Nannuoshan

Another sample from Nannuoshan….this tea was on my wishlist so i was SUPER excited to get it as part of the samples that were sent out to folks. Funnily enough, i was excited to try it because of the smokey notes that people were finding…but when i had this, there were none to be found for me. Instead, i want this tea to have tea babies with me. Seriously…I have NO idea if this would taste as amazing brewed western, but while the aroma of this one is pretty bleh…tasting it was like a party in my mouth. i could not get enough of this tea. In fact the leaves are sitting there waiting for me to come back to them to make sure i’m not imagining things.

This was oh so deliciously chocolatey and malty for me. Now i’m on tea hiatus, but i DID go look on the website to check out the price and bookmark is..and it’s not there! So confused…where has it gone!! Because seriously? i want more… MOAR!

Edit: NM it’s there i’m just blind.. lol

oh man. This was a sample from nanuoshan – thank you SO much for tyhe opportunity to try some of your teas! Honestly, i think if i hadn’t tried this along side one of his other offferings, i’d have been over the moon with this one. First off, the aroma of this one is amazing….i poured it and was like OMG is that the tea!!!
That being said, this doesn’t taste like the aroma haha. It’s stilla lovely tea but funnily enough, while the smell is like a sweet caramel, the taste is more like a creamy, fruity, slightly cocoa like tea. There’s no smokiness to be had in this one. I brewed this one gon fu – with probably the latter steeps being my favourite as the tea really started to have that heavier feel to it. Initial steeps were almost creamy in their lightness. Overall, this is a nice tea and i’m curious as to how it would lend itself to a western brew. I may just pick some up in the future to check it out!

Thank you Nannuoshan for this sample!

After reading a brief description of the teas from a card Gabriele included in my samples box I thought this sounded like a nice late morning tea. The dry leaves are thin and wiry and smell like dry hay with a slight cocoa note underneath. The tea steeped to a much lighter color than I was expecting given the four minute steep time, but the results were lovely. There was a nice toasted grain flavor with hints of cocoa slipping in and out as I drank. As the tea cools there was more of a bready note at the front of the sip, which was nice in combination with the other flavors. Even with its lighter color I’d say this is a solid medium bodied tea, and I enjoyed having it in the late morning, but I also think it would be great as an afternoon tea.

The Rougui , the famous tea of the rocks is in my cup this morning and brightens a little this bad weather morning .

I strictly respect the recomandations , 4 minutes in a water at 90 ° C.

The leaf doesn’t fully unfold , it’s true that instinctively I would rather use a water at 100 ° but it does unfold very well at the second infusion.

The liquor is very red , of a dark amber .

This is a very balanced Rougui between mineral and roasted notes . Some sweetness emanates from all this light liquor, a bit enveloping .

This is exactly what I was expecting from this tea and I’m delighted : it has a real personal touch and releases its own aromas in a successive and distinct manner. Gabriele thank you so much for this sample, it is my type of tea.

Some pics are available here : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/rougui-nannuoshan/

I decide to start my day with a Pu-erh and Nannuoshan 2013, a Mao Cha which seems very appropriate.

I am first impressed by the swollen and the green and brown colours of these long folded leaves .

Let’s leave these beautiful leaves unfold in their bath at 100 ° C.

They unfold perfectly in less than 4 minutes and also reveal their bright green and an incredible length.

This is a spring tea , a Mao Cha is a form of Pu-erh loose leaf, uncompressed cake , which accelerates the aging process.Mao Cha is the stage preceding the compression of the leaves to make a cake.
The liquor is an extremely pale yellow , almost transparent.

Regarding the taste, this Pu-erh is excellent,the liquor is lively , refreshing, fruity. I detect hints of plum and apricot. I have not noticed a strong astringency , just a small touch that accompanies all the tasting, from the beginning to the after taste and brings an undeniable personality to this pretty Pu-erh . I love it.

Gabriele thank you for this beautiful selection.

You can see pics of the dark green leaves here : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/nannuoshan-2013-mao-cha-nannuoshan/

No suspense, I say it right now: I love this black Yunnan tea.

It smells very good : dried fruit and it looks beautiful with its golden tips.
Let’s go for 5 minutes into a boiling water.

The taste is very malty with very present earthy notes, really strong. The nice points with this Dian Hong is its soft, mellow texture and its fruity peach and apricot notes, which downplay the earthy and rocky side.

The fruit soften all the beverage and make this tea almost greedy.

The first steep was a very pleasant one but the second was much lambda without real interest imo and with a lack of body compared to the first one.

I really enjoyed the first steep, this is the main information. I’ll probably buy some of this one.

Pic are available here : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/jin-si-dian-hong-nannuoshan/

I prefer oxidized Oolong , this is one, on paper.

The smell is very herbal , vegetable-y : a bunch of spinach . I do not smell too much roast .

Come on, Tie Guan Yin would magic operates? Pictured without special effects , this tea plays like a diamond …

The liquor smells spinach , too. And the wet leaf is a spinach leaf ! very very well imitated …

The liquor is a translucent pale yellow.

