2017 Sunday Special

First impressions:
Signs of aging in the aroma. Old furniture, vanilla, brown sugar. Plus Something bright like cola/cherries.

1
Texture is… slick. Taste very dry and woody, not much sweetness. Light aftertaste and semi rough texture in the back of the mouth. Caffeine.

2
Aroma gets some bakery notes. Yeasty. It’s also fruity in some way. I find it very pleasant.
Liquor is similar to 1 but with a subtle bitterness that makes it more interesting. Empty cup: cherries.

3
The aroma from the wet leaves gets a lemon like acidic note that makes my mouth water.
The liquor is not much changed and a bit weaker, I probably didn’t steep it long enough. A bit more cooling, woody aftertaste.

4 5
I do a 2 minutes infusion. Aroma stays similar. Liquor gets some “ginseng” notes and a nice bitterness. However it’s not so rich or satysfiyng. I may have to change water/steeping parameters.

Final thoughts:
I generally found this tea to be on the delicate side, and I felt like doing few long steepings.
The aroma is what I like the most. The actual drink is nice as well but I prefer more intense stuff, with more presence, complexity and aftertaste. Maybe I need to change the water/leaf ratio. Also it felt more stimulating then relaxing. Anyway I like it.

From Meowster!  Thanks so much – started these steeps Sunday, finished yesterday. Steepster is finally allowing me to post about this today. I haven’t tried nearly as many W2T as I would like to try.  Meowster kindly weighed the sample – 4.5 grams.  The flavor is hard to pick apart.  Maybe I’m losing my taster for pu-erh like I am for oolong.  The four mugs were very consistent, though the first steep was distinctly like coffee somehow.  This one would be excellent to use as a coffee inspired flavored blend anyway.  Otherwise, the flavor was always smooth, sweet and very inoffensive with a scarlet tint to the brew.  This was great, but after the wonder that was 2016 Poundcake and this being W2T, I thought it would be even more special than it was.  It looks like the handful of steepster notes agree – nothing too special about this one but ALWAYS appreciative of trying any tea!
Steep #1  // 4.5 grams for full mug // 22 minutes after boiling  //  rinse// 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 12 minutes after boiling //  2 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 3 min
Steep #4 // just boiled //10 min
2020 Sipdowns: 71

Okay, week gone quickly. Back home, back with my teas. Back with pu-erhs.
It is Sunday, so why not make it special with Sunday Special tea?

I received it from Donatzsky, used 5 grams (all I had). So as well sipdown.
First steep, 10 seconds long, Bit watery :) As well… it was actually a rinse.

Second. 15 seconds.
Bit more body, some kind of typical shu flavour. Bit mineral.

Third, 30 seconds.
It is okay, still mineral.

Following ones were almost same; bit boring tea honestly. I expected something much more. But at least it is pu. Missed it. But shu puerhs won´t be my favorite probably.

Leaves were smallish and crumbly, and I rinsed this twice in boiling water, which drew out a bit of bitterness. I don’t have enough knowledge of regions, but this reminded me of a Menghai shou. Sharp bitterness, counterweighted by a dense and smooth mouthfeel from steep 2, soon followed by mineral coolness and sweetness. No wet pile element encountered. The tea soup was very dark, clear, and soil-colored with no red tint. I appreciate black tea that tastes uncluttered like this and I found it very easy to guzzle this. Paired with greasy food it has the function of a sharp unsweetened diner coffee to accompany a heavy breakfast. It has the caffeine kick too. After 5-6 steeps it quickly becomes very mineral and rather dry. The sweetness was less present overall and only really shone in one steep. Age might make this a more relaxing shou.

Gongfu from the weekend!

I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate that starting my Sunday off with a nice session of Sunday Special – and since it’s been a hot second since I revisited this tea I thought it about time. This shou has settled and softened A LOT from when I first bought it & my early tastings. It’s still not overly complex or nuanced but it has a thick oily liquor and a taste that makes me feel like I’m drinking some type of molasses beverage in a damp basement, mostly in a good way!! I think it would be a nice choice for a tea to drink over food…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B3Asc_wgkUC/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZAjGbXEiE

I did not like this.

First sip was very… uninteresting. I was expecting something with more funk considering this is such a new ripe.
The aftertaste reminds me of vitamins that I was forced to eat every morning as a child. Ugh

The vitamin taste didn’t go away in future steeps either… More bitterness came out and perhaps some hint of dark chocolate flavor? I’m not sure since I don’t like dark chocolate.

I noticed that the leaves was more stuck together in the gaiwan compared to other pu erh. Maybe it’s because it’s so freshly pressed? I’m not sure.

Overall, I think I just don’t like the shou profile from White2Tea… I really like their sheng but haven’t found a shou I enjoyed from them yet. (I don’t like 2015 & 2016 Brown Sugar either.)

I’ll probably put this away and see if it gets better… or give it away in a tea box…

This is a fairly nice ripe puerh tea with little in the way of bitterness, a fair amount of fermentation flavor but no real funkyness, and some nice sweet notes. As to the name it doen’t quite live up to a tea so good you would keep it for Sundays. It is good but not spectacular in any real way. But then again for the price you don’t expect spectacular. It was not an expensive tea. There was even a fleeting note of chocolate to this tea. I noticed it in the third steep and then not again. Overall this was very good and worth the price.

I steeped this eight times in a 180ml Yixing Teapot with 15g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 7 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, and 10 sec.