2019 Spring "Danger Zone" Sheng/Raw Puer

Tea type
Pu'erh Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Astringent, Bitter, Citrus, Creamy, Olive Oil, Sweet, Tart, Vegetal
Sold in
Bulk
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Roswell Strange
Average preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 7 g 3 oz / 100 ml

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2 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Thick, good huigan and mouthwatering sensations. Balanced bitterness that is somewhat aggressive without being overpowering or harsh. Very floral in early steeps in a perfumy way instead of...” Read full tasting note
  • “He Kai is one of those areas I’ve always been interested in, but never really gotten around to exploring proper. When Crimson Lotus came out with this tea, I was immediately interested to try it....” Read full tasting note

From Crimson Lotus Tea

Welcome to the DANGER ZONE! After our experiences with a King Cobra in this Hekai garden last year this tea was a must purchase this year. We pre ordered the entire garden! Each leaf in this tea comes from the forest where we had a very close encounter with a 15ft long King Cobra. You can read all about that story here.

Hekai is pretty great already but this garden is truly special. There is an emotional vibe to the garden that makes you feel like you’ve stepped back into a prehistoric era.

We commissioned a custom piece of art from Jake Knapp ( @knappuer ) and we couldn’t be more happy with it. His art perfectly captures the story and experience of this tea.

This tea brews THICK! It is a gentler tea with minimal bitterness and astringency but flavor and aroma are quite nice. It has a great aftertaste and a very noticeable chaqi tea energy. It’s like being kissed by a cobra.

We have 20g sample sessions available. There is a discount if you buy a tong. Tong’s have 5x 100g cakes sealed in bamboo. If you are into maocha we have a limited amount of this material loose and unpressed as well.

Each cake comes with a special Danger Zone sticker!

About Crimson Lotus Tea View company

Company description not available.

2 Tasting Notes

111 tasting notes

Thick, good huigan and mouthwatering sensations. Balanced bitterness that is somewhat aggressive without being overpowering or harsh. Very floral in early steeps in a perfumy way instead of honeyish, like sticking your face into a patch of lillies…not my thing when it comes to tea. I much prefer my florals to be of a honey rather than perfume character which is why I’m not wild about Jingmai teas but if you like perfumy teas you should try this. I’m hoping it ages out a bit bc I’d like it more a little less pronounced. Oh yeah. The qi is impressive too. I found it nicely energizing and euphoric. Slightly calming as well. There you have it. If you like flowery tea with good energy you should try this. Don’t think I’ll cake it but glad I tried it.

Natethesnake

4 months later and this tea has become much sweeter and less floral. More honey than perfume now. Definitely an improvement.

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123 tasting notes

He Kai is one of those areas I’ve always been interested in, but never really gotten around to exploring proper. When Crimson Lotus came out with this tea, I was immediately interested to try it. The gorgeous artwork also helped.

I brewed this tea in my standard manner: seven grams in a 100ml gaiwan. The aroma of the dry leaf in a preheated gaiwan is surprisingly pungent. In contrast, the rinsed leaves present very little in terms of aroma. The wash itself was very strong, very pungent, quite creamy. After a few minutes of rest, I followed up with twelve proper infusions, the timing for these 7s, 7s, 5s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s, 2 min. and 3 min.

Right out of the gate, Danger Zone starts off with a big body and a really rich but balanced flavor. The aftertaste is also quite strong. The first several steeps are like this, growing thicker and thicker with each infusion, presenting a very dense and rich but also smooth and balanced taste. While the soup is packed full of minerals, strength and plant matter goodness, there is no one single characteristic that ever starts to dominate the tea. The tea can be quite sweet at times, also presenting some playful kuwei here and there, but avoiding any real harsh character throughout the session.

At its thickest, the He Kai gets absolutely ridiculous with its brothy goodness which becomes almost difficult to swallow. The soup is oily and coating, with a hint of bitterness and citrus in the finish. The word I keep coming back to is ‘smooth’. Despite the infusions having strength to them, the tea never even begins to approach becoming overpowering or dominated by any singular characteristic. The bitterness and astringency do start building up toward the end of the session, but they are always playing off of the sweetness.

Overall, I was very pleased with Danger Zone. The material is clearly high quality and it has a unique character that sets it apart from your typical generic sheng offerings. For a high-end tea, the He Kai is much more flavor-focused than most, albeit still not a tea where the flavor profile is the main attraction, like with other types of tea like most hong cha and wulong.

The thickness is totally nuts and the strength very deceptive due to the tea’s smoothness and balance. There were only really two areas where the He Kai fell a bit short. The first one was the aromatics. Aerating the tea in my mouth presented me with virtually nothing to play with. Since this is still a very young tea that hasn’t necessarily had time to develop aroma, I’m willing to give it a pass for now. The other area is more of a personal preference, but for my tastes the tea was a bit lacking in bitterness. As a fan of Bulang teas, extremely spicy food, etc., I do prefer some more backbone to my teas, but overall Danger Zone was still a tea that I find very easy to recommend. The fact that I ended up ordering a cake after the session should speak for that.

Flavors: Astringent, Bitter, Citrus, Creamy, Olive Oil, Sweet, Tart, Vegetal

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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