Bitterleaf Teas

Gongfu!

Enjoyed this session with the one piece of teaware I ended up bringing home from World Tea Expo this week; I couldn’t resist the rich teal colour contrasted with the intricate red and orange dragon motif. Not only is it all my favourite colours rolled up into one teacup, but it’s perfect for the Year of The Dragon as well…

This Dianhong is also extremely lovely. All the namesake flavours are reflected in the taste profile, though perhaps the floral notes the least. Each sip starts with a warm, rich flavour of malty dark chocolate, toffee, and rye bread before finishing with a bouquet of ripe stonefruits and guava. I found the tender flavour of peach and the sweet tropicals were what lingered the most, with the flavour gently blanketing my palate long after each swallow. The beauty behind the combination of chocolate and guava is a pretty recent discovery for me, so seeing those tasting notes pop up naturally within this tea was very interesting to me!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C46aHq7OT8j/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vykqcQkGrCk

Oh no. So fishy. Verging on ripe puerh, definitely not a flavor I’ve ever experienced with a black tea before.

A very dark-roasted Iron Goddess Oolong with flavors of Corn Flakes, Charleston Chew, marshmallow and chocolate, vanilla cookie, Three Musketeers bar, salted caramel, and coffee. Some delicious flavors, but it starts off light and grainy in the first steeps and ends a bit cloying in the later steeps when the marshmallow becomes a bit too artificial tasting. The wet leaf aroma has a powerful strange bitterness like burnt sugar, creme brulee with sliced strawberries, and Special K Red Berries cereal. Overall interesting complexity and surprising marshmallow and chocolate notes, but lacks balance. There’s also a persistent corn/grain note, especially when brewing Western style, that detracts from the other flavors.

Floral bomb. A whole bouquet of flowers in the aroma and taste. Lilies, gardenias, rose perfume, fresh rain, pine forest, strawberry candy, freeze dried raspberries, green pear, jasmine, pistachios, and steamed white rice. Elegant, confident, powerfully full-flavored and floral. Like a rich, sophisticated, impeccably dressed woman with expensive old perfume that smells of roses and the humid green jungle. This is a tea of remarkable quality and refinement.

Sipdown 28 – 2024

Sad to say I didn’t love this as much as I thought I would. The fruitiness outshines the magnolia/any floral qualities and Bitterleaf wasn’t lying when they said there’s a banana note. It’s interesting, but just wasn’t something I wanted to return to.

Nice flavors, but very light and delicate. Vanilla yogurt, dandelion, pear blossom, bee nectar, crab apple, canned peaches, fresh apricot. Just too light.

Powerful, delicious Dianhong. Big bouquet of vanilla poppyseed muffin, roses, mulch, plantfood, and sticky pipe tobacco. Strong flavor of dark, sweet tobacco, dark chocolate and chewy caramel (Reisen candies), and roses. Looong lingering vanilla sweetness, like poundcake. No bitterness or astringency at all. Excellent.

Gongfu!

Sneaking one last session this afternoon before taking off for World Tea Expo tomorrow morning!! Despite mostly having a more savory and vegetal profile, something about this session reminded me of some of the Jingmai productions that I love so much from Bitterleaf. Maybe it was the soft and silky mouthfeel of the liquor, but I think more so it was the undertones of lavender that seeped into the body of any longer infusions throughout the session. A fascinating blend of florals and brothy umami notes.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4oSF7hOh0_/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sox6ApFi9Is

Vegetal and fruity. Starts with dried apple chips and nutmeg on the first steep, then opens into roasted parsnips and carrots, baked apple, persimmon, green pear, dried apricot, and some mint. More apricot and floral notes (flowering pear tree?) come out in later steeps. Clean and refreshing.

Sipdown 29 – 2024

Just a really great green oolong. So fresh tasting- like green beans, peas, and clarified butter.

Purchased the Element tasting set from Bitterleaf recently and this is the first I’m trying of the set. First thing I notice is how beautiful the leaves are- super bright green! Next thing I notice is how fresh smelling it is, which translates to the flavor.

Super vegetal and slightly floral. Really solid tiegaunyin.

Sipdown

I’m still thinking about this tea today and regretting passing on a cake years ago. I finally allowed myself to indulge and finish this leaf within TWO sessions. It’ll be missed…

Gongfu!

This was a bit of an unexpected session as, though the dry leaf smelled so strongly of rich Dutch cocoa and rye bread to me, the steeped tasting notes were pretty unexpected. I’d describe this as a pretty overall sweet and full-bodied hongcha, though the front end of the sip was much more fruity tasting with notes of guava jam and other red fruits and the backend was burnt sugar and rich golden English toffee or salted caramel. Maybe with just a hint of espresso and a fleeting note of that cocoa I’d initially picked up from the unsteeped leaf. Very, very much right up my alley.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTumBu_hlwE

I love the fancy crocodile lady on this bag. Bitterleaf art is so unique and fun. I wish I loved this tea as much as I love the art with this particular tea, though. I’m just not wowed by it. It tastes pretty average- a touch smoky? I’ll finish off the little bag I got but wouldn’t get it again.

