Kuura

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Recent Tasting Notes

79

First pu’erh from Kuura – brewed Gongfu.

Dry, compressed leaf has a bit of a funk to it IMO – reminds me a bit of stinky socks. I expected some of that funk to transfer over into the steeped tea, but it wasn’t there at all. I guess that’s a relief!? However, I still wasn’t super enamored by the sheng. It’s not unpleasant at all and didn’t have any off notes – but despite a pleasant astringency I thought it tasted very thin and watery. Had a bit of soft sweetness/fruitiness, but not much. Had a nice body feel though. I guess for those chasing those body feels from sheng this could be nice – but I’m all about the flavour and I found this a touch lacking.

Will revisit after the sample has aged a bit more.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/B14I7tYAvo0/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKvrbf-UYCg

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Gongfu!

This was such a pleasantly smooth and full-bodied black tea with a pretty straightforward array of tasting notes. Mostly malted grains and Graham cracker with a soft, creamy undertone if I’m being honest. They hit in a way that made me think this would be such a solid milk tea base. Y’know, were this tea sample something I wasn’t hoarding like a goblin. In addition to that, there were moments where the liquor was almost honeyed or had fleeting red fruit notes. It made for a super gentle, pleasant start to the day!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cz7EqZROXqh/?img_index=1

Normally I would link my song pairing here but in a rare occurance I actually can’t find the song I listened to on Youtube. For anyone curious, it was Dirty Birdy by Tomy Wyne. I’ve had it on repeat the last few days – very good.

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Gongfu!

This wasn’t initially something I enjoyed when I first got the tea sample but it’s definitely grown on me every the years as both my palate has grown and the tea has gradually morphed with age. It produces a thick, syrup liquor to accompany full bodied and brisk peppery notes of stonefruit and more homogeneous flavours of malt, dark honey, and caraway bread. Occasionally I also taste a bit of rose. It’s the more spiced elements of this hong cha that didn’t work for me upon first tasting, but I’ve really grown to appreciate the complexity and balance that they bring to a session!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CnKxVUkO6nQ/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQO8Ru3XBqE

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Gongfu!

Thanks Shredsofmetal for giving me an excuse to try this sample out; you didn’t really have to twist my arm all that much for me to test it out and give you a summary of the flavour notes, but when you get to having 600+ teas sometimes it is hard to decide which ones to prioritize…

This wasn’t my thing – I gave it as much of a fighting chance as I could and tried to be open minded throughout the session but the flavour notes aren’t ones I particularly look for in a black tea, and I found that overall the whole tea lacked body/sweetness which just made for an ultimately very flat/dull tasting cup. The plus side, I suppose, is that it was very smooth and forgiving to steep – it was impossible to make it come out either bitter or astringent; and that’s a HUGE win for some people. I personally just needed some bitterness or astringency to give it any sort of life…

Here’s my instagram summary:

This was an inoffensive black tea with a mix of malt, plum, and black peppercorn notes – with the latter being the most consistently present throughout the session. Those peppery elements lingered LONG after each sip. Throughout the session the plum, notes went from “plum-ish” to becoming much more distinct, and a more raisin-y note was introduced as well. Some infusions had a note of pennies, as well.

Also – I brewed 7/5g in a 130ml gaiwan, for six steeps before I just couldn’t do it anymore.

I have one other black tea sample from Kuura to try, but so far I’ve enjoyed the Go Juice coins (but not this one), and I liked both Honey Jar and Ghost (the white teas). Honey Jar is by far my favourite thing I’ve tried from Kuura thus far, though.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/ByXn1ClAtTi/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOYj7WfJQD8

tea-sipper

I was trying to think of what assam reminds me of today, and I think you nailed it: pennies.

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87

Gongfu!

I’ve really enjoyed getting into fresh fruit and tea pairings during my Gongfu sessions as of late, and so during my most recent trip to the grocery store I picked up a whole slew of fun and more “exotic”/unusual fruits – including the pink muscatel grapes I was enjoying with this session. To be honest, I had no idea if they would actually pair well with the tea – so I was very delightfully surprised when they worked as well as they did and actually, coincidentally, mirrored some of the notes I was picking up in the tea on its own!

