Hello hello! I’m digging deeper into the world of tea and keep finding new vendors that I want to explore. There’s so many out there that it’s hard to choose sometimes, so I just usually browse around and don’t order anything. Since my mini-obsession with White2Tea, nothing has really jumped out at me and screams “order me!” However, that all changed when I stumbled across Bitter Leaf Teas. Bitter Leaf Teas is a tea company based out of China that started in fall of 2015. They’re a small operation that tries to focus on quality, and the owners spend lots of personal time getting to know each tea one-on-one. One thing about Bitter Leaf Teas that gave me a WOW factor was the design. The design and layout of this tea companies website and tea productions was enough to make me thirst — for tea of course. After browsing around for a while I added something to my cart that looked interesting; I ordered the 2015 Honey Comb. After having multiple sessions of it, I think it’s time to finally give it a review. Opening - Wow. This teas presentation is phenomenal. It arrived in its own air-tight metal tin stuffed with hay. The presentation of opening this tea was visually pleasing, as it made it unboxing Honeycomb its own experience. I unwrapped two laters of paper and was greeted with a beautiful bing. I pried out 6.5g of tea for my session in a vessel that has a volume of 105ml. I must compliment this tea on its compression. This bing isn’t too tight nor too lose. Overall It’s one of the most workable 100g cakes I’ve ever stumbled across. Steeps 1-4 I gave this bing a quick rinse before my session. After waiting ten minutes I gave it my first go! My first initial thought about this tea was that it had a gentle honeydew melon note with a light cooling sensation that trailed right behind it. This could be easily misinterpreted as a light flora note, but its sweetness made it taste a little fruity. As I made my way to the fourth steep, this tea became more and more mouth watering. Around the fourth steep it left a malty warmness that brushed against the tastebuds, thus making me drool for more. I want to note that according to Bitter Leaf Tea’s site, they recommend to use boiling water to use for this particular tea. I experimented different water temperatures with this tea before this review and I noticed that boiling water made this tea taste bitter. I found that it was best to use around 180ºf for brewing Honeycomb. Steeps 5-9 Around the fifth steep the sheng started to become more pronounced in its thickness. Although it still left cooling that coated my mouth, it was more noticeable on how thick it was in the back of my throat. The combination of cooling and sweet warm thickness reminded me of honey itself. However, this feeling didn’t last because on the sixth steeping of this tea it started to progressively get more and more bitter. The notes were light, but it progressively got stronger. The bitter took away the warm and cooling notes that I previously tasted, and started to leave a thick-floral taste that lingered in my mouth. To explain further I must ask, have you ever eaten a jasmine flower by its-self before? If do, do you remember how pungent and strong it was, but also left a nice sweetness as it dissipated? Well that’s exactly what this tea was reminding me of. Steeps 10-12 The floral notes became more and more pronounced as the brews continued. Honeycomb was standing on its last leg as it’s final form was making itself known. The bitterness started to fade out, and unfortunately so did the floral notes. By the twelfth steep this tea was completely gone and became an echo of what it once was. Honeycomb moved on without ever looking back. My life was different now. Conclusion - Honeycomb is a very complex bing, and is the best 100g bing that i’ve yet to come across. This Bing Dao was beautifully crafted, and the evidence was the wide array of tasting notes that this bing brushed against. This tea, composed of ancient tree leafs, is one that I wouldn’t recommend for beginners. I mainly say this because Honeycomb needs to be heavily focused to be completely appreciated. Due to the hight level of delicateness, it would be easy to overlook some of the greater aspects of it’s body and background notes. One thing that adds more points to the high-scoring tea is its potential to age. The way it’s bitterness presented itself through out my session only pointed to excellent future development. I cant wait to see what Honeycomb holds for the future, and I cant wait to keep exploring Bitter Leaf Teas. Rating - 9.3 Tea Drunk - This tea’s energy made me calm —Too calm. There’s gotta be something wrong with a tea that made me wake up in a good mood the next morning.

