Rose Tuocha Longyuanhao 2000 Shu Pu'er

These mini tuochas were the perfect portable shu for me to bring to work, to avoid needing to break a cake at my desk. The wrapper indicates that this tea is from Haiwan tea factory. As is fairly typical with tuochas the leaves are very tightly compressed, so I started this tea off with a 20 second rinse and 5 minutes to rest and loosen.

1st, 15 sec: The mini tu is still tightly compressed and the liquor is a golden yellow. Aroma of the wet leaves is earthy but the mouthfeel is cooling and numbing to match the strongly spearmint flavor of the liquor. Maybe there’s a hint of rose, but that could just because I expect there to be. The second steeping is much the same, but with slightly more body as the leaves begin to break apart.

3rd, 10 sec: Tuo is starting to break apart. Liquor has a wonderful sweetbread smell and tastes like pear with some mint still on the back on the sip

4th, 10 sec: Tea is waking up now. Nice full bodied mouthfeel that coats the tongue and leaves your mouth watering. A little astringent, but not bad. Aroma is fruity, but the flavor is all clove and mint with only a hint of fruit this time. As it cools it gets earthy and peppery.

5th, 20 sec: This tea doesn’t have much staying power. I basically got one strong steep once it opening and now it’s already fading. This steeping is fruity and minty once again.

6th, 1 min: The fruit flavor has been succeeded by a brown sugar taste this round. Still an echo of mint as the sip fades.

I’ll be honest — minty isn’t really what I’m looking for when I drink a shu. It was a pleasant and cooling tea, but a bit shallow and not quite my style. That combined with how short a session of this tea lasts for makes this a very middle of the road shu for me.

Rinse and short multiple steeps.

Easy to drink, and thankfully not too much rose with that earthy note; more lightly floral than pungent perfume. It’s probably my least favourite shu that I’ve tried in the last little while, but you know? I haven’t had a negative experience with my big container of pu’er yet. I actually look forward to drinking them right now. Weird.

Not bad. I don’t know that I love the rose petals, but it’s not bad.

I probably won’t drink all of every steep I try. I’m on steep 3 and mostly I’ve been playing with taking photos of pouring the tea…

This was an Asian style steeping (I used a gaiwan).

The first infusion of the tea was amazing! Gave me hope, that one day I would like to drink Pu’ers. It was full bodied, incredibly smooth, with a rosey floral taste with a hint of wet leaves. The finish lingered for quite some time too. The color was a almost brick red, but with an orange hue to it. Kind of like a sunset.

The second taste was as dark as it can get at dusk, without it being entirely black. The taste was a strong wet leaves taste, with the floral taste on the side.

Happy Valentine’s Day! What better tea to have than a rose, long lasting shu puerh to celebrate the day of love? :) I’m not going to write a detailed review tonight as I’ve been drinking this tea western brewed all day, but it’s a nice shu, pretty smooth, dark, tasty. Unfortunately not much rose, but on the third steep (first two of 30s, 3rd of 45s) the tuocha is still not broken apart, so maybe it will come? I recall when I had this gongfu that the rose was more present though. Still delicious, easy on the stomach, and has awesome staying power. Perfect for today!

I wanted to love this tea. I so, SO wanted to love this tea. I love shus and I love rose, and I was hoping it would be the best of both.

I have tried this tea on three separate occasions with different steeping methods, twice with the gaiwan and once in a teapot.

I get almost no rose in this tea, and that’s what I was really excited about. It is a decent shu – it’s just the tiniest bit brisk (that might be the little bit of rose coming through.) Just not what I’d hoped for. sigh Oh well.