I found the tea incredibly smooth and forgiving (in terms of water temp and steep time); it was thick with an almost syrupy mouthfeel and lots of very bright, sweet notes. The most interesting and, perhaps most consistent, was a bordering on “prosecco” tastes wine-y/boozy note that was delicious. The tea was also fruity in a way that very loosely reminded me of overripe green melon, and had a delicious floral (honeysuckle) undertone and finish. Such a tasty aged/compressed white tea offering! I’m so happy about that, because I’ve also really enjoyed the other white tea (Honey Jar) that I’ve tried from Kuura so this makes me feel very excited about Lolly Water, which I also have a sample of…

The pink muscatel grapes are also very floral and very sweet – so they just complimented the existing flavours in the tea in a very good way; almost drawing out more floral elements from the tea and making both seem sweeter.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/BxQ2qnUn2H-/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRtMj9cummw

Togo

I love unusual fruits, but I haven’t tried much tea and fruits pairing. However, a few years ago I accidentally discovered an awesome combination of mango and hojicha (in particular, gyokuro karigane hojicha). Since then, I often drink it when I have mango at home.

Roswell Strange

Ooh! That sounds awesome! I have some unripe mangoes I’ve been waiting to eat, and I’ll definitely remember to try them with some Hojicha.

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88

Interesting Xishuangbanna blend. Starts off buttery and develops buttery, cooked vegetable notes on the palate. Peppery too. Definitely a savory blend. Astringency gives way to a bittersweet vegetal note, like cooked bell pepper. Not the usual gummy fruitiness I expect from other Banna teas.

This thing has some endurance, and will likely go longer than you will in one session. Buttery notes persist well into later steeps, and the tea remains enjoyable and relatively full bodied throughout.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt_Mtl6Fdqm/

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drank 2018 Go-Juice Black by Kuura
15575 tasting notes

Gongfu!

I got sloppy this weekend and didn’t take good notes on my Gongfu sessions at all, even on instagram. That was mostly because I was feeling sick for the majority of the weekend, but even still I find myself frustrated that I don’t have better documentation for my experience with this tea…

Whole coin steeped, 100ml glass teapot – five or six infusions.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B7yZ4vng55s/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qduFAr9b7uc

I liked this song for my session because I was reading a volume of Paper Girls that takes place on New Year’s Eve of 1999 – so it felt like a fun in joke for just myself.

Flavors: Cocoa, Drying, Malt, Spices, Wood

mrmopar

Hope you are feeling better. I seem to have picked up that mess myself. Ugh. Can’t taste much.

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drank 2018 Go-Juice Black by Kuura
15575 tasting notes

Brewed Gongfu at work – whole coin in a 70ml gaiwan, so a touch strong. I like my black teas ROBUST though, especially as of late – this is a good one for that too, it’s got a lot of thick and heavy notes to it and the coin pressing makes it convenient for me to just pop one in my wallet to take to brew at work when I think I might be in the mood for one…

Seven or eight infusions – real casual like, without timing them. I do remember I kept them pretty short though even later in the session, with the g/ml ratio it didn’t take much to get strong cups of this tea.

I don’t know if I mentioned it the last time I wrote a tasting note for this one – but for a tea with “Go Juice” as the name I’m a bit surprised it’s not more fruity/juicy in its flavour notes. This is very smoke/musk/leather with bitter baker’s chocolate and cumin notes. Delicious combo; not very juice inspired though. That, or Kuura and I are drinking very different kinds of juice.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/B2T9EJGAn8O/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QXftpulPF4

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drank 2018 Go-Juice Black by Kuura
15575 tasting notes

I had one of these coins last week, Gong Fu, with some golden berries and it was quite a lovely experience. I’ll admit, when I placed my Kuura order I definitely did want to try these, but I only added as many of them into my cart as I wound up with because it was the cheapest way for me to hit the free shipping threshold during their Black Friday sale…

I steeped this in a yixing pot; it’s a yixing pot that I haven’t really seasoned prior to now and I’m still not totally sure how specific I’d like to get with what I dedicate to it. I’m thinking probably just black teas with stronger chocolate-y notes to them!? The point is, however, that because it’s a barely seasoned pot I definitely expected that I’d be experiencing some flavour ‘suckage’ when steeping this.