Hello hello! I recently started working at a tea shop and nearly everyone working there doesn’t know a lick about the vast world of puer and oolongs. I’m also having a field day educating everyone about why these types of teas are my obsession. One thing that nearly sent me over the edge was when one of my co-workers stated that the only puers she’s tasted, tasted like fish so she doest like them! Um, what??! Not all puers taste like fish and not all puers are gross. The puer that sparked this discussion was a photo of White2Tea’s Brown Sugar. My co-workers have no idea what White2Tea is, much less what Brown Sugar taste like. To be fair, not too many people know what to expect when they get the brick. So guess what that means? Today we’re going over Brown Sugar! Opening: The wrapper is beautifully designed, but one drawback is how fragile the paper is. After opening, I had a hard time trying to re-cover the tea with the wrapper, and almost decided to store it without it. In my opinion this is a turn off because if I plan to keep Brown Sugar for storing, how well will it be protected over the years? I would expect a paper to be in this condition after years of aging; not something i’d expect from a new production. On another note, I must compliment this brick on how easy it was to break it apart. It’s compression was light enough that I could easily pick away the right amount of tea needed. Steeps 1-3: Like always, I started this tea off with a quick rinse to get rid of any dust and debris, and decided to steep it with boiling water. My first impression of this tea is how damp and woodsy it tasted. It tasted a bit light and also a bit smooth, but needed a few more steeps to really open up. One thing I want to point out is that right off the bat, I noticed there’s something that’s hiding behind the woodsy notes but I couldn’t really point it out. Steeps 4-8: After this tea opened up a bit more the damp wood notes were much stronger. There was also a light bitterness that lingered on my tongue after drinking this tea. The bitterness wasn’t noticeable at first, but after a bit of concentration it’s something that you can pinpoint. Another thing I noticed was that this tea kept getting smoother and smother - It felt like a nice cozy blanket going down the throat. However, the taste of wet wood stated to develop into a strong punch around the sixth steep. On the other hand, a light sweetness that brushed against my cheeks, but this could easily be overlooked due to the teas heavy punch. Steeps 9-12: Around the ninth steep, the woodsy started to mellow out and the grittiness quickly disappeared. Unfortunately though, the faint sweetness that I noticed towards the beginning also faded away with it. By steep twelve this tea was finished. If I'm being honest, the way this tea lost its flavors was a bit underwhelming and made me wish there was more. I took my vessel and dumped the wet leaf. After dissecting the leaves I was surprised to find that the leaves were huge! I was taken aback by this because shou puers usually have leaves that are either too small or too mingled to pick apart. This just goes to show the quality of tea that you’re really getting from White2Tea. Five points for Gryffindor! Conclusion: Overall, I Think that Brown Sugar wouldn't be a tea I’d re-order. Because Brown Sugar is relatively new, I think it has a long way to go before it develops into something wonderful. I believe this tea has potential to age into something great for two reasons. For one, it still had a light bitter undertone which means it has a lot more aging to go. Second, there was a light sweetness that tried to break its way thought the woody punch, which tells me that once this tea calms down it’ll be substantially more noticeable and hopefully tasty. I have three bricks of Brown Sugar and I plan on aging them to see where their flavors go. According to White2Tea’s master curator Paul, he said he’s keeping his fingers crossed that it’ll taste like plums in ten years. Rating: 6.9/10 Tea Drunk Level: This tea punched me in the gut when I least expected it! It was like ‘wham bam, thank you ma’am!’

Hello hello! It’s been a crazy month this month so apologies for the delay on this review. Luckily there was enough time to drink tea, especially White2Tea’s Fade! Fade is a new sheng brick released by master tea curator Paul in his monthly tea club! I got mine in the month of April, but he soon released it for purchase in his site a few weeks later. Paul teased us with pictures and delicious descriptions of this tea previous to its release on his Instagram account. Usually I’m patient when it comes to most things but damn, it was really making me anxious to try it. I don’t know if I should call this good marketing or good torture. Opening: Upon opening this brick I was really cautious as to not tear apart the paper. I usually don’t care if I save tea wrappers or not but this was just too beautiful to preserve. The cover features Abraham Lincoln and a design scheme that was inspired by Kayne West’s latest album, ‘The Life of Pablo’. Actually, according to Paul, the tea itself was inspired by Kayne’s new album. Paul said he made a blend that reflected