Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Pu-erh
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Tea Description:
Another classic puerh from Xing Hai, made from authentic leaves, grade 5 –7, harvested from the large, mature tea bushes of Meng Hai.
A good quality raw puerh, it will keep improving for 10 years or more. For best aging results, store in a well-aired location with a constant temperature. The Xing Hai Beeng Cha is a young puerh and shows the classic characteristics of mild flowery notes with a traditional bittersweet finish. It will develop more woody notes as it matures.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the more I am sampling different Pu-erh teas, the more I’m realizing that I really do like them. I still suffer a bit from a couple of bad experiences concerning Pu-erh, but, really, the number of good experiences I’ve had outweigh the number of bad at this point.
This is a really nice raw pu-erh, quite sweet with pleasing floral notes. I don’t think I’ve had a pu-erh where I really noticed such well-pronounced floral tones before. Usually, I taste earthiness, and yes, I taste that here too, but, I don’t think I’ve had a pu-erh where the focus is more on the notes of flower over the notes of earth.
The sweetness is very molasses-like … in fact, had I not prepared this cup myself, I would have thought that whomever did prepare it for me added a dollop of molasses to the cup.
Overall, the cup is very smooth – no bitterness, no astringency – and it has a very mellow character. A very enjoyable cup of tea, I find it to be an especially enjoyable tea to enjoy in the early evening while watching the sunset.
Jasmine Pearls from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Description:
The long silvery tea buds are hand-picked from the white tea varietal used for Silver Needle, but are heated as in a green tea process. They are then carefully stored for several weeks until the Jasmine flowers blossom. The tea buds are very skilfully hand rolled into perfect spheres and layered over several nights with the fresh Jasmine blossoms. Just a few pearls yield a highly fragrant liquor, bright with refreshing jasmine and sweet with the soft creamy undertones of the tea buds.
Read more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Wow! What an exquisite tea!
Jasmine has long been one of my favorite tea flavors, and I am especially fond of jasmine pearls. Up until about a couple of years ago, though, I was of the belief that a pearl is a pearl … and boy was I ever wrong there. Not all pearls are created equal, and this one deserves to be recognized as one of the very best!
The flavor is so soft and creamy. Not a buttery kind of creamy taste (although every once in a while, I could swear I taste a buttery note). Instead it’s a smooth, rich kind of creamy taste. The green tea/white tea tastes so fresh and even though it is a lighter tasting tea, it has a richness to it that ties in to that creaminess I mentioned.
But a jasmine pearl is not a jasmine pearl without the jasmine, right? Here, the jasmine tastes so light and sweet, it does not have a perfume-y taste to it at all, nor does it have that chemical-y kind of taste that sometimes is detected in jasmine teas. This must be the real thing, folks!
This is a phenomenal jasmine pearl, certainly one of the very best I’ve yet to try. I’d recommend it highly to all those jasmine aficionados out there.
Bai Mu Dan from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Description:
Other Names: Bai Mu Dan Tea, Pai Mu Dan Tea, White Pekoe Tea
White Peony undergoes very little processing. Made from just the unopened silvery buds and the small, top two leaves it is picked in spring and gently withered to yield a refreshing, easy-drinking tea, full of soft fruit flavours and melon notes with a lingering sweet aftertaste.
Taster’s Review:
This is the second tea that I’m tasting from the “Migration” themed Steepster Select Package. At first, I kind of wondered why a Bai Mu Dan would be offered as part of a “Migration” theme … but after opening the pouch, I understood. The leaves are crisp and dry, just like the fallen leaves that cover the ground this time of year.
The tea these beautiful, whole leaves produces is exquisite! Definitely one of the very best Bai Mu Dan teas I’ve yet to taste. It is surprisingly rich and flavorful. Many White Peony/Bai Mu Dan teas that I’ve tried in the past tend to be somewhat pale in flavor – delicate – but, this is not a typical Bai Mu Dan!