I think I probably did, though it’s hard to gauge exactly how much. The session was still lovely though, even if the tea wasn’t able to hold its own for more than the eight infusions I brewed it for. It also wasn’t really paired WITH the goldenberries since the flavours wound up not being super compatible; they were much just a thing I snacked on in between steeps.

The tea was nice; malty and chocolate body notes for basically the entirety of the session – just in fluctuating intensity. After the first few steeps, there wound up being a sweeter, smokey note present in the cup too. Almost leather-y? I really liked it alongside the deep chocolate notes: sort of a beautiful marriage of bitter & sweet cocoa and savory (and maybe just a little salty) smoke? Quite lovely! Also, somewhat more unique compared to other blacks I’ve had recently too. Last few infusions almost has a spice quality, like cumin, to them as well.

Fascinating tea, and I am actually glad that I wound up a decent sized handful of these.

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95

Gongfu!

Dipped into my stash of this precious white tea on Monday evening. I think this is still my favourite tea from Kuura – I don’t think describing it as anything other than liquid honeycomb would really do the deliciousness of this tea justice, and I will probably forever regret not buying a full cake of this when I had the chance. Other than the splooshes of tea that were shed to get a gorgeous photo to capture the beauty of the tea, I steeped this tea until it had no more life left to give.

My current 80 rating seems too low – I’m bumping git up to match how I currently feel.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRRc2U8hiz9/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fgOpS1jc0Q

Todd

Oh wow, that sounds delicious!

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95

Gongfu from yesterday!

I have a small stash of this tea in my desk at work, so it’s become a reliable ‘go to’ for me to Gongfu during data entry heavy afternoons when I want something familiar but really good. This session was awesome; sweet but dark honey notes, a bit of red fruit sweetness (like a mellow crab apple jelly), and a bit of a floral flicker to the infusions. The session was lighter in leaf than past have been, so delicious as it was it was also a softer version of the flavour notes I’ve experienced prior.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzim5xWgDSE/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0ukS1ceZa0

(I watched Aladdin last week – and the soundtrack has been stuck in my head ever since. If anyone else has watched the new live action remake, hit me up because I have THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS that I want to discuss!)

VariaTEA

Did anyone ever reach out to discuss? Did we discuss? I watched this weekly while my sister was pregnant last year lol

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95

Such an enjoyable Gong Fu session!

This is one of several aged white teas that I have in my desk at work, and earlier in the week I found myself with a very large project that was going to involve me being at my desk for several hours so I pulled out to Gong Fu tray and teaware, picked a bit of a nicer tea out of my work options, and decided to brew Gong Fu during this project.

Firstly – this tea is amazing, and I liked it even more this session that with my first one several months ago! Evidently, my coworkers liked it a lot too because at one point I had a small crowd of three people hanging out by my desk stealing infusions of tea; I lost a good three or four steeps from the middle of my session because I was sharing with coworkers. It’s ok though, I really packed my 70ml gaiwan so there was plenty of flavour in the leaf to last a long time – I think I got a solid ten or eleven infusions total, which I was very happy with for a white tea.

I mean really, this tea is just quite aptly named – the smell of the dry leaf is honey through and through and the moment the water first made contact with the tea during my rinse just flooded the space around my desk with sweet honey notes and soft florals. I took a moment to really closely and deeply smell the leaf in the gaiwan after the second or third steep, when it was really opening up, and I was just slapped with a thick, sweet and INTENSELY aromatic buckwheat honey aroma. Like cracking the lid on a very fresh, full jar of buckwheat honey.

The buckwheat honey notes carries into the infusions, along with some standard hay notes and floral (honeysuckle, ironically enough) undertones. Very thick and dense, quite enjoyable. Couldn’t have selected a better tea for the project.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwp-6s8HPml/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYlWXTLlP3I

Martin Bednář

Sounds delicious!