the inspiration that ‘The Life of Pablo’ gave him, and the brick is named after ‘Fade’, a track on the album. Steeps 1-3: According to Paul, he recommended listening to ‘The Life of Pablo’ while trying out his new sheng. I’m not a crazy fan of rap, or narcissists, so I decided to listen to M83’s new album ‘Junk’ instead. I’m a huge fan of M83 and after seeing they released something nearly a half decade later, I couldn't resist. I opened up this tea with a rinse and waited a few minutes for the leaf to open up. Upon the first steep I first noticed a fragrant smell of cucumber radiating from the tea. It was very refreshing to smell this in a sheng because its something I’ve never smelled in one before. On my first tasting of Fade I noticed a pleasant warmness was hitting the sides of my tongue. I was left with a faint aftertaste of sugar and mushrooms. Steeps 4-10: After the fourth steep Fade started to really open up. As the steeps continued the taste of warm kitchen spices became more prominent in the mouth. The more steeps I got out of this tea the stronger the sugary notes became. Even after a few minutes of drinking this tea I could still feel the aftertaste of sugary spice filling every square inch of my mouth. One thing I distinctly noticed was how thick this tea was, and overall felt like a broth more than anything. One thing I have to point out was the light background notes of mushrooms and moss. This is something that isn’t out of the ordinary because of how fresh this sheng was. According to Paul, Fade was recently pressed so its very humid to start off with. Don't worry though, after this tea has more time to settle the mushroom notes should go away. Steeps 11-14: I was nearing the end of my session around the fourteenth steep. One thing I have to point out is that this teas flavor quickly dissipated, and it’s flavors don’t seem to ‘fade’ whatsoever. I was surprised at how quickly it went from strong and flavorful, to dead and flavorless. This might just be my experience, but I felt like this tea took an exit too quickly considering how robust it was a few steeps ago. Maybe its because it’s so new? Only aging will tell. Conclusion: Overall Fade was a great experience and it’s easy to see why White2Tea’s Paul went on a binge with it. Fade definitely stands out by how powerfully warm and sweet it was, but it’s only draw back would be how quickly it lost its flavor. I think Fade definitely needs more time to air out from pressing, but only one can hope that aging this brick will help it be a hidden gem. Rating: 8.8/10 Tea Drunk Level: I got so tea drunk that I ended up listening to The Life of Pablo. However, I got bored and ended up listening to Drake instead...

Hello hello! The other day I went to What-Cha’s site to re-order some of his teas that I’ve ran out of. I noticed that on his site he’s sold out of a lot of yummy tea. Don’t fret though, many of them are making comebacks! I often see threads posted on Reddit that ask, “What are some good what-cha recommendations?” I’ve replied to a few of them but I thought it would be a great idea to compile a small list of What-Cha’s best teas that are making comebacks in 2016! So here we are. The following are some of the yummiest teas that what-cha carries, and although they’re sold out now they’re all making comebacks later in the year. Here’s what to look out for: 1. Kenya Steamed Purple Varietal Green Tea I ordered this tea back in October 2015 and Alistair sold out shortly after. I nearly had a fit when I found out he was sold out, so I messaged him and he said it would be another six months before it would be re-released… Well the wait is nearing an end. According to Alistair, this tea will finally be coming back in the next 2-6 weeks. However, it’ll be slightly different. Thank God it’s coming back because I’ve been hoarding the remainder of my 25g of this tea in fear of running out. Why is this tea so special you ask? There are many different reasons why this tea is worth an order, but mainly It’s one of the most extraordinary green teas i’ve ever had. When you first sip this tea you first notice how smooth it is. It’s got a very warming/laid back feel in the mouth that reminds me of a malt. To clarify, it’s not malty but its so warm/smooth that that’s the best way I can describe it. The taste of stone fruits faintly paint across your tongue as the aftertaste of sugar and grass dance around your cheeks. Believe me when I say that this tea is worth an order. 2. Taiwan 'Jin Xuan' Milk Oolong Tea I’ve reviewed this tea in a previous blog post [click here to read]. To recap, this is the best milk oolong i’ve ever had. It’s incredibly creamy and taste like milk/butter that lasted me nearly a dozen steeps. One thing that stood out to me about this oolong was it’s incredible aroma that could make your tastebuds melt. Another aspect about this tea is its temperature sensitivity. Its something that you have to really focus your attention on, but it’s definitely worth the buy. Sadly thought, I only have a few sessions worth left of it. Thankfully according to Alistair, this tea should definitely be back mid to-late April. 