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It’s been a long day, you know? Last week, I did some tree clearing on a friend’s property for fire prevention. She set up a community event to encourage other denizens of their heavily forested community to do the same. I went back today to line up all the brush and limbs and tree trunks along the roadside for a wood chipper staffed by the community fire department to chip and haul all the residents’ debris. I guess word got around what a thorough and clean job I did (it’s nice to know your work is appreciated!) and I ended up clearing a neighbor’s property. This is a nice side gig to pick up pockets of cash and there’s no pressure to cut anything down I’m uncomfortable with…. since it’s just me and my chainsaw.

When I got home, there was a tea package waiting at the front door. Not Mandala Tea, another company, but inside was a teapet, a lovely red pig to commemorate my year. Inspired by tea-sipper’s recent review of The Shu Fits, I figured a shou would be a good way to end an exhausting day and a nice dark ‘mud bath’ of a tea to soak my new buddy in.

I’m rambling. Can you tell I’m relaxed?

I have to say thank you to both Mandala Tea and to Kawaii433; the former included a sample of The Shu Fits in my last order and the latter sent a sample as part of a tea swap. I had this loose puerh a few years ago and remember it being very sweet with a red berry-chocolate-leather feel. Has the tea changed in a few years?

Yes, it has. The berries are now mostly evident in the aroma of the dry leaf, along with brown sugar, chocolate, leather and wood. The chocolate has really mellowed in taste as well as the sweetness. This tea seems to have moved into more savory tastes of chicken broth and cedar, some leather, faint mushroom, and a clean mineral finish. It’s fairly light-bodied and sips easily, depositing a pleasant aftertaste of walnut and faint milk chocolate-red berries at the base of the tongue. There is some astringency, tempered by salivation and a light returning sweetness.

All said, a pleasant evening sipper with some relaxing effect. You will find no funk in this tea. I have enough leftover to do a western steep soon to see if that will bring out some of the remembered berry and chocolate flavors.

EDIT: Mandala has some new teas out including a loose shou, Dark Star, a nod in name to the Grateful Dead.

A word to cold-brew fans.

I typically leaf my cold-brewed greens lightly. Last night, I used 3 grams to 500mL and tasted the tea this morning. It’s really light, even for me. I won’t at the time recommend doubling your leaf amount since I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll be doing so tonight. The wet leaf smells so lovely sweet and creamy. I’m hoping a heavier hand will bring out some of that in taste.

Finally got around to finishing my sample of four am. Another 7g in the 100mL gaiwan, boiling water.

Noting some changes since I last had four am 7 months ago. Liquor starts off orange-yellow and moves to a vibrant amber. The retronasal florals have died down and are more evident in the wet leaf. Plum aroma and taste has amplified, leaning toward prune. The bitterness in later steeps seems more aggressive to me this time around. The sourness I noted last time has developed into a more defined white grapefruit tone. Now that I have more experience, there’s got be a good amount of Menghai/Bulang leaf in this cake based on the plum/prune, bitterness and grapefruit tone. Also noticing a dark, wet wood/bark quality. Light, stevia-like sweetness in the back of the mouth and menthol are still present as the session progresses. To me, the body is nothing to speak of — easy sipper.

The most apparent differences are the development of an undefined nutty note and yeastiness to the aroma and taste. I’ve found that I taste yeast frequently in younger puerh. I wonder if that’s because of how puerh is processed/yeasts found in the air of puerh-producing regions or because most of my opened/paper-wrapped teas were exposed to the San Francisco air that contains bacteria and yeasts which make the city’s famed sourdough bread.

The tea seems heavier and more medicinal in character now, fitting for an evening drink.

Not sure what’s going on with the redder, oxidized looking leaf. Reminds me of a shit sheng I had from another vendor in the past few months (to be clear, four am doesn’t suck). Related to new method of production or is it older material pressed with newer green leaf?

Hello and good day. I’m excited about having my first green tea of 2019. Spring is here in this region of the states. I welcomed its arrival by prepping the garden which had fallen victim to snails, Bermuda grass, Himalayan blackberry, English ivy and baby palm trees. Mowed the grass, weed whacked and set to work digging up all the bristly ox tongue before it bolts and flowers. I also spent Friday cutting down 8 trees on a friend’s property for a nice sum of cash which bought me a new mattress and the leftovers of which will feed my recent puerh buying habit. I haven’t been drinking much tea this past week because I’ve been so damn busy.

I tried this a few days ago using Brenden’s parameters Western style, with 1T, 8oz, 180F and 3 steeps at 2/3/5 min. The tea was ok. It didn’t really awaken the crisp, spring green desire within me, being rather vegetal and muddled in flavor. I tend to like my green teas light and gentle, so I will have to play around with amounts and temperatures Western style.

