2011 Bang Wei Spring Raw

Off my special diet today and enjoying some other teas I haven’t had in a whole month.. I have been having only 1 green tea a day. This tea was a bit of a disappointment for my first sheng in a month. It was very mineral, straw, and light apricot.

I used 7g in my 100mL gaiwan with boiled water. I could tell this was a quality tea.

Early steeps were light in flavor with notes of straw, apricot, and burnt sugar. Though the flavors were pretty light, the mouth feel of this showed its power. It made my tongue feel fat and tingly, and the feeling traveled down the throat and warmed through my chest. As the session went on, the sugar flavor died out a bit. Got straw, apricot/stonefruit flavors, and a pungent flavor which showed the power of the tea. Mouth feel was thick throughout the session and continued to travel through the body. I would probably consider buying a cake of this if it wasn’t sold out. Darn sample-tease lol.

Looks like a lot of Pu-Erh’s are en vogue right now. I used a lot less leaves-something close to 2 grams and got 5 solid cups out of it and incredible positive cha qi. There was also little bitterness to be found-just florals and apricot sweetness. Thanks to Andrew, I have an excellent mini-stock of this tea. I also officially know that I like Pu-Erh’s on the Greener/Lighter side over black ones…what is the differentiation in Chinese?

Like I said, there was positive cha qi. I’m starting to rely on tea for that lately, almost like an antidepressant. The shooting in Orlando got to me: the right’s reaction got to me more. So I sipped this down on this cool grey day as I pray for those who have been lost, and I pray for the best of people to rise in U.S. society as the worst does. It made my day-now to get a good tea with a great taste and qi for everyday.

From the Sheng Olympics.

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about this tea, but after tasting it, I have to conclude that the buzz is mostly about the buzz. Sorry, I know this is steepster rather than punster but I couldn’t resist. The cha qi is amazing. I rate puerh according to taste and cha qi and this one got a 100 for cha qi. The taste, however, didn’t excite me.

The taste is mostly a mix of straw and leather, starting out mostly straw but ending with leather. In the middle steeps it began to be astringent, with a bit of ashes in the taste. By the 6th steep, the taste was dominated by the astringency, and 25 minutes after I finished, my mouth was still puckered. It was an interesting tea, but not one I would invest in, since I have a few other teas with comparable cha qi whose taste I enjoy more.

BTW: I liked the 2007 version much better, so it is possible this is just going through an awkward stage.

Third tea of the 2016 Sheng Olympics.

I am working rather slowly through these teas, only pulling them out when I have enough time to spend with them. The second tea I tried was the 2007 version of this, but to be honest I was a little under-impressed with that tea. It was nice, but seemed to my tastebuds to be rather one-dimensional and like many other aged shengs I have tried. I didn’t end up writing a note for it simply because I really couldn’t come up with that much to say.

This one is another story altogether. It is sweet and fresh and earthy, and while it still has an aged flavor, that note doesn’t entirely dominate the tea. It is very well balanced and leaves me feeling refreshed on a deep level. This is one I would definitely buy, where as the 2007 I would not. This is an excellent tea.

gulp.

Second steep in my legs have gone very warm and my head feels wavy. Its going to be one of those teas isnt it.

Proper review later if I dont lose the damn thing

A Sheng Olympics sample. :) 7g sample in my 4oz gaiwan, steeping at 90-100C. I started drinking this yesterday… or was it 2 days ago? and now I’m taking it for a few more long steeps before I switch to something else. As I was drinking this earlier, I remember thinking that it would be hard to describe in a tasting note. It’s fairly smooth and clean-tasting, with that “old books” note that I associated with slightly-aged sheng. There’s a bit of pleasant bitterness, balanced against some sugar sweetness especially in the later steeps.

2016 Sheng Olympics

Story time: Instagram is one of my favorite places and I kind of enjoy looking at all the pictures, so it’s of no surprise that I have AllanK on my radar. This is someone, like many of us, who really enjoys tea. Now, here is where this is relevant, he buys tea by the car load and hires an Uber driver to deliver it once it arrives to the post office nearest to him. That’s the amount of tea that he has, now just imagine how much he has tasted and how critical he can be on tea. After about a year of observing his pictures, seeing the difference between the old and new phone, and reading what he has to say I can say this with no doubt: Allan has no bias towards any particular shop and is always on the hunt for good tea whether it is through Ebay or a well known vendor.

Now, let me first say that Allan does not hire an Uber driver to deliver tea and that it’s not a car load at a time. Humor just has to find its way in this because I’m sipping away at this 2011 Bang Wei when I shouldn’t be… there is other teas that I can drink that would be in a better order as I won’t be drinking the 07’ for some time. I’m drinking this because of the review I read, some trust is put in my tea friend as he made remarks of it being good and those thoughts ate at me…

Upon brewing this, the aroma hit me like: you sir will be my date tonight. Sure enough, 16 steeps into this tea and I’ll probably hit 20+ no problem. I will agree with everything Allan said about this tea and I am quite glad that I added it to the 2016 Sheng Olympics. Pretty excited to try the 2007 as well, hoping that it has the clarity and sweetness that this tea has when it comes to having a pure taste that doesn’t deviate from the earlier steeps.

This and the 07’ version will be compared to the CLT in regards to what to purchase as I suspect they will all be similar because the You Le (YS) is more of the medium level sheng for my taste buds so it fits in a different category.

2016 Sheng Olympics sheng sampler from Liquid Proust. This is without doubt one of the best shengs I have ever drank. It had very little bitterness and a sweet taste from the start. I would have to use the word apricot to describe the sweetness, apricots and stonefruits definitely. I gave this ten steeps and may go back to two more if I reheat my Anta Pottery Clay Boiler again. I don’t know how much this one cost and I’ve never ordered from Tea Urchin but I definitely want one. I think I want to buy one and store it it my pumidor for the long term. However, since I also want to go in on the group order from Yanqqinghao with Emmet I may have to wait on this.

I steeped this tea ten times in a 100ml gaiwan with 6.3g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min. The tea was not played out at ten steeps, I’m sure I could get a few more from it and may go back to it after I finish this review.