Tea Information:
Leaf Type:
Where to Buy: Life in Teacup
Tea Description:
Production Year 2009
Production Season Spring
Production Region Fujian
Style Traditional
Also known as Sow Mee or Longevity Brew
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
2009 Shou Mei from Life in Teacup is a light, juicy, white tea that has a lovely buttered vegetal after taste and an almost earthy note in the sip.
In the aroma is this very subtle essence of jasmine but that does not translate into the flavor. It has a sweet and lightly creamy mouthfeel but leaves you feeling refreshed and your thirst quenched.
There is also a light and lovely toasted marshmallow flavor that just touches your taste buds gently on the initial sip but does not stick around long.
This is a very forgiving tea! My first steep I spaced out preparing to write this review and over steeped it by far too much. I was certain I was going to have to dump the cup, but alas it tasted lovely! My second steeping – with new leaves – also provided a delicious cup as well. I noticed very little difference in the two cups. This would be an excellent tea to put in your travel thermos for many infusions throughout the day without having to take the leaf out!
I love the look of the dry leaf! Its so wild and natural looking! It appears as if someone scooped up fallen leaves from the forest floor! I love the uninhibited appearance of this leaf, so care free, so low maintenance yet so beautiful. The colors are striking from deep tones of brown to variegated shades of green, even some lighter almost white tones in my leaf.
I would not say this is a “to-die-for” cup or anything, and I’m not really that into white teas as a rule, but they do have some wonderful health benefits and this one is quite pleasing.
I would purchase this again.
As per a note on Life in Teacup’s website
Our web store is temporarily closed and we aim at re-opening it in February 2013. Meantime, please feel free to send any inquires to admin@lifeinteacup.com. Thank you and have a great holiday season!
I do hope they open back up soon as I have been eyeballing many of their teas!
Spiced Brandy Shou Mei from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
This week’s tea is a spiced brandy flavored shou mei with cinnamon, cardamom, clove, black peppercorns and a little anise seed. It’s like a hard apple cider without the apple, or maybe you’d rather think of it as a brandy flavored white chai. However you think of it, it’s a spicy cup of warming goodness, guaranteed to take the chill out of your bones on a crisp autumn day.
Learn more about this blend here.
Taster’s Review:
I categorized this as a Chai because it is indeed very chai-like.
The aroma of the dry leaf isn’t as chai-like as I expected it to be, though. (And by “chai-like,” I mean the spiced tea that we’ve come to recognize as “chai” here in the U.S.) Instead, it’s very brandy-ish. It almost smells like bubble gum … fruity and sweet, but there is a distinct fermentation to the aroma as well, the way that I’d imagine brandy to smell. Since I’m not big on alcohol or how it smells, I can only imagine that this is what brandy would smell like … but it does smell very appealing!
Brewed, this takes on a more chai-spice fragrance, with the aroma of cardamom, cinnamon and anise being the strongest scents I detect. I also smell the brandy, and the bouquet of the brandy combined with the aromatic spices is really very intoxicating! It’s soothing and relaxing … like something I’d want in a candle or air freshener! I wonder how well a Spiced Brandy air freshener would go over?
The flavor … well, imagine Shou Mei, flavored with brandy and masala spices. Yeah, that’s what it tastes like. The Shou Mei offers a little more body and flavor than a Bai Mu Dan would, and I think with the stronger flavors of spice and brandy that is just what was needed. It is a crisp, slightly vegetative (think freshly cut hay rather than grass here), and light, with a fair amount of astringency which I think is highlighted due to the presence of the brandy flavor. It gives this an almost “warm, mulled brandy” kind of finish.
The spices are delightful here, and I realize that the reason I’m so over the moon for this is the anise. It is in there! Not a hint of it either. It is a prominent spice, but at the same time, I find a nice balance. This isn’t overly cinnamon-y or clove-y. The pepper is a bit of a background note. The cardamom and cinnamon and clove are on equal footing with the anise shining through a little stronger than the others. And that’s just the way I like it. I love anise, and while it can be a polarizing spice, I am glad that 52Teas had the guts to include it in this blend. It really accents the brandy in a very flavorful way.
I’m really enjoying this, and it does, indeed, take the chill off a cold, autumn-y day like today!
Apricot Cheesecake Shou Mei from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
We’ve had a few cheesecake blends over the years, and I’ve heard from a number of customers that the cheesecake is a bit on the subtle side. So I’ve decided to try a cheesecake blend with a lighter tea that might not normally be a good match for cheesecake flavors. (I tend to want to pair our white teas with sweet, fruity notes.) So here is our delicious shou mei white tea, blended with real freeze-dried apricot bits and natural apricot and cheesecake flavors. And it is truly delicious!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
One thing you can pretty much count on is when 52Teas creates a cheesecake flavor for its Tea of The Week, that cheesecake flavored tea is going to sell out pretty quickly. Frank – the chief Zoomdweebie at 52Teas – is the master of cheesecake flavored tea!
But I have to be honest, this isn’t my favorite cheesecake blend that Frank has ever come up with. That said, this is still a really tasty blend!
