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Hi teaple (tea + people, get it? haha..ah….h.. nevermind) tonight we’re drinking IDEStea’s Tieguanyin, and um I don’t know where to start

so basically theres these 2 things:

- This is super dark and earthy right off the beginning, I’ve never had that in a tieguanyin before. it’s strange.

- I’ve got a weird metallic.. tingly, dry aftertaste.

But this is only the first couple steeps, it’s still very much rolled. The third steep is bringing out more flavours. Pepper, a dark.. earthy taste, and an almost meat-like .. pork? kind of taste. Still metallic and dark… It really doesn’t taste like a good quality tieguanyin. It’s really hard to drink.. I’m really hoping it’ll lighten up soon, I’m on the 5th steep, but it doesn’t seem to want to. It isn’t floral, it isn’t even green.. I’m genuinely wondering if they mislabelled my sample? This is definitely very heavily roasted but not in a .. good way. I don’t really appreciate this. It’s a no from me.

This seems really nice. the first steep has roasty dark chocolate notes, really earthy and astringent. It’s quite similar to a Laoshan black at first, but I think a bit darker and definitely more astringent. There’s a subtle fruitiness in the back, sort of like peaches and cherries. The dark cocoa notes lift out as the steeps go on, paving the way to sweet darkness that doesnt seem to have any specific prevalent flavour. Maybe a bit of coffee? It’s strange, it’s really tasty but I dont know what it tastes like. I think it’s a strange balance between spices, florals, a sort of soapy taste, and the original cocoa and coffee notes, and sort of brown sugar? (I’ve been getting a lot of coffee notes lately, and I think it’s not a good thing. it seems to be abbrasive and intrusive, and only happens with oversteepings) I definitely was writing all of that and i have a sort of cracked pepper aftertaste in my mouth from seemingly nowhere. Also I’m more clearly noticing peach and mango notes. It’s a strange tea. But like strange in an almost bland sense. But bland in a delicious sense. No, I don’t understand what I’m talking about okay. That’s just what my senses are telling me. I think basically the cocoa gave away to spices and pleasant bitterness.

okay so I may not have much experience with jasmine teas, but I know what it tastes like, and this isn’t really it. Now that isn’t to say that it’s bad tasting per se, but I mean if it’s meant to be a Jasmine tea then it’s not really doing its job. But anyways, ignoring that, I’ll tell you what it does taste like.
This dragon pearl is very strange and sweet and tastes very strongly like bubble gum. Now, granted, I’m brewing Gongfu and I really don’t know if people do that with jasmine tea, but considering it’s a very traditional flavour, it seems to make sense that it would be. Plus, it works perfectly fine so I don’t see why not. But anyways, it has a bit of this… blandness that you can sense just behind the bubble gum, with a bit of a mellow green vegetal flavour, but not very strong or notable. However, it is cheap and I really had guessed that I’d get what I paid for with a jasmine tea, especially when it’s dragon pearls and still only like $3 or $4 for 50g USD. That’s an unreasonably low price, so I guess I’ll take the bubble gum.

It finally came today, I’m really excited to dive in :D I’m brewing in my 90ml Gaiwan, using however many leaves are in this sample (it’s filled about a fifth of the Gaiwan).

Oh, this is so delicious. It has sweet, thick.. creamy notes in the first steep, it’s really nice but not complex; not until the second steep.. a whole world unfurls in my mouth: smokey, fruity, hot chocolate, coffee, honey, peach, dates, cream, peas. The third steep brings out more of the cocoa/coffee, it’s growing darker with each steep, and astringency is getting stronger. It actually tastes a bit like davidstea’s oolong supreme, but just way more sweet and thick and creamy. Seriously this Oolong is very very good.
There’s more roasty and dark fruity notes later on.

I’m actually sad that I only have a sample of this. I might have to buy more .

I needed a tea that I haven’t reviewed yet cause my girlfriend just left to go back home for the summer and I’m sad and need a distraction :c

I’m brewing a significant amount of this in my 90ml gaiwan (about a quarter of the Gaiwan is full of dry leaf). After the first steep, which I only did for about 2 seconds, my whole brewing area smelled lovely and sweet, so I went to smell the wet leafs and it’s got a really bitter, smoky .. almost hot-dog-like aroma.

The first thing I notice in my first sip is an almost overwhelmingly spinach-or-lettuce-like flavour, amidst the obvious smokey, charred meaty taste. it’s light and vegetal, but it isn’t sweet like the aroma was.

The second steep yields a bit of a sweeter taste, there are noticeable honey notes. the meat notes are a bit clearer, and it’s thicker as well. There’s mild bitterness, this actually has a really nice mouthfeel. the bitterness and thickness are really nice. There’s a bit of a burnt taste.

The third one brings out floral notes and.. urgh there’s been a note at the back this whole time that I can’t seem to name.. meh.. It’s still smoky and bitter, I think it’s getting a bit less meaty.. there’s a bit of a coffee flavour to it too now.. but yeah, it’s getting really bitter now, to a point where many people might not be able to handle it anymore. The astringency is also very potent.

Fourth steep brings a bit of fruitiness as well, a sort of peachy or orangey taste. (peach is a really common flavour isn’t it). Ooh or even perhaps more strongly, grapefruit, especially with the bitterness of the tea. It seems not to be too vegetal anymore, but I just detected the slightest hint of chocolate.

