2013 Ontario 1357 Shou Pu-erh

Tea type
Pu'erh Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Dirt, Leather, Tobacco, Artichoke, Bread, Brown Sugar, Camphor, Caramel, Cocoa, Creamy, Dark Wood, Mocha, Molasses, Musty, Roasted, Smooth, Dark Chocolate, Raisins, Stonefruit, Wood, Cream, Earth, Sweet, Vegetal, Nuts, Vanilla, Wet Earth, Dates, Walnut, Wet wood
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Loose Leaf
Caffeine
High
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Whispering Pines Tea Company
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 2 min, 30 sec 5 g 11 oz / 314 ml

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36 Tasting Notes View all

  • “This is not as “creamy” smooth a Pu-erh as I have had in other places, but it’s nice. It does have much more smoothness than a normal black tea; Pretty nice but not exceptional.” Read full tasting note
    70
  • “Thought I would give this another go today. Mostly leather and dirt. I didn’t notice the tobacco that I did previously. I’m just not sure I’m going to be able to develop an appreciation for pu’erh...” Read full tasting note
  • “Sipdown (1336)! I’m pretty sure this sample was from TheWeekendSessions, so thank you Micah for the tea sample! I always feel bad finishing off straight tea samples Western style, but I just didn’t...” Read full tasting note
    79
  • “A shou for coffee drinkers, I found this one to be pretty bitter a few short steeps in and pleasantly bitter. After 4-5 steepings the bitterness gives way to a very deeply creamy, almost chocolate...” Read full tasting note
    80

From Whispering Pines Tea Company

Our 2013 Ontario 1357 is a loose shou pu-erh harvested in 2012 and fermented from December ’12 through January ’13. It was produced from the best Yongde county spring ’12 material and blended using grades 1, 3, 5, 7 and golden gong ting for complexity. Sweet, smooth, and highly aromatic, Ontario 1357 delivers a mouthfeel somewhat between a lightly fermented shou and an old raw pu-erh. Notes of brown sugar and walnut are at the forefront, with vanilla and cream balancing it out. A gorgeous vanilla finish lingers with cooling camphor on the tip of the tongue and lips. This tea has a very strong yet calming qi and is a favorite of mine for rainy days and pre-yoga. A fantastic loose shou for drinking now or further aging!

About Whispering Pines Tea Company View company

Whispering Pines Tea Company is dedicated to bringing you the most original, pure, beautiful tea blends. We use only the highest quality ingredients available to create additive-free teas teas inspired by the pristine wilderness of Northern Michigan. Our main focus is on customer satisfaction and quality.

36 Tasting Notes

85
2238 tasting notes

This is what I decided on for today after everything happened this morning. I’ve heard really, really good things about this pu’erh, and it’s been long overlooked in my cupboard. I’m using 1 tsp of leaf for this session, which had an initial rinse of 1 minute in water just cooled from boiling.

First steep is for 1 minute in water just cooled from boiling. The rinse liquor was fairly strongly scented and fishy, so I was wary with my first steep. It turns out that I needn’t have been – the flavour here is pretty delicate and the fishiness has gone completely. The best way to describe this would be “earthy cream”. It’s smooth and sweet with an underlying creaminess, but the main flavour is light forest floor/wet leaf, hence “earthy”. There’s a mild camphor-like coolness after successive sips.

Second steep also for one minute, in boiling water. The flavour this time is a little less distinctively earthy, with amped up cream notes and a touch of brown sugar/molasses in the mid-sip. Interestingly, the scent is still very earthy, but it’s not really coming out in the flavour. I’ve no problem with that, though – cream and brown sugar are just fine with me!

Lunch beckons, but I’ll be returning to this one later…

Third Steep for two minutes in boiling water. The liquor is much darker this time – a red-brown rather than an orange-brown. The flavour seems to have developed a little, too, and is now nuttier (I’m thinking walnut or hazelnut), with a caramel note lurking in the background. There’s still a touch of molasses, and the same distinctive creaminess. The earthiness is back very slightly, but is confined mostly to the aftertaste. I’m guessing the longer steep time encouraged this to re-emerge.

