup of this with a cookie and suddenly understood it on a new level... Oh!!! I would really like to try Chinese tea cakes or other snacks that are typically paired with this style of tea.
A generous cake included with the January tea club box. Less pungent-smelling than other ripe puers I've tried recently, this one is smooth, light and kind of sweet, within the range of "damp forest floor leaves," of course.
I always save new oolong samples I get "for a special occasion" because I love oolongs so much, then I end up forgetting and never using them! But it's New Year's Day, so why not try something new to set the tone of the new year? These leaves are a very pretty green and smell really fresh, almost like green tea at first, and the first steep is a really lovely pale green, with a fresh, sweet flavor that reminds me a lot of honeydew with a bit of herbiness that gets a bit more pleasantly astringent as you go.
I thought this one was too bitter and astringent and needed to sit more at first, but maybe I had been a little too loose with breaking up the leaves or letting them steep too long. With quick 10-15 second steeps this tea is actually nicely delicate and sweet, with the strong grassiness emerging later.
A lovely, yammy-scented and pleasant tea for some christmas eve proust reading. :)
Have used up about half of this cake by now... it's very easy to break up and has a pungent, fresh flavor with underlying sweetness that lasts over a ton of steeps, a good working tea, though easy to get too wired on! The grassy but slightly/pleasantly manurey scent of the cake reminds me of driving past cow pastures, so it's a bit nostalgic.
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An interesting oolong sample, described as a weed dealer's house with a bouquet on the table (lol). It is kind of an interesting mix of floral and sweet, but piney and herbal, and maybe a tiny bit creamy that does make this description kind of make sense.
The mildness and slight fruitiness of this white tea is perfect for a monday where you wish you weren't working, haha.
Enjoyed this again! Complex, developing sweetness, and lasts over many steeps.
Another one of the ripe puers I'm trying to supplement my dwindling supply of aged w2t with, which has an amazingly smooth chocolate brownie batter mouthfeel. This one has an interesting frog pee pong on top of the typical ripe puer forest floor smell, and has a really powerful bitterness that is more like a really luxe piece of dark chocolate than brownies. It's a bit harsh but smooths out in later steeps.
A fresh huangpian with some aged material. I will probably let this sit for a while because it's very punchy and bitter-grassy at the moment.
Another really interesting, subtle brew. Starts out sooo smooth, delicate and malty but an interesting sweetness develops on later/longer steeps. Gotta keep my hands off of this and let it age a little.
Huangpian mixed with some more high-end material and now aged around a year. It's definitely nice but not as complex/honey-y as the straight up raw puers that have been left to sit for a bit.
A white tea that is roasted and packed in bamboo. Because of this processing, the leaves are broken up more than usual, so it has a pretty strong, punchy, slightly bitter start for a white tea. However, it mellows out on subsequent steeps and develops a nice fruity sweetness with good hui gan.
A very fresh shade-dried white tea, so the leaves on the cake are silver and fluffy and the flavors are very floral and mild. Relaxing and helped me pull through wrapping up a chapter draft in the afternoon (hehe). The sweetness develops over time with a really peachy undertone popping out on the third steep, then fading back to mingle with the light floral taste.
This is a delightfully complex oolong that brings a bunch of nice flavors together. The first steep comes on strong with a sort of tang combined with creaminess that is really unique, and both those flavors chill out in later steeps to blend with the herby and mildly fruity aftertaste.
Good again! The green apple taste really hit on the first steep this time, tasty.
I got some supposedly-chocolatey ripe puers from White2Tea because I was down to about 2-3 sessions worth of the 2013 w2t brick they included in one of their subscription boxes. That one had underwhelmed me before I had a gaiwan but preparing it gongfu style unlocked the very smooth, rich flavors an aged tea like that had... which end up weirdly being a tiiiny bit like dark chocolate brownie batter in terms of taste and mouthfeel. Weird and heavenly.
This one didn't quite reach that level... The first steep was the very basic "wet leaf" flavor a lot of these have with a slightly worrying chalky/fishy taste under it. But over time it deepened to a very dark steep that started getting at the thicker soup and slightly chocolatey tastes I wanted. I'll play with it some more...
A tea coin... this seems to be a popular style of convenience packaging for a few manufacturers lately. It's undeniably more convenient to have the exact amount you need rather than having to break up and weigh parts of a larger tea cake. However, I was hesitant about the long soaking, given that I usually just rinse leaves and then do quick steeps, starting at 10 and adding 5-10 secs each time. My delicate scents and flavors!! I usually break up the White2Tea minis by hand rather than soaking them too. But in this case I gave it a try. The rinse water was very light and the tea overall seemed to respond to a session of several steeps like I expected... so I guess it's fine?
This tea is surprisingly smooth and subtle from the start given the freshness of the material, alongside the typical raw puer grassiness, and has a bit of a creamy, earthy undertone that surprised me. The huigan also has some nice fruity and floral elements to it.
I'll probably be singing the praises of this tea every time I drink it. It's a little pricy, and the brick format is one of the more stubborn ones to get apart that I've had. But it's worth the effort! The leaves break up a bit more in processing, so just 4oz of this tea will do. It's wonderfully rosy in the cup, and starts with a bright, refreshing sour apple type taste then chills out over steeps to a smooth, sweet yet complex, slightly floral oolong flavor.
What a difference a year makes! The initial intensity of the really fresh tea is wayyy smoothed out now. It still is a little bitter on the later/stronger steeps in a way that brings about a strong "returning sweetness," but overall the taste is now much less grassy and much more strong on a sort of brown sugar sweetness with an apricotty aftertaste.
A very fresh tea from White 2 Tea's Tea Club. Opening the cake, there was this immediate grassy/manure type smell similar to Green Hype, but with a bit more dirt and sweetness. Because it's so fresh, the initial taste is very punchy and a bit bitter, but with an underlying peachy sweetness I'm excited to see develop. I might compare it to the 2024 cake that's been aged for a year tomorrow.
Starts out with a sweet warmth similar to toy glass candy mixed with a bit of salty grassiness. The sweetness also becomes a little more plant-y as you go. Energizing, good for many steeps.
After a brisk autumn walk on my day off, I wanted something that was kind of like fallen leaves with a slight touch of decay. That's almost exactly what this tea smells like, with a mild layer of sweet creaminess once brewed. I had three steeps while setting up this new page on the blog, and they were smooth and earthy throughout.
I love this stuff and it seems to be gradually getting sweeter... Lasts for lots of steeps and has a great invigorating flavor. Excited to compare the half-cake I still have with the 2026 version that comes through the W2T club...
This cake style is kind of annoyingly hard to break up lol. But forutnately I didn't have any issues with chalky/fishy taste this time, maybe due to starting with a rinse then shorter steeps. Its nice and leafy with a bit of chocolatiness, but I still wish it was a little more complex.