I kind of accidentally over-steeped the fifth one (I got a snapchat okay?!), and it tastes really bitter and astringent and rather overpoweringly like sweet, thick coffee. Oops

Can someone let me know if this review is too long to be accessible to people? Cause I also want to continue into like the nth steep but I’ve already written so much

as the flavours fade, the bitterness softens and the fruits and sweets become more pronounced, the thickness naturally fades as well, and it becomes slightly vegetal once again.

I got like 50g of this cause it was on sale (I bought this in 2016, and it’s a year and a half old) and I was getting a bunch of pu’ers.

My best friend brought this one over for us to drink a couple weeks ago, whereupon we brewed it gongfu in my Gaiwan for the night, and it was soo good that I just had to get myself some. I bought 60g about a week ago, it’s definitely the best thing I’ve ever had from davidstea.

If you’ve been brewing this western style, stop right now. Any of the couple times I’ve done so, it’s been really flat and not flavourful really at all. But in the Gaiwan, It’s lovely any floral and milky and peachy, It’s soo good, and the flavour lasts for so many steeps. it tastes somewhat like Jin Xuan by the end of the brewing, when all the jasmine and milk flavours are gone, which in itself is really lovely too, it’s such an unobvious combination of flavours but it works so well, David you did good with this one.

I’ll make this more detailed next time I brew it, but I’m going through all of my new pu’erhs right now (I’m not reviewing them because I don’t really know anything about pu’erh yet. I’m learning right now)

This one took me a few sessions to realize how great it really is; these beautiful fuzzy golden buds brew up this wonderful combination of sweet coffee/cocoa mixed with these light floral tones and dark rugged earth notes, it’s really quite a flavourful tea but it’s never overwhelming, and it’s not a difficult tea despite its obvious complexity. I’ve quite often forgotten about the tea brewing in my Gaiwan for a few minutes, (I do this way too often, it’s a problem) but when I do with this tea, it just becomes a bit darker and has more coffee-like notes, which isn’t even bad it just makes me a little sadder cause I’ll get a bit less flavour in the subsequent steeps. The first few steeps had a bit of fruity notes, though I’m not sure I could identify which fruit unless I started a new session. The darkness fades with each subsequent steep, revealing a lighter floral, even a little bit grassy (I’ve never called a black tea grassy before..) there’s no astringency or bitterness present.. Maybe the teeniest bit of astringency but you have to really want to notice it. A nice thing about this one is that the flavour lasts really well. it doesn’t really fade at all, you just need to know how long to steep it for; the 7th or 8th steep is just as flavourful as the 2nd or 3rd, unlike many teas which fade, at least in part, by then.

Oh, it’s also delicious western style; it doesn’t need milk or sweetener at all, cause it’s beautiful just the way it is :)

ahhhhhhhhhhhh!! I love this whole Laoshan green series so much. So so much. This one’s such a lovely sweet green, it’s definitely sweeter and lighter and a bit more pea-like and i think even a bit creamier than the standard Laoshan Green, I definitely prefer this one. It has so much wonderful vegetal, like light peas and lettuce, nice smooth flavour from around the 2nd to 4/5th steeps in my Gaiwan; those few steeps are some of the greatest tea I regularly drink. Unfortunately, it does seem to lose its flavour a bit quicker than other teas, but even after it has started to lose its flavour, it’s still really sweet and.. it makes me think of a really pure spring with crystal clear water. So lovely to sip, I thought I’d try to save it a bit, and not drink it too much since Verdant isn’t the cheapest store, but it’s hard to help myself, especially with this one.

Give one of the Laoshan greens a try if you haven’t already. You won’t regret it.

Oh, and I just noticed it’s mildly astringent, especially in later steeps but then I didn’t want to take the time to put it in my review properly so yeah :)

okay so this if my first experience with a Chinese steamed green, it’s really interesting; Esgreen included it as one of 5 samples with my order and I’m drinking it with my Gaiwan.
The sample had probably like 7-10 grams in it, and so thats enough for 2 brewing sessions and I thought when I did my first one that I had taken half but it was probably like 80/20 for the 2 sessions.

The first session, which had far more leaves was incredibly bitter and smoky and almost like charred meat, it was very thick and strong and it was really very off-putting but I hadn’t written a review and so I had to drink the rest to write about it.

The second session was much nicer, the tea was much more smooth, it had the smokiness, still quite prominently in fact, as well as the charred meat but there was also vegetality, and especially this time I noticed a citrus-floral flavour, and somewhat of a minty undertone. It’s actually really well-balanced, with a relatively strong astringency, as well as some pleasant bitterness, and it’s even a little bit sweet at times. Personally, the bitterness was a bit too much for me, even in the second session, but I’d really quite happily sip this one again

I’ll start this review by saying that I’ve never had a white peony that I actually enjoy so this may get some undeserved negativity at times, but I’ll try to keep it fair;

I’m brewing this sample gongfu in my ~90ml gaiwan (which I also got from Esgreen— they have some really nice teaware), the first steep was very strong and thick, almost overwhelmingly floral with a bit of a wet-earth, root kind of forest on a rainy day taste, it also makes me think of cacti but .. I’ve only eaten cactus a few times so I’m not really sure why I’m thinking of it. There’s definitely some cocoa notes at the back, and a bit of a zesty orange citrus flavour. At times this tea almost tastes artificial, but not overwhelmingly so, and I could certainly see many people enjoying this one,

I’m really liking Esgreen so far