It possesses a delightfully sweet flavor and as the description above suggests, I taste the melon notes! That melon flavors intensify as the tea cools. There is very little vegetative/grassy taste to this Bai Mu Dan. Instead, I taste a crisp, clean, and sweet delicious flavor unlike any other Bai Mu Dan I’ve tasted in recent memory. Sure, many of those white teas tasted good, maybe even great, but, this one stands out as exceptional.
Mi Lan Dan Cong Tea from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Description:
Dan Cong is the champagne of oolongs: ripe with intense fruit and sweetness. This high grade example comes from a plantation on the lower slopes of Wu Dong Mountain, Chao Zhou. The leaves are thoroughly fermented and baked to produce a rich liquor with unique flowery and honeyed notes that can be enjoyed through multiple infusions.
Our Buyer’s notes:
“This tea is more heavily baked than the Song Zhong Dan Cong to allow the tea to produce its unique honey and lychee flavours.”
Taster’s Review:
Ooooooh-Long! This tea definitely puts the Oooooh into Oolong. It is truly wonderful.
The aroma of the brewed liquor is delightful. It has this amazing sort of “outdoorsy” kind of scent, like the fragrance you might experience if you were walking through the woods on a quiet spring morning. It is smells of earth and damp wood, as well as newly blossoming flowers and hints of fruit, and even a clean, crisp air-like scent. This is a tea that you need to inhale deeply – taking in this extraordinary aroma – before taking a sip, to truly experience it in its entirety.
And then, of course, there is the flavor. And … put simply, this has a flavor that keeps you sipping. That is to say, my cup is now empty and I need to infuse the leaves again in order to compose the right words to describe this tea. It is so good that I finished the cup before I could start writing about it.
Now as I sip my second cup (the result of my third and fourth infusions combined), I can tell you a little more about this tea. The flavor is intense. It has a honey-esque tone to it … not just the sweetness of honey, but also the unique floral taste of honey. It is sweet with the subtlest tone of sharpness in the background, such an enchanting, piquant kind of taste.
And as the description from Canton Tea Co. suggests, there is a lychee kind of flavor to this too. It is so very similar to the unique flavor of lychee, in fact, that I had to double check on this tea to make sure it wasn’t a lychee flavored or scented tea. But no: these interesting flavors are achieved naturally through the baking process of the tea leaves, and not through a flavoring process.
I was able to infuse this tea a total of six times with no loss of flavor, making this not only a delicious tea, but also a good value for your money too. This is the kind of Oolong I would recommend to a tea enthusiast who finds some Oolong teas to be too delicate for their taste. The flavor of this is so intense, they’re sure to change their mind about Oolong!
Anji Bai Cha from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Company Description:
Anji Bai Cha is a beautiful tea in every sense. The leaves are long, delicate and a bright vivid green, the scent has notes of citrus and nuts, and the taste is a complex mix of tangy fresh and creamy soft. The liquor is a lively pale green with the bright clarity of a classic high-grown mountain tea.
Taster’s Review:
This tea was also noted as a white tea on the Canton Tea Co. website, although it is found listed as a green tea. Despite this minor confusion, I can see how it might be considered either a white tea or a green tea, because it does have qualities of both types of tea.
The liquor brews up so light in color, so in that respect it reminds me of a white tea. It also has a relatively delicate flavor which is also quite characteristic of a white tea.
However, the color of the leaves are so vibrant and green (they look like blades of grass!) with no real indication of the silvery color that is like other white teas. Also the flavor is much more in line with a green tea – it has a pleasant vegetative flavor that is not overly grassy. It tastes more like steamed broccoli than it does grass.
There is also a very delicious, juicy fruit note to this tea that is reminiscent of sweet apples. The crispness in the tea enhances this taste beautifully! It tastes very much like a high quality green tea to me.
Yes, I like this one very much… call it a white tea, call it a green tea… I call it GOOD tea!