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Today I brought something from my long term storage to the tea table – breaking into my second cake of this pu’er.

The aroma seems a bit muted today, but this doesn’t translate to the rest of the session. The tea feels lightly more sour than before and maybe less fruity. On the other hand, the earthy and coffee like aspects are intesified. The aftertaste is super pungent and has a cooling camphor sensation that I didn’t notice in the many previous sessions. I noticed that the tea also brings me really in touch with the present moment, and its energy spreads as if through the veins all over my body.

A nutty floral aroma with an inviting sweet, almost nectar like, touch greets the experience. Putting the leaves in a warm gaiwan leads to further aromatic explosion that transports me to a wooden house with brioche bread in the oven. During the session, there’s an additional scent of green olives and broccoli. It is almost sheng-like at this poing in its farm-like quality.

The tea is really refreshing with its mix of flowery, bitter, green and sour notes. It has a super soft texture, but a strong presence in the mouth, including a drying sensation without astringency. It has a lot of the qualities of a great green tea, but it is much more warming. I get reminded of some of the high mountain Yunnan green teas due to the bitterness and similarity with sheng. However, this Huang Xiao Cha is much more elegant than those tend to be.

All in all, this is easily the best yellow tea I’ve ever tried!

This black tea has a superb relaxing qi and steeps for a really long time. The mouthfeel is quite smooth and lightly effervescent, but not overly thick.

There are aromas of stonefruits, wood, and vanilla emerging from the dry leaves. The liquor is bitter and herbaceous with a sour bite and sugarcane sweetness. I also found notes of bourbon, yeast, tree sap and moss. The aftertaste is quite biting and pleasantly cooling too.

Meng Song shengs are consistently among my favourites and that includes this one too. I just love the complex, cooling nature of the tea with many floral and bitter notes; its sweet and fragrant aftertaste; as well as the thick and oily texture.

Dry leaves smell of leather and warm grass, while wet ones more like a mix of unfiltered beer, compost, and wild garlic.

The taste has a really good depth already from the first steep. There are notes of vegetables, butter, menthol, apple; and a really good huigan to top it off. Middle part of the session is dominated by sweet and bitter flavours including citrus zest, IPA, apple must and others. The aftertaste additionally shows hints of mushrooms, honey, wood, and bubble gum. There is a floral sourness to it that complements the sweetness nicely.

[Spring 2021 harvest]

This tea is quite a bit more savoury and less fruity than other MLX I’ve had. I like it, but at the same time there isn’t too much there that would keep me coming back to it.

The dry leaf aroma is sweet, nutty, and perfumy. Wet leaves then smell of sage and peach ice cream.

The liquor has a medium to light body and mineral, watery texture. First infusion is cooling, spicy and herbaceous with notes of rose and yeast, the latter of which persist into the nutty aftertaste. Second steep is smooth and bitter with mild stonefruit sweetness and citrus zest flavour. Later ones bring out the more mineral, savoury aspects and notes of butter, sunflower seeds, and gin.

I love the smooth, coating mouthfeel of this tea, as well as its elegant taste and complex aromas.

I can smell notes of forest, white nectarines, milk, stewed green vegetables in the pot. The taste is quite bitter and fresh – it has a very crisp and mineral presence. Among Dan Congs, it is more of a floral/savoury kind with notes of apple leaves, star anise, grass, sweet grains, wood and nuts. Addintionally, there is a sugarcane sweetness in the finish.

[Spring 2022 harvest]

Great warming and crisp white tea with some green edge to it. The mouthfeel is a little too watery for my liking, but otherwise I like it a lot.

The aroma is a mix of peas, squash flowers, pancake, and thistles. Taste is bright and savoury with good umami and grassy sweetness as well as notes of sand, shellfish, apple leaves, and rapeseed flowers. The aftertaste is sweeter with a fruity apricot note present.

Amazingly refreshing FF Darjeeling here. It smells of fried vegetables, lime zest, and courgette. The tea has an oily mouthfeel, crisp biting bitterness, fruity acidity, as well as notes of vegetables, pine, and white wine. The aftertaste is very pungent and somehow both drying and mouthwatering. There is a floral sourness and pear flavour to be found too.

One of the better examples of Shui Xian in my experience, at 6 years of age the roasting is well settled.

In particular, it has a very pleasant molasses aroma, complex taste, long and evolving aftertaste and a cool texture that is at once bubbly, slick and dense.

There is a mild drying bite to the tea and it carries flavours of salt, tamarind, juniper, and parsley roots among others.

One of two teas from this new cultivar that I have tried recently. While neither was particularly great or unique, both seem to have a character of their own at least.

This one gives off aromas of raisins and gai lan straight away and cream with broccoli flowers after the rinse. The liquor has a light to medium body and a soft mouthfeel. Unfortunately, the taste is a bit weak. It is a mix of mineral, sweet and vegetal notes with a hint of banana. There is also a pleasant chest warming sensation throughout that I noticed.