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95

I’ve been curious about Kuura for a while now, so this Black Friday I finally bit the bullet and placed an order with them since they were running a free shipping promo. I ordered the smallest size of every loose or compressed black and white tea that they carried, and then enough of the smaller “Go Juice” coins to hit the free shipping threshold…

I just want to say, before I even get into the tea itself, that my experience with Ayden/the company has been really impressive thus far: when I placed my order I was in the process of moving across country, so I asked if they were ok with holding my order for me until after I had moved and settled in my new city – I was prepared for them to say no since I’d never ordered from them before and they didn’t know who I was/we had no history. However, not only did they agree to hold it but then, after I had moved, they upgraded my shipping to express shipping at no extra charge to me so that my package could bypass the hold that Canada Post had placed on incoming international shipments (they weren’t accepting regular parcel mail) during the ongoing postal strike. I was completely, and pleasantly, surprised by that!

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a mail “mix up” – though not in any way Kuura’s fault. Both my package, and that of another individual in Canada who had ordered from them, were opened at the border for inspection, and after they had been resealed and OKed to be sent off two packages were erroneously sent to the opposite person. So, I received his package and he received mine. Kuura was great in handling the situation though; both he and I shipped the other’s package to the correct person and Kuura foot the bill for the shipping costs. So, even with the weird delays because of CP’s mistake my order from Kuura was STILL the very first of my Black Friday orders to arrive.

Just, great customer service – IMO.

As for the tea itself? Well, I’ve only tried this one so far so we’ll have to wait and see what I think of the rest of my haul as I get to tasting them. I picked this one pretty arbitrarily to start off with, and I steeped it up Gong Fu during one of the afternoons of my vacation. I did stack the infusions roughly three at a time though in a very large chahai, so even though I brewed about twelve infusions from the leaf I only drank around four “cups” of the steeped liquor.

In between cups, I broke up the flavor of the tea itself with pomegranate arils. I like pomegranate a lot but it’s expensive and inconvenient to eat, so around Christmas I usually treat myself to one or two of them and take the time that I wouldn’t during the rest of the year to break into the fruit and pick out all of the arils. This year I paired them with the tea, and made more of an “experience” out of it.

The tea itself was very nice; somewhat befitting its name it had some lovely sweet and floral honeysuckle notes that made up a large portion of the tea’s profile. My first “cup” of tea (infusions one through three) tasted the most of this light, fresh honeysuckle profile. Overtime it developed to be a little creamier, both in terms of flavor and mouthfeel. Sort of like creamed honey, but also kind of just like fresh cream? With typical white tea hay notes accompanying. I don’t think I’ve said enough lately how much I love the combo of strong hay and cream notes in a white tea; it’s probably my favourite quality in white tea next to that cucumber note I often get from more fresh whites. Finally, especially in my last “cup” of this one, there was a pleasantly medicinal undertone. It’s kind of hard to convey why something medicinal tasting would be pleasant, but I think it’s primarily because it adds depth to the rest of the profile while not being a dominating force. A little medicinal? Good! A lot medicinal? Bad.

The pomegranate was, well, pomegranate. I think if I was eating it while drinking the tea it would have been too bright and juicy/acidic to work as a pairing. However, in between cups while I was brewing out all of my stacked infusions I found that pop of fruit a really nice contrast to the profile of the tea. I definitely liked this tea a lot, and I’m excited to further explore the rest of my order.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amrDnxnohlo&index=3&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ&t=0s

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Brtvr-nliV1/

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65

Another raw from Liquid Proust’s intro set. This one doesn’t stand out to me as particularly fantastic, but it’s really a consistent and nice flavor. It’s definitely solid, with a “green-leaning” taste (is that a thing) but has good undertones as well. I’d describe the mouthfeel as medium thick and the cha qi as pretty powerful and enjoyable. The tea lasts a long time as well, the only issue being that it gets a bit boring after the 7th or 8th brew. Overall, positive rating from me!!

Flavors: Mushrooms, Vegetal

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 6 g 4 OZ / 120 ML

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This starts out very mellow for such a young sheng. Despite the strong aroma of black pepper as soon as hot water was poured over it, the first several infusions were very smooth; later infusions were darker orange in color, like I’d expect from a sheng with more age, but tasted more like a typical young sheng. It’s slightly astringent right after swallowing, but the hui gan makes up for that by slowly refilling my mouth with sweetness and somehow making me feel more hydrated a couple minutes after finishing the cup than I did immediately after. This effect fades later in the session. The mouthfeel is soft and smooth, but not in a creamy way, more like a Keemun than a high mountain oolong. This changes to a thinner, sharper texture later on with more tannins. I lost track of how many infusions I got out of it, but it was probably at least a dozen.