Fourth steep also for two minutes in boiling water. The earthiness has disappeared again, but the lightly sweet creaminess remains, with hints of brown sugar. Some of the intensity has worn off that flavour now, so I wouldn’t really call it molasses anymore. Brown sugar for sure, though. One thing I really like about this one is how it seems to get smoother with each successive steep. It was already pretty smooth to start with, but now it’s even more so. Silky, mildly sweet, sugar/cream amazingness.

Fifth steep for 3 minutes in boiling water, and it’s possibly the most amazing yet. It’s really sweet, with a distinctive creaminess and strong brown sugar notes, also a touch of vanilla. There’s no earthiness at all, and it’s the silkiest, smoothest thing that’s passed my lips in a long, long time. I know 3 minutes was recommended for this one, and I can definitely see why. I’m still over-cautious when it comes to pu’erh, though, especially the early steeps, thanks to a couple of fairly dodgy experiences. I’m going to have to think about what to do with my next cup, and whether to start with a longer steep straight off? Maybe it’s time to be brave again.

I had hoped to get six steeps of this one completed – two each at one, two and three minutes. I’m almost out of time unless I take the leaves home with me, though, and in all honesty I’m not going to faff around doing that. I’ve had a good time with this tea today, though – it’s kept me company without the need for milk, and has been utterly delicious all the way through. I’m really glad I picked up a pouch of this one, and only sad I didn’t get around to trying it sooner.

Preparation
1 tsp

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82
258 tasting notes

A very smooth and drinkable selection. Not super overpowering especially with a good rinse. An earthy creaminess is the best way I can think to describe it. A good tea buzz is achieved through multiple gongfu steeps. A solid tea overall.

Flavors: Cream, Earth

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 30 sec 3 tsp 6 OZ / 177 ML

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90
1184 tasting notes

This is the base for the “art of darkness” I believe, and I really enjoyed that one, so it’s no Suprise that I enjoy this one as well. The brew is a deep Amber.

I think the description is fairly accurate for this one. The forefront notes are earthy, sweet, walnut. There are background notes of vanilla. I didn’t necessarily get cream notes, but the mouthfeel is certainly creamy.

Resteeped 4&5 minutes

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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350 tasting notes

I was inspired by Brenden’s “Art of Darkness” blend to try mixing this with Tisano cacao shells. So, I started with 1.5tsp of this shou in a brewing basket and gave it a quick rinse with boiling water. Then I added 1.5tsp of the cacao shells, put it in my 10oz tea mug, steeped western-style with boiling water. I did… 4 steeps: 3min, 5min, a long time (I walked away and forgot about it), and 10min. It was really delicious – chocolately and creamy and a bit earthy. I’ve steeped cacao shells with chocolatey black teas like Laoshan Black, and it’s pretty good, but I think this is my favourite combination so far. Highly recommended!

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314 tasting notes

From the Sheng and Shou TTB2

First a mea culpa. I told everyone that we needed to review the Whispering Pines teas, since Brendan had provided free samples. They he got pretty close to zero reviews. I started off the bad example. My only defense is that I tend not to review shous because the taste doesn’t appeal to me that much. So anyway, here is my review.

I started with a 10 second rinse. The first steep had a significant salmon smell and aroma, along with a berry fruit. I didn’t actually mind the salmon, though it was a bit weird. It was entirely gone after that steep, so a double rinse would avoid it. The tea was very fruity; so much so that I wanted to really fall in love with the tea. However, there was an earthy bitterness that came and went through half a dozen steeps. Very good, but not great.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C

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1113 tasting notes

Drinking quite a bit of this today to see how I like it. I believe that wet earth is the best description that can be applied to this, but by saying ‘bold wet earth’ may actually do more justice.

