Banzhang Chun Qing Puer

An other thanks is in order to my good friend Brett for this wonderful Puer.
This raw puer is fantastic. The smell from the cake itself is that of wet grass. Though a very young tea for puer I would still suggest trying it at this early age.

I made a total of 23 infusions of this puer, I have never had a tea last so long. Every different infusion had a different flavor to it. The first 5 where more earthy and had a taste of pine. A kind of bitter sweet came with it as well. Also a kind of spice that I cannot seem to place. After the 7th infusion I tasted various fruits, from the watery dragon fruit to pomegranate. This is a very clean tea leaving no negative tastes at all, it also was not very vegatal in nature. I was expecting a more grassy taste because of its young age, but I was gladly mistaken.

I would recommend buying this tea, Hopefully I will be able to try it years later.

On an other note, Sorry I have not been posting much lately. I have been busy working many dance concerts in my theatre and the end of term at my school was extremely hard this year. Also I have been buying gifts for my family and girlfriend, needless to say I haven't had much time to post anything. I will be posting a lot more now, well until I run out of tea to post about.

Happy Holidays all!

60 year old Baozhong Stems

First off I would like to thank my friend Brett for this amazing tea, you truly are a great friend.

I would just like to say I love this tea, though I can see how some people would not. The stems smell fantastic like the forest after a clean rain. What a wonderful smell. As I smelt the amazing scent of moss brewing in the pot, I became excited and could not wait to try this tea.

The soup after 5 minutes was a dark yellow color, almost golden. I the first sip was like drinking top soil from the rain forest, I felt as if this embodied nature in a cup. You slowly will taste a sweetness in the soup, almost like a nectar of a flower, light.

After finishing that cup 5-7 minutes later, I went back for more. I had left the stems in there so they could steep longer. A new flavor came about. It was not like soil anymore, it had become a taste of wet bark. What an interesting flavor. The dark orange color looked to be that of rust. The sweetness this time was a lot stronger and more like, I want to say pine but that is kind of misleading so some form of tree sap I just can't place which tree.

Though I love this tea, I could see how some people could be put off by the extremely earthy taste that came from this tea. I would still suggest to give it a try if you ever have the chance, I know I will try to find more teas like this one.

To think that this is what the stems taste like, I wonder what the leaves from the stems are like now.

Today I also finished making a four mint tea, though these are just the leaves I am thinking of making one with just the stems or a mix of both the stems and leaves. I know this is an herbal tea but it taste great during these gloomy winter months. So if you would like some let me know. I think its worth a try, but that might just be because I grew the mints myself.

What a great day.