While hot, the flavors tend to be a bit more jumbled – I can taste notes that are apricot-like and cream cheese-ish. There are some buttery and brown sugary notes in there too. But there is nothing really about it – when it’s served hot – that screams out to me and says “I am Apricot Cheesecake!”
But as the tea cools, the flavors become more distinctive. The apricot becomes much more like apricot – sweet and juicy and it tastes remarkably like the apricot filling that my gramma would make when she’d make apricot cobbler. Sweet, even a little extra sweetness from the glazing, but still true to the fruit. Then there are the flavors that are associated with the cheesecake. Creamy, tangy cream cheese. Buttery pastry with a hint of brown sugar. YUM!
And as I’ve mentioned before, the tea is at least just as important – if not more important – as the flavors. After all, I’m drinking tea, not some soda fountain concoction. I want to taste the tea. And I do taste the Shou Mei. It has a sweet, lightly nutty flavor that melds beautifully with the pastry crust notes of the flavoring, making it taste more – I think – like pastry. And the creaminess of the Shou Mei lends itself well, and even enhances, the creamy elements of the cheesecake flavor.
So, while this isn’t my favorite cheesecake blend from Frank, it is certainly delicious. And trust me when I say that it’s worth checking out 52Teas website and subscribing to the newsletter to stay “in the know” for when his famous cheesecake flavored teas are offered … you’ve got to try at least one! But be warned … once you try one, you’re going to want MORE!
Earl Black from 52Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tea Description:
It’s another hot day in Doo-Dah (I have no idea why Wichitans refer to the city as “Doo-Dah” but it feels right; feel free to enlighten me if you know where this comes from). I’m pretty sure that the global warming people were right. I’m just hoping we can fix it before we all turn into puddles of goo.
In the meantime, I’m relaxing with a big glass tumbler full of our new tea of the week. It’s a blend of shou mei white teas, dried black currants, organic bergamot flavor and natural black currant flavor. And it is seriously hitting the spot. I got some really nice shou mei for this blend: it’s light and sweet, but very much a presence in a cup that is otherwise a perfect balance of tart and sweet. I have always loved our black currant bai mu dan, and if you like that and like earl grey, I don’t think you can possibly go wrong with this blend. It is delicious!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
By the sound of the name, you might think: oh, this is just another Earl Grey with a black tea base. But it isn’t! This is truly an unusual tea – exactly the kind of tea that 52Teas is known for creating!
What makes this so unusual is that despite the name of this tea … it isn’t a black tea. It’s a white tea! Specifically, a Shou Mei. The black in the title refers not to the type of tea, but the fact that this tea is flavored with the essence of black currant. And, of course, bergamot (that’s where the Earl comes in!)
And wow! How is it that no other tea company has thought to combine the flavors of bergamot and black currant before? (0r, if they have, how is it that I haven’t yet discovered it?) This is really tasty. The flavor is sweet, tangy, tart and deliciously fruity.
The Shou Mei is a nice choice as a base for this tea. It gives the tea a bit more body and flavor than a typical Bai Mu Dan might while still managing to maintain a lightness to the cup. I think that a softer tea might have gotten lost in this blend, but a stronger tea might have overwhelmed the gentle balance tht exists between the two fruit flavors.
As it is, though, there seems a really pleasant balance between tea and fruit tastes. The tea has a pleasant texture – soft and silky … creamy even! This creaminess melds so nicely with the bergamot and black currant. The sweetness of the tea offers a nice contrast to the tart and tangy tastes of these two fruits, and also offers a slight nutty taste to the background.
The bergamot and black currant seem pretty evenly matched. The black currant gives a slight raisin-y, grape-y, wine-y kind of taste to the cup, sweet and just a little tart. The citrus-y bergamot matches that tartness with some of its own – giving it just enough tartness without causing me to pucker.
A very pleasant cup of tea – delicious hot, but even nicer as an iced tea! I can’t wait to try it cold-brewed with my Steep & Go!
Shou Mei White Tea from BigTeaHouse
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: BigTeaHouse
Tea Description:
If you prefer the “Shou Mei” style of white loose tea with a bold flavor and aroma, this is the tea for you. Vanilla brings out the flavor while the flowery, dried fruit and spice round it out. It has a pleasant mouthfeel and is perfect for those days when you want to feel light.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Who says white tea is delicate?
Having tried Shou Mei white tea before, I was pretty sure what to expect from this tea. But this tea had a few surprises in store!
There is the sweet, slightly vegetative aroma and taste that I would typically experience with a Shou Mei, but, there is a sweet, creamy … almost vanilla-like tone to this tea. When I read the above description, I thought that maybe it was a mistake … this appears to be a pure Shou Mei, so I wasn’t really expecting the vanilla, the fruit notes, and the hint of spice in the flavor. But this tea has all of that!
The fruit notes are especially noticeable in the fragrance, but as I continue to sip, I notice a slightly raisin-y kind of flavor, sweet … almost candy-like! There are hints of spice, mostly pepper, but a soft peppery taste, like the peppery note you’d experience from basil. It’s a little bit warm, but at the same time, it’s quite crisp and cooling.
A really delightful cup that keeps me sipping to discover more about it.