Bitterleaf Teas

Thanks yet again, Cameron B! I like the concept of black tea mixed with puerh! Upon first sipping this, I really thought I had ruined it, since it had a flavor that was a bit like sheng. I actually had to look at the description again… nope — it is supposed to be half black tea and half shou. Specifically, the shou is 2020 Bulang material and the black tea is 2022 Fengqing. It really doesn’t taste like shou to me at all. Not sure if I have ever had Bulang before… It has a greenish flavor to it that I associate with sheng. The black tea also isn’t spectacular. I think I’ll pass this on to Michelle who has it on the wishlist…

A pretty sweet black tea with a pleasant texture and very little bitterness or astringency. Its aroma reminds me of cranberries, malt, wood, and dates. The taste has notes of chocolate, fruits (nectarine), seaweed. It is sweet, malty, foresty, and a bit savoury with a cooling presence. The aftertaste is also pretty sweet, with notes such as honey and guava.

Gongfu!

Enjoyed this session stacked two steeps at a time. I was craving something rich, smooth and earthy and this very dark but clean tasting ripe pu’erh is really hitting the spot. Surprisingly sweet with heavy notes of sticky medjool dates, molasses, and jaggery that accent a lingering, slow building profile of rain-soaked top soil, leather bound books, vanilla, mud, and petrichor. The liquor is oily and slick, coating the mouth quickly even though the tasting notes finish quite crispy after the swallow. It’s one of those teas you feel in the back of the chest after a few steeps, slowly but steadily resonating throughout the body. If this is where the tea name comes from, then I think it’s quite brilliant!!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9X1IUSu3gU/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y7nTP7LiNc

Gongfu!

I rarely use this rubber duck teapet because it’s so large, but it was too perfectly on theme to not pull out for this session!! Steeped up, I found this tea pretty dynamic and flavourful. The top notes were woody and mineral, like licking rocks or seashells, before exploding into a mix of juicy lychee, green grapes and tropical fruits with a very heady floral finish. Smooth, fresh feeling, and ultimately well balanced. I have to admit that I’d forgotten about this tea sample since I just don’t drink a ton of dancong, and I was worried it may have aged poorly, but it made for a surprisingly lovely session!!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8pw2v9h-NR/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCDLQl4h-qA

Grandpa Style!

Bitterleaf always absolutely crushes the sourcing of their Jingmai productions, and this 2024 pressing is no exception. Smooth, fresh, and floral with heady notes of orchids, lilac, and pea blossoms with just enough gentle astringency pushed forward from this brewing style. Usually, I take the “cake is sample” approach with each year’s production of this series but this year I tried to scale back how much I spent on Spring teas so I could focus on putting a dent in some of the teas I already have. I might already be regretting that decision, though…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8FwvT0RfsG/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOz9YSAe8bk

Gongfu!

My Spring tea order from Bitterleaf arrived this week, so I’m steeping up a session of the 2024 Red Dragon Yiwu Shaihong black tea in my Pokémon gaiwan. I know I should wait for these cakes to have a moment to settle following their trip across the globe, but I couldn’t resist breaking into at least one of them right away – new Spring teas always get me so hyped.

…and this tea is incredible!! Thick and syrupy right off the bat with pungently sweet notes of waxy red fruits and almonds extract with undertones of maple, walnut, molasses, and golden raisins. Malty in its overtones, but floral and heady in the finish. I feel heavily invested already in the complexity and flavour impact of this black tea. I mean, just wow. It’s going to be very, very hard not to immediately dive into the white tea and sheng pu’erh cakes made with this material. Very hard.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7m34p3OHFo/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-YQpoH3-PQ

Prepared in my Jian Shui gaiwan, and served in my porcelain teacup via my glass cha hai. Filtered Santa Monica municipal water boiled then allowed to cool for a little while.

No scale or thermometer, so guessing at quantities/temp.

Dry leaves are long and wiry with plentiful golden sections. Smells like Autumn: hay, grain, and hints of leaf litter, pumpkin, and books.

Orange peel/butterscotch liquor.

Delicate faintly grainy aroma.

Flavor follows the nose and is joined by low cocoa notes, pumpkin bread, and dried fig. Finishes almost savory (wood/leaves) with a bready returning sweetness reminiscent of oat cakes. Lovely gentle roast quality throughout. Good longevity.

Creamy (but not slick or oily) mouthfeel. No astringency.

The infusion is subtle compared to the promise of the dry leaf, yet still satisfying. High quality leaves, processed with care.

Way too floral for me, but at least that dies down after a steep or two. I wish I could get more of the sweeter notes that I expected, but at least the creamy, buttery finish comes through. I still think it’s an excellent tea that holds up over many steeps and has nice flavor development, it’s just not my favorite.

I’m going through these dragon balls slowly, since I know Bitterleaf is sold out of them. So good! Definitely honey notes, a bit of caramelized sugar, and a starchy, bread-like finish. It goes strong for many steeps – I got seven good ones (and a weak eighth because I always try to go too long to get as much as I can out of a tea that I can resteep). Thoroughly enjoyable, and comforting to have since I’m on the last bit of All Day Breakfast, which I will miss greatly.

Gongfu!

I believe this mini cake of compressed white tea was offered exclusively as part of the 8th Anniversary sale, and I was really excited to snag it since BLT typically knocks their white teas out of the park. As I’m slowly savoring this session while listening to the soothing ambiance of the rain outside, I’m finding this tea reminds me a lot of Skinny Dip; my favourite recurring white tea production that Bitterleaf carries. It’s very smooth and fresh with a lot of natural sweetness and both a creamy taste and mouthfeel. Initial steeps tasted a lot of ripe green melons to me, though now, as the session starts its decrescendo, I’m getting a more familiar mix of brown sugar and cooling cucumber pulp – some of my favourite tasting notes in white teas.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6l2QhhOC_3/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcxoTcgv5Nc

Grandpa Style!

Slowly but surely I’m putting a dent in this cake. It’s soft and smooth, and the gentle notes straw and white Spring flowers. In particular, I keep latching on to the fresh, dewy taste of lilacs and orchids and the sweet honey-tinged notes of Prairie grass in the finish. It’s been very relaxing, and I don’t think I could have asked for a better tea to sip on throughout this lazy afternoon…

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6PVCEeOuKp/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46T0LDRsHCc

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!

Enjoyed this session with some brightly sweet Rainier cherries!! This is such a peculiar tasting black tea, but it worked so well with this pairing. The top notes are a little more “sweet and brown” tasting but accented by a distinct sea salt note that reminds me of the aroma of getting hit with a spray of ocean mist while walking along the beach. The kind of playful imagery really works because after the salinity passes this full-bodied tea takes a quick plunge into a more fruity and tropical territory with fragrant and ever-so-slightly funky notes of guava, mangosteen, and ironically cherries as well! It’s rich, it’s round on the palate, and it’s bright and juicy when it needs to be. Definitely holds up with the burst of flavour from the fruit snacked on in tandem with each steep…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9xcVeFO7bT/?img_index=1

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