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Free sample thrown in with my order.

First impression: Tomato, celery, malt. A little fruit with a punch of veggie umami. Not terribly sweet, but some mineral sweetness. A sourness I’ve not experienced in black tea before. I assume from the gaba processing.

2nd take: Wet leaves smell of malt and a sharp floral. Liquid smells of citrus, pine, and malt. And a not unpleasant odor that reminds me of working maintenance in college dorms, but not sure what that is. Texture thickened up a bit. Taste is less vegetal. Lingering sour taste on the sides of my tongue.

If you do not like your black tea sweet, this might be up your alley. If you are sensitive to the gaba effects, this might bee of interest. It is not for me.

Edit: Trying the second half of my sample this morning. Decided to try it western style instead. The tomato/celery veggie notes are a lot less present this way. The sourness is stronger. I’m also getting stronger malt. Still not for me.

I’m pretty skeptical of this due to it’s price. I’m hoping what I got is at least wuyi adjacent. and for this review that is going to be my assumption. This is pretty generic for this kind of tea. Medium/light roast as is relative to my experience with these teas. Good buttery roast aroma. Kinda thin brew. The characteristic mineral sweetness.

Edit: The aroma of the wet leaves: Habanero. This is the only place I’ve ever experienced this smell away from the burning sensation.

Nothing exceptional. Solid daily drinker for when I want to step away from the funky stuff.

50g portion purchased 2021.
4.7g in 90ml gaiwan. Boiling water.

Very green Fu Brick, but plenty of fungus in my sample. These Hunan green hei chas frequently have avery fresh wood/raspberry character. This one is no different. Raspberry ketone sweetness, dry wood, autumnal (but dry). No really bitterness. A little drying . Oily texture. Not a lot of base notes. Very inoffensive for a tea covered in mold.

Not sure I’d recommend this tea. It depends. If you’ve never had a Hunan green brick hei cha, I’d say this is a great example for really cheap. If you are an experienced Fu cha drinker, this isn’t terribly special.

I’ve not had a wide variety of these Hubei Green Brick teas. Having drunk through two bricks of others and a brick and a half of this, I think I have a general grasp of the category’s outlines. All of these I’ve had share some common characteristics: Rougher/chopped leaves, heavy mineral sweetness, and dried fruit and woody flavors.

This one in particular takes a bit to open up as the compression seems to be higher than others I’ve tried. It starts out as a dried fruit bomb with lots of dark sweet aromas. The next thing I notice is a raisin-y-toffee-wood flavor that will be with the tea for the rest of the session. Once it really opens up it is pretty consistent steep-to-steep.

Low/no bitterness or astringency. Nothing of note with the texture. This is the most interesting green brick I’ve tried. While it i doesn’t really blow me away, it is always a safe and reliable tea to reach for. Really easy drinking stuff. If you’ve been run off by cheaper, bland, super chopped up, Hubei heicha in the past and are looking to give the catagory another chance, this seems to be a good option.

After buying and devouring 2 samples from this kilo brick, I finally decided to dive in and buy an entire brick. My tea budget isn’t very big, so dedicating $120 to a single tea takes a lot. In short: I love this tea. It is everything I want in a comforting cup, but I know it isn’t for everyone.

Smell (dry leaves): Smoke/campfire smoke, High mountain forest aromas, mushrooms
Smell (Wet Leaves/Cup): Smoke, malt, nutmeg, seaweed/umami, chocolate, bay leaf, salinity, minerals/rock

Taste: There is smoke, but not nearly as much as you’d think from the smell. That smoke really seams to bring out the chocolate-y malt notes. There is a nutmeg/cannella/cinnamon mixing in that gives the tea a big Mexican Hot Chocolate feel. The entire tea wants to go savory, but there is a very prominent mineral sweetness that takes the lead. No astringency. A bit oily in texture. The only bitterness is a dark chocolate bitterness.

This tea isn’t the best looking. It has a lot of stems. A lot of stems. Many. The leaves themselves are in excellent condition for a fu brick. The fermentation isn’t really heavy. The leaves are a dark forest green when wet. Being a fu brick, it is chock full of fungus. This tea always leaves me in a good mood. Really relaxing comforting tea. If the flavor profile sound good to you, I’d highly recommend sampling.

Solid aged white.

Smell: Honey, malt, some remaining floral character, books, muscatel, etc.
Taste: Malt, woody, autumnal

Really good for the price. An easy going cup with enough complexity and age to keep things interesting. Really dig it.

Purchased from puerhshop.com summer 2021.
5.4g in 100ml gaiwan:

- Smell (Dry Leaf): Honey, Malt, Old Books
- Smell (Wet Leaf): Old Books, Almond, Sugarcane, Caramel, Dried fruit, Malt, Oregano
- Smell (Liquid): “Aged”, Old Books, Oregano
- Taste: Malt, Paper, Age, Paper, Honey. Did I already say paper?

This tea is a solid, well priced, aged yue gang bai that is absolutely worth buying if you drink a lot of aged whites and want a daily drinker. It’ll really help you keep your hands off the really good stuff you want to have aging. The Troy, Michigan storage from puerhshop is definitely on the very dry side of storage, but luckily that has been really good for this tea. I was worried that the storage would have really hampered the aromatic quality of this tea, but that isn’t the case. Going to have to buy another cake for daily drinking.

Incredibly, meh. Better than a lipton tea bag. Not a lot interesting in this herbal leaning white tea/tisane. Really dries my mouth out and gave me a headache. I’ll use this as an excuse to see how ye sheng ages. Throwing it in the back of my tea storage to be forgotten for a while.

Small leaves. Really sweet and fruity for a shu. It is a solid cup. Received as a free sample in a recent order. I was really afraid of my tea having :shelf fatigue" or being too dry being that it is shipped from Troy, Michigan. No dry storage issue flavors detected. Just really inky dark punchy shu.

Edit: I bought a full cake. Still fruity, some vanilla, dry wood background. Earthy notes you’d expect from shu. The red fruits really are the star of the show here. Really pronounced.