From my taste , oxidation is not the most obvious. This Tie Guan Yin remains much vegetable-y, not very creamy .

Much on the floral and unoxidized side IMO.

This is a good Tie Guan Yin but insufficiently creamy and oxidized to persuade me to buy it and store it in my permanent collection.

Pics are available here (with the diamonds in my tea leaf…:) ) : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/anxi-tie-guan-yin-roasted-nannuoshan/

Nannuoshan is a recent tea company based in Berlin. Gabriele , seen on Steepster , founder of Nannuoshan,adorably sent me some samples to permit me to get an idea of ​​the quality of his teas.

Today I wanted to start the day with a black tea , with this high grade Keemun . I began by not respecting the indications Gabriele gave me … yes … I did not prepare this tea in a Gaiwan , I did not rinse the leaves etc … I prepared my tea Western style but in a Japanese teapot with a big volume. When a tea is good it must be also Western style. This is my first principle anyway.

The leave is thin , thin and curly , almost frothy and swollen. It foolishly smells malt and bitter cocoa.

I respected the recommended temperature and time to maximum infusion.

The liquor is very dark and exhales malt and smoke scents.

Come on, I taste … .I do not know what to expect … this is my first tea from this company .

generous full-bodied,even strong. Clearly a morning tea , very malty , it will awake the most sleepy one without any problem. First : this is on a fine note,light but then the body of the tea is revealed , as its strong notes of cocoa , tobacco and leather. The aftertaste makes a great tribute to smoky notes , frankly smoked.

This is a tea with a strong personality but very easy to drink. A nice selection . I love it .

Pics available here : https://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/yi-ji-qi-hong-xiang-luo-nannuoshan/

Happy Sunday, my tea frens. First tea of the day comes from cookies and Nannuoshan. This looks different from the other Tanyang I’ve tried, from TeaVivre. That one was a more tippy tea, whereas these leaves are very thin and jet black in color. Dry scent is musty hay (I seem to be getting that a lot from black teas these days).

The steeped tea smells sweet and thick with honey and bread notes. This is a yummy one. It’s malty and thick with flavor – it has that intensity that almost verges on bitterness but doesn’t quite get there. There are tasty honey notes (one of my favorite notes in tea) as well as dark wheat bread. I can also taste just a touch of savory which rounds it out nicely. Perhaps a bit of the musty hay from the dry scent. Overall, it’s tasty and smooth. :)

This sample came from my holiday package from cookies. I love Dian Hongs, and I’ve definitely tried my share between Yunnan Sourcing and AliExpress. Yunnan teas were really the first straight black teas I got into when I joined Steepster a few months ago, and I still really love them, especially now that I’ve discovered that a lot of other black teas have astringency. Anyway! This appears to be a pure bud tea, though the buds are smaller and less puffy than other similar teas I’ve tried. Dry scent is slightly earthy with apricot notes.

This is pretty good. It doesn’t quite compare to the pure bud Yunnan teas I’ve had from Yunnan Sourcing, but I think the overall taste here is somewhere between pure bud and regular leaf, so it’s not necessarily comparable. There’s a nice earthy base, on top of which are malt and slightly savory notes. I can also taste some of that Yunnan-y stonefruit flavor, especially near the end. It does have a rather strong mineral taste, which is not my favorite here.

This was a gift from the dear cookies and a complete surprise.

I found it sweet and smooth. I didn’t get peppery, though.

Delicious. Thanks so much, cookies!!!

I have been drinking Da Hong Pao and Tieguanyin with my grandfather for long time. They reminds me my childhood :)
I got a sample of this tieguanyin together with other two from nannuoshan.org
My grandpa used to drink only this old-style tieguanyin. I like also the fresh ones, but admit having a weakness for the roasted one. Maybe just because my body type is cold, so I prefer warm teas.
This tieguanyin is full, warm and pleasant. I like the sweet note in it, although I cannot really describe it. It is long present in the month but not dominant. So, how to say, well harmonized with the rest of the tea. Lovely, I could drink it long time without having enough.

I definitely love green teas and this one particularly struck me ’cause of its long, flat and large leaves so i bought it. I have to admit that it is very agreeable and not bitter.
I use to brew it 3 times (1m/1m/1,30m 150ml each time) but I also tried to brew it 3m in 450ml and I like it in either case but I prefer the three infusions because it changes flavour becoming less grassy and more sweet.
I am pleasantly surprised about the freshness of the tea, it has a delicate and fresh smell.
Thanks Nannuoshan to find and get these fantastic teas!

I am not a so big tea expert, but i definitely love this tea!
I already tried different kinds of tea, but This is so exquisite and flavourful. It has an unique flavour, I have never tried a tea like this and honestly I will buy it again when it will finish.

