2019 Green Hype – White2Tea

This tea has been a real rollercoaster. I got the whole cake as part of the White2Tea club, and it really has changed every time I’ve tried it. The first time was pretty different than the later two, and the last one specifically put me in such a weird headspace that I couldn’t sleep for hours after having tried it. With smokiness, distinct tastes of aged material, and possible a qi that really punches above it’s price point, this is a hard one to pin. If anything, I take comfort in the fact that everyone else reviewing this tea so soon after its pressing is in the same position as I am, as time is beyond us all.

Beginning with steep one, the color of this tea resembled a deeper gold than most young shengs its age. The flavor immediately hit hard, with an aggressive smokiness that brought hefty astringency with it, along with a bit of a vegetal taste. Encapsulated in this was a sweetness that crept up from under my tongue, and lingered. A honey-like underlying taste was present, but was buried in the deep body.

As the steeps developed up to the third and fourth, any vegetal tastes turned into earthy ones. A distinct hint of aged material began to come through as well, but with none of the tame qualities that aged sheng has. The light sweetness continued to shine through, but had a hard time getting through the bitterness and astringency that continued to develop and amplify. The bitterness shouldn’t be feared though, as it had no negative mouthfeel, just a bitter taste. This is something very familiar to good raw puers. After steep four, starting with the middle of my tongue, the bitterness began to plateau.

From steeps five to seven, the tea gave it’s final fights. The sweetness in the tea, when it wasn’t lingering, was still something that needed to be worked towards, as it was shrouded in such a hearty-bodied woody / smokey flavor. By steep seven though, the boldness of the brew began to curb, signaling the end of this tea’s power through steeps.

Between steeps 8 and 12, the liquor thinned and sweetened. While this isn’t unusual for many shengs, it didn’t present this entirely independently; the astringency of previous steeps was so strong, that this stripped-away sweetness towards the end of this brew was still contested by bold smokiness from the earlier steeps. Finishing off the tea, I was left with a resonating sweetness, but a dry mouth.

In conclusion, this tea is a great example of money going towards complexity rather than feel-good taste. It’s intricate, changing, and rewarding for continuing through the steeps, even if just to see how the flavors interact with each other. This tea is too young to say if I’d enjoy drinking it’s bold progression daily, but at $38, it’s an excellent price for a daily drinker, and I enjoyed last years Green Hype very much as well.

Specs:

6.9g / 100ml

100c (boiling) water

Steep time = 5x seconds, where x = steep number

Core 2018 – Bitterleaf Teas

After a long absence from my Instagram, and an even longer absence from this blog, I’m returning on all platforms with this review. That means that this review will not only have a Steepster entry, but also an Instagram post and a Youtube video. The links for those accounts are found on the main page of this blog, go check them out!

Pictured: Me next to steep 11

I’ve had this sample of Bitterleaf’s Core 2018 kicking around for far too long, to the point where I forgot what its described flavors were, which made it perfect for a taste review now. After rinsing the leaves, their wet aroma gave off no alarming or obnoxious smells; some of the immediate sourness and strength, which is present in some young shengs, was not present here. The smell wasn’t necessarily dull, but it gave me nothing to fear continuing.

The color of the liquor began as a very light yellow, and didn’t stray far from this throughout the session. The tea was clearer than some of the tea I’m more acquainted with, but still wasn’t entirely transparent. Sipping the first steep, there was an immediate sweetness that resonated on the tip of my tongue, and lingered on my lips. As I swallowed the tea, it tingled the middle and back of my tongue. The body of this tea was rather thin, but not distastefully so. The dominant flavor at this point was still the light sweetness, which edged on floral, but was not so bright. The second steep highlighted the lower half of this tea’s flavor, which is a vegetal, somewhat grassy, and slightly bitter, taste. This type of flavor is very common among young shengs, especially ones less than three years in age; however, this component of the tea did not hit as hard as it does in some others like it. The sweetness was not overpowered by this vegetal taste, but it did become clear that there were two fighting flavors in the tea. This part of the tea ramped up against the sweeter counterpart up until steep 6. During this, a underlying and faint creaminess established itself in the brew; recurring, but not very prevalent. Steep 6 was a turning point in flavor, as the vegetal / bitter flavors plateaued, and faded every steep past 6. The sweetness had calmed by this point, but came out on top as it became the dominant flavor in steep 6 +.  This was a nice surprise, and gives the drinker a reason to keep steeping beyond the first few. This said, it is worth nothing that the harder you brew this tea, the more vegetal it will taste; similarly, the quicker you drink it, the less you’ll taste of it’s sweet flavor.

In conclusion, this young sheng doesn’t bring much to the table in terms of complexity or body feel, but it is an excellent value for a daily drinker – $36 for a whole 200g cake, which, at one year’s age, is an incredibly tame young sheng. The sweetness may dull with age, but if the body of the tea is to beef up over the next few years, I could see it evolving into a very interesting brew.

Specs:

6.8g / 100ml

100c (boiling) water

Steep time = 5x seconds, where x = steep number