This morning, though, I opted to brew the leaves gongfu and am much happier with the result. 6g, 150mL, 175F, 8 or 9 short steeps. The dry leaf smells soft, sweet, floral and young grass. Rinsed, I picked up on white chocolate, steamed veg and spinach and soft florals. The liquor is a crystal clear very light green-yellow without much aroma. The taste is crisp and light with fresh grass, minerals (salty), and florals with a light stonefruit-osmanthus aftertaste. In the mouth, the tea is thick and glassy early on moving quickly to a light body with soft astringency. The flavor ends more vegetal, perhaps green bean with a hint of oat creaminess. I thought maybe the tea got a little fruitier in the late steeps, but it was just the aftertaste that lingered.

Overall, brewed gongfu, it’s a very mineral yet delicate, light and crisp green tea that embodies what I’m looking for in the first days of spring. I imagine I’ll finish this bag today since the weather will be warm and sunny. A few more cloudy and rainy days are on the horizon.

Another sample from the generous Kawaii433, thanks!

This smells straight up like a roasted barley tea with baked peach scent, pushing into artificial territory. This ain’t no juicy fresh peach. Taste is so much weaker than aroma. Has some of that roasted barley, autumn leaf, wood, mineral and peach flavor. Weird body — thin yet slimy? and strange aftertaste. I tried doing a second steep but it was lacking so sticking to one steep for the last bit of leaf in the bag. Oh, I’ve tried both 195F and 212F for brewing with no noticeable change. At least the tea can’t be screwed up that way.

I haven’t been feeling the gaiwan love for several days and have been wanting easier teas to drink, so thank you Kawaii433 for sending this mini tuo cha my way :) Grandpa is the theme of the week I guess.

I must first point out the aroma because I know there are a lot of cocoa lovers here: cocoa and walnut. The tea is clean and alive for a shou. It’s very mineral and complex, with bright and dark layers moving around in a kind of creamy suspension that later turns oily. It’s like drinking a walnut tree, wood and fruit. Hints of cocoa, healthy dark soil and leather all elevated from the walnut grove floor by a pervasive brightness and light sugarcane sweetness. Clean camphor cools then warms the throat and chest. I feel grounded and calm. Definitely the best mini tuo I’ve had.

ashmanra included an envelope of Soothe Your Tummy in a swap. Just what I needed. Last week, I was loading the trimmings of a monster English ivy tree into a yard waste bin and had to climb in to stomp the vines down. Who knows what got me, but I came out with several bites on my legs. One of the bumps went SNAFU. It was already infected and large but then it tripled in size overnight. So… I went to the ER last night. Everything is fine now but the antibiotics and codeine make me nauseous.

Enter Soothe Your Tummy. This herbal tea was goooood. I could taste everything and it was all quite fresh. The spicy ginger aroma tickled me nose. The warming ginger/ginger oil was dominant in taste but neither too strong nor too spicy. The licorice root was light, thank glorb. Enough peppermint to taste and feel. A little fennel here, a little clove there, some turmeric peeking through. Stomach and mind soothed.

Really mellow and lightly sweet brewed grandpa. Kawaii433’s description of hay, honeysuckle, leather seems spot on to me. Maybe some autumn leaf. Small to medium chop and pretty much no dust. An agreeable, non-fussy shou. It just is, nothing really stands out to me except for its easy-drinking quality.

Thanks for the sample, Kawaii.

Brewed my last mini tuo of this grandpa style in a 16oz mug. I think I got 3 refills on top of the original pour. Good strength for 4.5g of shou.

This reminded me a lot of a freebie no-name mini tuo I picked up from the SF Tea Fest, offered by Imperial Tea Court. This one, though, was a different shape: classic birds nest vs the flat puck from ITC. I bought a small handful of these Camel’s Breath from bulk tea section at the co-op.

Dark, smooth, oily and briny, lots of leather and barnyard. There was a distinct finish to this tea, something almost gamey-musky or cheese-like in taste. Sounds gross but it complemented the brininess very well. I feel like I should be working in a horse barn at the edge of coastal cliffs when I drink this. Spent material reveals no fannings only finely chopped leaf. Daily drinker type of tea.

One of the first things I did when I moved to California was buy an orange tree for the patio. I was taking a drawing class when I lived at that place in San Jose so I’d sit out on the patio in the sun getting intoxicated on orange blossoms and sketching them. When I moved to San Francisco, I gave the tree to my current housemate who lived in a climate more favorable for oranges than in the city. I think the freeze got it one year, so I was unable to reunite with the orange tree when I moved up here. That’s ok. We have a an out of control lemon bush and a young satsuma for me to bury my face in.

I bought this Spring 2017 Orange Blossom oolong on a big discount since it was past its prime. It’s held up ok. The orange blossom is a little sharp on the nose and I’m not getting any milkiness from the jin xuan cultivar but the tea is all sweet orange blossoms with a touch of bitterness and light vegetal flavors. Medium bodied and viscous. Looking forward to this year’s round of citrus-scented oolong!