Third (and unfortunately last) sample I got from nannuoshan. I drank it this morning with my girlfriend (she also a tea lover!), who helped me finding the right words to describe it for this review!
A good green tea, full, vegetal and round. It doesn’t have the details and nuances of the Taiping Houkui, but it costs half the price. I can say this is the best price/quality ratio among the three nannuoshan’s greens I had.

So here I am with the second review of the samples I got from nannuoshan.
The Bi Luo Chun Qing Ming was a little to bitter for my taste in the first infusion and I could not distinguish well the flavor. So I repeated the infusion with the remaining leaves at much lower temperature; I think around 70-75°C (the samples was just enough for just two gaiwan-brewings). Bitterness was gone and I could appreciate the sweet taste of the tea, that I definitely prefered to the first infusion!

I usually buy from reliable sources (Teavivre, YS and the likes). I recently noticed a couple of nannuoshan’s black tea reviews, with pretty high score. So I thought giving it a try. I’m fond of green teas, so I ordered three samples of them that I got together with the Yixing Hong Cha (that I already reviewed).
The fist of the green tea I tried is the Taiping houkui superior, because I’ve never seen leaves like that, long and flat, with a light texture on them. Moreover the smell is delicate, sweet and very inviting! The the taste changes with each brew: first is a bit grassy, then it becomes more sweet and floral.
I definitely like it and I think I will treat myself to a 50g box to put under the Christmas tree :-)

This sample came to me via Marzipan and was a free sample from a group order a bunch of Steepster folks went in on. The dry leaf is huge and twisty and gorgeous. The steeped liquor smells amazing- roasty and tangy. I get mostly mineral and lightly roasted flavors with a very faint hint of tart cherry. The aftertaste is long and lingering. I would prefer more fruity sweetness and more floral flavors, but that is probably just a personal preference. I’m normally not a huge fan of this style of oolong. Thanks Nannuoshan and fellow Steepsterites for the sample :)

From the EU TTB – Round 3

I’ve never come across a black maofeng before, so I knew instantly that this was one I was going to have to try. The dry leaves are very fine and curly, like small pieces of wire. They’re black, dark brown and golden in colour, and so very pretty to look at! I used 1 tsp of leaf, and gave it 4 minutes in boiling water. No additions.

The resulting liquor is a medium golden-brown. There’s a light maltiness to the beginning of the sip, which is sweet and pleasant. This then opens up into a deeper and slightly more bittersweet chocolate flavour. I’m thinking dark chocolate with a reasonably high cacao content here, but it’s not at all dry tasting. The end of the sip brings a mild smokiness. I’m not usually a fan of smoke flavours in teas, but I don’t mind it here. It’s not overwhelming at all, just a gentle counterpoint that works well with the other flavours.

I’m enjoying this one a lot, and I’m pleased to have had the chance to develop my knowledge of Chinese black teas a little further. A pleasing cup.

This is really very nice. Extremely cocoa, little bit of woodsy, not smoky enough that I notice. Smells malty but not excessively so. A moderate strength with lightness in the sip, if that makes any sense.

I liked it at about 1.5 minutes, although even at 3 it wasn’t overpowering, just a bit stronger with more mineral tang.

I get the wild peppery taste and the tobacco. It’s not bitter but there is a distinct mineral-y tang to it as it steeps for longer periods (And wow, does it get dark when you let it go for more than about 3 minutes! It’s almost black!). The scent is lightly smoky and heavily malty, especially when dry.

I don’t get any subtle notes from this. It’s fine but I have had other Dian Hongs that I prefer. This was part of a group order though and it was super nice of them to include bags for the tea we were splitting so that each of us would have a labeled bag and instructions! So high marks to the company, even if this particular tea is not my favorite. :)

And I think the instructions as printed are somewhat off. The English translation may not be quite right. 6 grams is not the same as 4 teaspoons. I think that 5 grams = 1 teaspoon. The instructions say 6 grams (4 teaspoons) to 1/2 liter of water. That would be either 4 teaspoons per 16 ounces (which is pretty close to how I would normally steep my teas) or 1 teaspoon per 16 ounces (which would be very light for me), depending on which is correct. :) So I may not have hit the recommended parameters. I used 1 teaspoon for 6 ounces. Maybe I overpowered the more delicate notes by overleafing.

I did this by little glass teapot method. :) 30 seconds, 60 seconds, much more seconds. :) Overall, I preferred the 60 sec steep to the others. 30 was far too light and more than a minute was too strong for me.

Hm. I’m not really sure what to say about this. It smelled like smoke in the package. I was extremely hesitant about trying it. I was going to give the whole sample to my mom since she likes smoky teas. But, since this was a free sample from Nannoushan, I knew I had to try it and review it. I’m not going to give it a rating, though, since smoky teas are truly not my bag.

The smoke flavor is much less pronounced than the smell leads one to expect. I get some maltiness but a whole ton of savory, brothy notes. Almost like smoky beef broth. I feel like I should have carrots and other veggies in this for a soup! This is the only tea I’ve ever had that reminds me so much of soup.

I would not reach for this, but I will finish this cup. It’s… interesting.