John Ciubuc Send Message

Got this from a sample, so decided to try it.

5g, 100ml, at around 185F, with 5s wash

Very vegetable and hay-ish taste. Really reminds me of hay combined with… dried tree branches? Have to be rather gentle with temperature and steep time, otherwise it gets that very bitter, burned vegetable taste that is honestly awful.

I personally dislike this taste of ‘branches’, however it leaves a very satisfying and calming sensation after drinking. Kinda like a digestif in a way. It does leave your mouth very dry and parch though

I’m unable to obtain any sort of sweet or berry flavour out of this. It is constantly a mixture between grass, hay, and branches. Making it too hot and/or too long of a steep makes it incredibly bitter, and everything else is a variance of hay and branches and astringent taste.

Not my kind of tea. Only thing that I enjoy is the very calming effect of it, that is all.

Using around 5g, ~190F, at 100ml. No wash

Gongfu style, starting off at 5s + (3s + 2n s) per steep

Very neat first taste. It has a very strong and complex blend of berry taste to it. Blackberries, blueberries, cherries, honey, raisins, grapes, raspberries, goodness there’s a hint of all of that and more in this taste. The faint traditional ‘oolong’ like taste seems to be warped in a sort of caramel like flavour that ties all the other flavours together. Really delicious.

If steeped a little longer, it adopts this slightly bitter and astringent taste to it, but it has an incredibly strong berry taste that lingers for a long time. The berry flavour is so thick, it almost feels like I just drank some sort of berry slushy. Just wow.

On the fourth steep now, no flavour loss yet. One thing to note is that the tea tastes quite ‘dense’ compared to other chinese teas done gongfu style. This lends itself to feel a bit thick, but not an unpleasant experience due to the explosion of berry flavours.

7th steep in and sadly the fruity flavours are leaving =(. Instead, a faint ‘milky’ caramel taste is taking its place, and surprisingly something like cotton candy too. Probably has 1-2 more steeps in it before running out.

Good tea. It’s sensitive on the early steeping, so don’t go too hot nor for too long (otherwise you’ll get a strong astringent flavour on it).

Dry aroma smells like a really fruity black tea.

100ml, ~200F, w/ a 5 second wash

Gorgeous dark red/orange colour. Looks like liquid cherry

It tastes like one of those complex black tea blends. Lots of fruity colors: peach, citrus, apricot, prune, grapes, cherry, and tangyness. All of this is backed by that general chinese black tea taste that’s common with most chinese black teas. Honestly, not a bad combination at all.

The further steeps have a really nice ‘dynamic’ combination. The fruity bits are strong and the primary flavour is both sweet, astringent, and slightly bitter.

One thing to note is that this tea is sensitive to heat. If temperature drops to 190 or below, you’ll get a significant less flavour per steep.

Overall not a bad tea whatsoever. It’s mainly a combination of lots of fruity flavours along with that ‘traditional’ chinese black tea taste. Quite nice.

About ~7 steeps in and tea’s almost out of flavour. Pretty decent. No drastic change in flavour over time, just flavour slowly dwindles (~6 steeps in and it’s like 20% the original potency).

Brewing this ~100ml, with a wash, 5g (sample), at around 190F

Colour is this very clear yellow/gold, looks fantastic (pic: http://imgur.com/H4tY18b).

I’m doing standard infusion time: 5s + 3s for each infusion.

I normally dislike wuyi oolong teas, due to the heavy mineral/rock taste, but this one is quite smooth and good.

The mineral taste is rather soft, and it isn’t rash but instead complementing. There is a sort of pumpkin taste to it as well as chamomile. It has a flower taste to it too. There is no sense of acidity or acridness from this tea. There is a slight fruit flavour, I would say reminiscent of apricot.

Really refreshing taste, but very weak aftertaste — you lose the taste of the tea after around like 5 seconds, so it’s advised to ‘swirl’ it inside your mouth before swallowing, savouring the flavour. It is a bit ‘one dimensional’ in taste, as it’s not particularly complex nor does it evolve throughout the steeping session (5th steep at the moment), but it’s refreshing and it is a pleasant surprise to one who generally dislikes wuyi oolongs

Forgot to save my previous note on this, so this will be just a short and quick review.

I prepare this tea mainly gongfu style, but I have also done it western

With gongfu, early steeps contain a very fruity apricot taste (specifically dried apricot). But subsequent infusions adopts a heavier wood-like taste with malt and dried apricot background. I haven’t seen how it tasted following the end-stage infusions, so can’t give much of a comment on that.

I did prepare this western style once quite a while ago, and I do have to say that western style is the recommended way to approach this tea. It had a very complex yet harmonic taste, consisting of fruits (with apricot as main), honey, general sweetness, light wood, chocolate, and a maltyness around it. I believe gongfu style doesn’t allow the blend of leaves to steep sufficiently enough to have the combined flavour from all of them, but instead prefers the faster steeping leaves over the others.

Not a bad tea, but not recommended if you prefer tea gongfu style.

Darn, accidentally pressed escape and all my text disappeared. Lovely.

In short for my future self, this mainly tastes like wood with a very slight ‘dark chocolate’ taste to the overwhelming wood taste. It’s a little fruity regarding a slight raising taste, but this tea mainly tastes like wood. Wet wood. Mmmmm…