3. Vietnam 'Red Buffalo' Oolong Tea I’m drinking this tea with my non dominate hand, so is someone gonna call buffalo on me? Anywayyyyy. Red Buffalo is one of my favorite Vietnam Oolongs to date, primarily because of how smooth and sweet it is. Red Buffalo is the only tea I’ve binge ordered on. And when I say binge order, I mean 400g worth of binge ordering… I don’t have a problem. This oolong starts off very light and sweet. As you continue to steep it, the smooth molasses texture of warm honey slowly glides to the back of your throat. As you get to the middle of your session with this tea you sit and wonder, “is this a dessert I'm eating?” By the time the session is done and over with, the only thing I could think of is how much of a sweet presence it had. The perfect session with this tea would be by a fireplace while snuggling up with a warm blanket. Fortunately, Alistair says this tea will return later on this week but the 2016 harvest will be released towards the end of May. This isn't the first time this tea has been sold out of What-Cha, and if you ever get the chance to try it then it will make sense on why this is one of Alistair’s best sellers. Conclusion: What-Cha currently several teas out of stock and honestly it’s easy to see why. After drinking a recap of a very small amount of tea sold on What-Cha, its easy to understand why tea drinkers alike go overboard ordering his tea. Now that 2016 is gaining momentum in the tea world, I hope you keep an eye out for these teas when they release - and hopefully see what makes them sell out as fast as they do…

“Girl I don’t mean any harm all I wanted to do is just say HELLO!” I’m late to the party reviewing this one, but at least I brought a pound cake. It’s not just any pound cake; today I brought White2Tea’s 2015 Poundcake! This tea has been reviewed so many times that you can get a general idea of what this tea is about. The most notable that comes to mind is when Cwyn brewed her whole damn gourd at once. There are two reasons why I must review Poundcake - My first reason is that it’s such a popular tea that is widely praised. My second reason is that it’s my absolute favorite sheng and it so delicious that I just have to take my own spin at it. Background: Poundcake is a tea produced by White2Tea’s very own puer master, Paul. If you’re a diehard fan of his work then you’d know that Paul is a hip-hop head. The clearest evidence of this is the name of his tea cake ‘Too Late’ which is based off of Drake’s 2015 album. Pound Cake is actually inspired by the song ‘Pound Cake’ featured on Drakes album ‘Nothing Was the Same’. Wrapper & Opening: The rapper made me hungry looking at it. When I first opened this cake the first thing that I noticed was how large the compressed lose leaf was. It was awfully beautiful, especially the fact that it’s such a rich dark green color; It even radiated a note of sugar infused milk. Steeps 1-5: I did a quick rinse of this tea to start off with. My initial reaction first came off as light/sweet and around the 3rd steep I started to get a mouth watering feeling in my throat. You know that feeling in your mouth you get when you walk by a bakery and you can smell the aromas of baked sweet goods? That was the feeling my tastebuds were experiencing. At steep 5 I was at 30 seconds and the taste of butter was very strong and present. Steeps 6-10: I hit the 1 minute mark on the 7th steep. I was surprised at how long it took to get to 1 minute because I usually make it there on my 5th steep. I could of drug the tea out a lot more if I wanted to, but I was enjoying the buttery smoothness too much to care. Halfway through my session all I could think about is how close this tea resembled milk oolong with a green tea undertone, except Pound Cake was more mellow. To add, something I didn’t expect was the smell of this tea’s wet leaf; its aroma was very green and resembled a bitter sencha. Steeps 11-14: This tea started to fade off on the11th steep. I ended this tea at its 14th steep because I got all I could out of it. The buttery taste ended up disappearing and the green undertone got more and more prominent. I was very surprised at how many steeps this tea lasted for, which is just proof that this cake was very high in quality. I guess this tea isn't just who it became dog. Nothing was the same dog… Conclusion: Since I bought this cake I’ve had 8 sessions with it and plan on having many more in the near future. I’ve always been a fan of the milky/buttery oolongs, so tasting a similar taste in a sheng was a pleasant find. I think you get more than your monies worth for this tea. For a $50 sheng you definitely get more than what you bargain for. The quality was extraordinary and the leaf was in exceptional condition, which is a sign that Paul got this from a very well kept and clean tea grower. On a side note, I rummaged through the remains of this brew and my god the leaves were huge! After a previous session of Poundcake I found a leaf that was as long as the length of my hand. I ended up drying it out and framing it as the largest sheng leaf I’ve ever found in a puer. Rating: 9.7/10 Drunk Level: I was so tea drunk that I couldn't remember last night. I live for the nights that I can’t remember with the people that I won’t forget… [I used a lot of direct quotes from Drake’s lyrics though out this post . I don’t claim copyright or ownership and only incorporated his lyrics as a way to pay tribute to the greatest rapper of the 21st century]