This is a fine pu’erh that looks rather young still. While it may not be my favorite, yet still taste great, this may be one of those teas that mellows slightly over the years to provide a warm honey pu’erh brew. I will look into trying this a few years down the road :)

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80
62 tasting notes

So, this is less of a tasting note than a brewing note, I guess. After reading this article (http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/how-to-make-the-best-cold-brew-iced-tea.html), I decided to try it out, and this is the tea I pulled out to try it with (don’t know if it’s the best tea for this method, but it’s what I pulled out _ ). I used a full rounded teaspoon in…. I think about a liter of water? I keep forgetting how big that pitcher is. I’ll need to re-measure it one of these days. I did use a teaball, and looking back at the article, it looks like the author left the tea leaves loose in the water, so we’ll see how this works.

I will update in the morning. :)

7/21/2015 ETA: I realize I never updated this. Sorry, life happened. I got three ~10oz cups of tea out of my pitcher. It was very refreshing, but I must admit, I lost a lot of the flavor of the pu-erh. It was there, but much harder to find than before. Also, I tried cold-brewing a pitcher of my Star Trek Earl Grey (currently my favorite EG), and got similar results – I got more flavor from the Earl Grey (the lavender and bergamot) than I did from the pu-erh, but they were still muted compared to hot-brewed. I did like having the pre-steeped tea in the fridge, because I could still enjoy it, and it was easy to just pour and move on to what I needed to do. I am going to try this with other teas – still need to try it with some lighter teas, I think. And some ithers with strong flavors. I suspect that the cold brewing will work better with…. strong-flavored teas. I don’t want to say artificially-flavored necessarily, but I think the subtle flavor variations naturally occurring in tea from different regions may get dampened to almost nothing by the cold-brewing process, and you might as well be brewing Lipton (not that there’s anything wrong with that _). It the article, it mentions that cold-brewing can shorten the distance between a decent-quality and a great quality tea, and after the two I tried (both extremely good quality, as far as I can tell), I think that might be the case, since the cold seems to wash out the variation.

Anyway, I’ll continue to experiment, and try to remember to report my results here.

Preparation
8 min or more 1 tsp 34 OZ / 1000 ML
scribbles

There are a few members that cold brew shou pu’erh to get the last bit of flavour from the leaves and they seem to really like it. I haven’t tried myself, but really should to get the most out of the leaves. Hope it works it out for you :)

Magycmyste

Thanks! I need to start multi-steeping my leaves, too. If cold-brewing works well, I think that’s will make it easier for me, since I can just keep it in the fridge, and since I tend to drink my highest caffeine teas in the morning if I can. Here’s hoping I get my caffeine tolerance rebuilt so I can enjoy any tea I want, anytime. :)

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15006 tasting notes

i had this on earlier today. I think it’s a little beyond me. No matter what i seemed to do with it, i just wasn’t feeling it. so the rest is off to terri or cavo…or someone haha.

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78
518 tasting notes

from the Sheng and Shou TTB

I did not follow the directions from the website. I didn’t even think to look until after I was almost done with this tea. I went for short and sweet.

It’s got nice flavor. I enjoyed it. It just didn’t last nearly as long as I would have hoped it would. Oh well.

I also apparently didn’t like this as much as everyone else reviewing it did. It was nice, but I’ve had way better shou.

Preparation
5 g 3 OZ / 90 ML

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90
157 tasting notes

Prepared this gongfu-style with a ceramic cupping set. I followed the online brewing instructions with a 10 second rinse beforehand. Because I don’t have a scale, I measured out around 1.5 tablespoons of tea to 4oz of water. The measurements aren’t exact.

Oh my word, this is a good tea. It has notes of brown sugar, cocoa, raisins, nuts, caramel, wood, and wet earth. I didn’t notice a drastic difference in flavor from cup to cup. Nearly every flavor mentioned was present, just in varying intensities. The liquid is rich and full, silky, thick. It is decadent and sweet. There are some slight vanilla and cream undertones, though they’re not immediately apparent. The first few steeps are more earthy than the later steeps which are pure sweet, nutty, dessert-like goodness. Excellent qi in this one. I’m floaty and tea drunk on a lovely Sunday evening. Not a care in the world…

Flavors: Brown Sugar, Caramel, Cocoa, Cream, Nuts, Raisins, Vanilla, Wet Earth, Wood

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