Sipdown 32 – 2024

I quite enjoyed this and will probably repurchase at some point.

This smells SO good. Syrupy sweet. The sweetness in the aroma mellows out in the flavor. The syrupiness morphs into more of dark honey, with some slight bitterness playing off of the honey notes. I get fuzzy, fresh apricot coated in a super dark honey. Also getting some longan and jujube.

This Dan Cong is more floral and grainy than fruity for sure, but it also carries a good sweetness. The bitterness and astringency are medium, and can be easily adjusted with brewing method. The liquor is oily and the mouthfeel after drinking is quite interesting: drying, perfumy, tropical, and spicy.

Specific notes I notice are baked fruits, sesame, canola, clay, and many flowery ones.

I had a late night session with this tea as I watched the French WWI film Grand Illusion. I wasn’t expecting this tea to WOW me, but it did the job to give a pleasant session during a great watch.

Notes: Soupy mouthfeel, smooth, lightly sweet, & peach skin

*Roswell Strange noted peach skin…I wasn’t sure what I was tasting. I used a Yixing pot which happened to mute the tasting notes. I assumed they’d be elevated, but alas, I was wrong. Definitely might brew this grandpa style next time (I’m not sure if there will be a next time on the account I didn’t see anymore of these in the sipdown pu pile) since it feels like a sheng that can handle near boiling water and long steeping times.

A lovely warming pu-erh from a village that I have not explored very much.

The aroma is sweet with notes of rapini, peas, acorn, passion fruit, and green peppers. It smells a bit like a cold-brewed sencha in its current youthful state.

The mouthfeel is light, airy, and velvety, but with a strong presence, especially in the pungent and protracted sensations after drinking, which are cooling, expansive, numbing and floral.

The taste is bitter and vegetal above all, with the second half of the session bringing progressively more sweetness. There is a refreshing juiciness to it, and sometimes reminds me of beer (such as a lagered ale). I also found flavours of apples, leafy vegetables, honey and herbs. Additionally, the incredibly fragrant aftertaste carries notes of musk, fern, alcohol, apple leaves and more.

As I still have the 2019 cake, I wasn’t in a rush to try the new one immediately. I was craving this specific tea today, as it happens once in a while, so after a couple of months in storage, I decided to break in the 2023 vintage today.

The tea deliver what I would expect. It has that supremely balanced taste that is sweet, fruity, woody, and nutty at the same time. I also enjoy the thick, oily mouthfeel.

The tea has a floral aroma, with notes of gum, berries, fruit jam, flowers, wood, shellfish, as well as honey.

A nice black tea with complex aromas, sweet and spicy taste, and a very soft mouthfeel. Speicifically, I can smell bourbon vanilla, wood, and dried fruits like cherries. The taste is also woody with flavours of honey and black currants.

A funny blend, certainly the first time I drink pu-erh with a Dan Cong oolong. There is an integrated character, but also one can pick out the individual teas. In the end, the experience of this tea is a bit more like and aged sheng actually. However, instead of a cohesive whole, one can feel the two poles pulling – the pungent oolong and the smooth shou.

The aroma has some sweet floral notes, a bit like apricot and rice. The tea is strong with a smooth creamy and cooling mouthfeel and an astringent finish. It has bitter, sweet, earthy, medicinal and herbaceous flavours. Specific flavours remind me of mint, gin, nuts, and barley.

As a basic Yunnan white tea, this one more than fulfils its purpose. It is fragrant with a pungent sweet and floral taste as well as engaging mouthfeel and aftertaste. It doesn’t rise beyond that to a special one, but it also doesn’t pretend to.

The taste is actually quite multi-layered, with bitter, fruity and grassy notes, buttery flavour and a flowery finish. The tea also has a numbing, creamy mouthfeel. Its aromas remind me of eucalyptus, honey, leather and pear.

For my first tasting of this tea, I’ve just tossed a small chunk into a mug for a very mellow, laid back Grandpa style infusion. As expected from the name it is a very, very smooth brew with heavier feeling notes of cocoa intermingled with such a clean earthiness. Like flourless dark chocolate cake and damp potting soil, but with soft undertones of black cherries and unwashed beets. The chocolate note in particular is delicious and captivating as it’s neither excessively rich or bitter. Just very dense, and soooo velvety. I’ve managed to stretch this bad boy out for pretty much the whole day now, and it’s been a great comfort on this cold afternoon where I want nothing else but to hole up under the covers with big fuzzy socks and a good book…

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C2De7Nnu2sx/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBnHzexAu9A