Chen Sheng Hao sent me their raw puerh tasting flight to taste and experience 7 different examples of dashu cha. They say this tasting box is the perfect way to get to know their teas. The tea I picked for today’s session is the 2022 Naka sheng. 2022 NaKa In the tasting flight, each cake is 28g and it’s easy to get a quarter so each tea session should be around 7g of tea. They describe this tea as the “sweetness representative of puerh tea”. I’ve had some pretty good sessions with NaKa puerh before so I hope I can add this session to that list. Don’t know where to buy tea online? I made a li ..read more

Last week, the friendly people at Teasenz sent me several samples. There’s a wide variety of sheng and shu dragon balls, several phoenix oolong teas, and a 2007 Meng Song Gushu sheng puerh. The 2007 Meng Song is the tea I picked for today’s tea session. 2007 Meng Song This tea was harvested in the spring of 2007 in the Meng Song region. The leaves were aged in loose form until November 2022, when they were pressed into cakes. Don’t know where to buy tea online? I made a list of over 300 online tea shops and I keep updating it regularly. You can check it over here The fact that th ..read more

The year is coming to an end and in between all the festivities, I wanted to do another tea session. I’m always surprised by how fast the weeks fly by so I sometimes forget to write an article every week. I still have a box full of samples from iTeaworld and I picked their Dahongpao for today’s tea session. Dahongpao Dahongpao is the most famous rock oolong from the Wuyi mountains and the name means ‘big red robe’. The story goes that a scholar was passing through the Wuyi mountains and fell ill. Some monks brewed tea and that saved the scholar’s life. Don’t know where to buy tea online? I m ..read more

I still have several samples from Banna House and I was in the mood for young sheng puerh. The one I picked for today’s session is the 2022 Zhanglang Gushu. The leaves looked so good so it was a pretty easy decision. 2022 Zhanglang Gushu This is a spring 2022 sheng puerh from Zhanglang, which is located in Xisuangbanna. The leaves come from tea trees that are around 300 years old, which is pretty old. Don’t know where to buy tea online? I made a list of over 300 online tea shops and I keep updating it regularly. You can check it over here Tea tasting Water 99-95°C 5g for an 80ml ..read more

It’s an icy Saturday morning so I wanted a warming tea. I received some samples from Tea Tracks and one of those samples is the 2023 Ai Lao Wild Black Tea. I have good memories with tea from Ai Lao so I was eager to try this sample. 2023 Ai Lao Wild Black Tea This tea was harvested in 2023 and comes from a protected forest on Ai Lao Mountain. The cultivar is the Camellia Sinensis var Assamica. Don’t know where to buy tea online? I made a list of over 300 online tea shops and I keep updating it regularly. You can check it over here Tea Tasting 5.4g of tea for a 100ml porcelain ga ..read more

Last year, Paolo from puerh.uk sent me a box full of samples and I haven’t tasted all of them yet. That’s why I wanted to taste another one of his teas and the tea I went with today is the 2014 Green Mark Meng Sa shen puerh. 2014 Green Mark Meng Sa This tea comes from a secret garden in Meng Sa in the Lincang region. This garden is full of ancient trees and has been made with the ‘traditional technique’, according to the website. I wonder what is meant by this and how this is different from other/regular puerh processing? Don’t know where to buy tea online? I made a list of over 300 online t ..read more

Jan from Tea Tracks sent me some samples to try and I couldn’t be more enthusiastic because he has several teas from the Yiwu region in his catalog. The tea I picked for this morning’s tea session was his 2018 Zhang Jia Wang. 2018 Zhang Jia Wang This tea comes from Zhang Jia Wang, which is a village in the Yiwu mountains close to the Laos border. The leaves were harvested in 2018 and have been stored in Jinghong for several years. Don’t know where to buy tea online? I made a list of over 300 online tea shops and I keep updating it regularly. You can check it over here The leaves ..read more

It’s finally time for another in-depth tasting with one of the oolong teas NiaTea kindly sent me several months ago. The tea I’m drinking today is Ruby Sky, an oolong tea from Taiwan. Ruby Sky Ruby Sky is a GABA oolong tea from Taiwan. It was made from the Ruby 18 cultivar and comes from Alishan. It’s a more traditional oolong tea so that means that it’s more heavily roasted than green oolongs. Don’t know where to buy tea online? I made a list of over 300 online tea shops and I keep updating it regularly. You can check it over here GABA means ‘gamma amino butyric acid’ and is a k ..read more

The next tea on my list is the 2022 Youle Shengcha from Banna House. They sent me a package with several samples to try and the Youle Shengcha is one of those teas. Degrees are close to 30°C again in Belgium so this young sheng works well for these kinds of temperatures. 2022 Youle Dashu Shengcha This is a 2022 sheng puerh from Youle Mountain in Xishuangbanna. The tea plantation where this tea comes from is located at an altitude of between 1600m and 1800m. Don’t know where to buy tea online? I made a list of over 300 online tea shops and I keep updating it regularly. You can check it o ..read more

I have finished my coding bootcamp and I finally have time for tea again. While I was coding away (or at least trying to), I received several samples from Banna House. I already tried a sheng puerh, which was an amazing experience (full tasting notes coming soon). For today’s session, I wanted to try the Jingmai Hongcha they sent me because I mostly drink puerh from this region and hongcha is a nice change of pace. 2022 Jingmai Hongcha This tea comes from Jingmai Mountain and was harvested in spring 2022. It’s made using the same cultivar as puerh tea and it’s from dashu tea trees. This means ..read more