This isn’t the most complex sheng I’ve had, but that also means it’s more consistent. After a few sessions I feel like I know what to expect from it. The flavors are mostly on the grassy, vegetal, and herbal side, with savory, earthy mushrooms, a plum-like sweetness, and a bit of a peppery bite keeping it from tasting too much like green tea.

Late in the session, a calm, euphoric energy hit me suddenly. I don’t know what causes the “tea drunk” sensation, but there’s definitely something to this tea that feels very different from a caffeine overdose (trust me, I know that feeling too well and dislike it immensely).

I don’t know enough about puerh to be able to say how this will age, but at the current price, this is a great deal and I’ll probably buy a cake.

Flavors: Grass, Green Bell Peppers, Mushrooms, Pepper, Plum, Vegetal

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90

Generally speaking, I prefer aged sheng over shou. In fact for the longest time, I’ve sort of dismissed shou as all being the same one note tea. I’ll occasionally get an urge to try some of the shous I’ve had before again, but quickly after brewing up I lose the enthusiasm. Not so with Discrete, which has convinced me that this genre of tea is worth exploring. Over the course of a week, I tried it once and then sought it out four distinct times and enjoyed each session. I like to brew it hard and for long intervals, making it look like soy sauce and feel like a stout going down my throat. It’s sweet, savoury, leaves an airy feeling in the mouth and has absolutely no off or pile flavours that I can detect. Brews out after 10 or 11 hard steeps. It goes well with spicy food (mabo tofu) and light snacks (walnuts and raisins) as well as totally on it’s own of course. I bought the cake without trying a sample which is something I generally don’t like to do. This time, however, I’m very glad I did. Will be following Kuura very closely, they’ve piqued my interest.

Flavors: Caramel, Coffee, Menthol, Smooth, Sweet Potatoes, Wet Earth

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 30 sec 12 g 160 OZ / 4731 ML

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100

As many of my followers may know, I generally hate black tea and avoid it at all costs. I’ve never bought any for my own consumption, and usually get grossed out at the idea of it.

However, I got a care package from Kuura and they included a mini coin-size version of this tea and I tought to myself, “ew”. However, I didn’t want it to go to waste, and it did smell decent. So I thought “why not” and gave it a go. Below is a photo for reference…

https://instagram.com/p/Bg4_lPCnsTN/

After taking advice from Char from Oolong Owl and James (@shredsofmetal), I dropped this 7g coin into my 100ml pot and gave it a go. For my first steep, it tasted watery (since the leaves were still compressed very tightly). But as the infusion times went on, the tea kept opening up to this sweet, malt-like spice infusion that continued to expand in the mouth. After a few more infusions, the flavors began to settle down and became smooth and velvety. Along with lovely tasting notes and a beautiful texture, this tea also had amazing energy — which seemed to wake me up!

Thanks to this tea, I will no longer be apprehensive to trying black tea again in the future. I now feel confident.

Flavors: Malt, Peppercorn, Spices, Sweet

mrmopar

Oolong Owl is bad, leads us to more tea shopping……… ;P

MichTea

Had a similar experience as you except with their Discrete cake. It convinced me ripes have some merit. Will be interesting to see these guys grow their collection.

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100

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80

One thing I liked about this tea is its accessibility, and had an overall pleasant texture to its body. Another thing I liked about this tea is its cleanliness and seemed to be pressed with great care. However, this beeng is compressed tighter than most other beengs that I’ve had. Overall, Vector is a great introduction to puer and is a tea I’d recommend to people who are new to sheng.

Click on the link below to read more….

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/2018/03/06/Vector-by-Kuura

Flavors: Broth, Floral, Grass, Hay

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 0 min, 15 sec 4 tsp 2 OZ / 60 ML
Alexander

thanks for bringing lesser known retailer like Kuura and Moychay to our attention :-)

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