Hello! It’s been a while since the last post and I think it’s time to turn things up a bit! I had a tiffany while lying in bed one night watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s and thought, “I write a blog called The Oolong Drunk and i’ve only reviewed puer. Damn,am I the only one who sees a problem with this?” Well the wait is over. To start, I have too many oolongs to chose from but I recently ordered a Taiwanese Oolong that blew me completely away. For today’s review i’m going to explore What-Cha’s Taiwanese Milk Oolong. Opening - Today I'm reviewing ‘Taiwan Jin Xuan Milk Oolong’. When I first opened a package of this tea I was completely blown away by the strength of it’s thick cream odor. I weighed 6.5g for my vessel and used 170º-180ºf for brewing this. I would have photos to show you what my package looked like, but I opened my package and placed the contents inside of a mason jar… That’s what he said. Infusions 1-4 I didn’t do a rinse of this tea because i’m rinse-OCD when it comes to puer. When I first sipped it, I immediately noticed the taste of warm butter but after a few more infusions it started to taste like cream. It was such a strong taste of it that when my boyfriend walked in the room he even could smell it. Like, out of boredom have you ever took cream shots while waiting for your food? As in taking the creamers and drinking them straight? Well no matter how many people think this is gross, I’ve been doing this since I was a little kid and its delicious! This tea reminded me of doing creamer shots while waiting for pancakes. Infusions 5-12 In the beginning of the 5th steep the tea started to taste like strong sweet milk and also noticed sugar-snap peas. But this only lasted for three infusions before it started to mellow out all together. One thing stood out about this oolong is it’s temperature sensitivity. If you let the water get too hot it turns sour. Conclusion - All in all this was a great experience! I got 12 infusions and used 2 liters of water doing so but for an oolong I was very surprised at how long this tea went on for. One thing I didn’t like was how temperature sensitive it was. It didn’t taste very strong when I brewed this western style. Overall, I would only recommend drinking this tea gong-fu style to get the most out of it. I am definitely going to place another order of this when I run out. Rating: 8.2/10 Drunk Level - I was at the same level of tea drunk as Mary-Kate Olson was alcohol drunk in the mid 00’s

Hello!! Is it me you're looking for? In today’s blog post I’ll be reviewing the new What-Cha Sheng! This is What-Cha's new house sheng whose full title is '2015 What-Cha 'Lao Shu Bai Cha' Raw Puerh Cake' and was produced by Yunnan Sourcing's Scott Wilson! First, I’m going to tell you about why this tea is a must-buy for all pu-erh drinkers alike… Opening: Woah - back up like 10 feet! Before opening this tea I must point out the odor radiating from this tea is something worth mentioning. When I say odor, I don’t mean it in the same sense that the guy sitting next to you on the subway smells homeless - no. I mean that the smell of sweet/sugary tea leaf knocked me down when I opened the shipping box!! Mmmmm, yummy! The first thing I noticed when opening this cake is that, in my gayest accent possible, its beaUtifulllll!!!!!! Seriously, look at that compacted leafy crack-cocaine! Move out of the way Colorado, because this is something worthy of being legalized! Rihanna was clearly singing about this tea in ‘Diamond’ on her last album. Do double-g Dog! Snoop, tell’it! No, it’s not the year of the dragon. This paper is a clear representation of What-Cha’s logo. Its simplistic yet beautiful. Infusions 1-3 - Before I started my session with this tea, I washed it with a quick rinse. My first infusion game me that sugary-globby feeling in the back of my throat. After my second and third infusion, I got a warm-whisky taste my mouth along with notes of air infused fruits that gave a lingering sweetness. Of course with a new sheng comes with bitterness, however the other flavors were too strong for the bitterness to be a problem Infusions 4-6 - I’m now up to 20 second infusions and the flavor was really strong! I was surprised at the strong full bodied flavor of mixed fruit and bourbon I was tasting. I was experimented with different water temps and found that this tea was best at 175º - the oolong temp. Anyways, when I say there was a whisky taste I mean it as a good thing. The note of bourbon was very pleasant as in, an acute warmness in the throat with an amber punch that was just like a good bourbon! Infusions 7-10 - The bitterness subsided and my infusions got longer. There was still a warmness in the back of the throat, but around infusion 8 it was gone. All that was left was the taste of warm fruits. At this point however, it was hard to pinpoint what the flavor exactly was because of how full bodied it was. After about infusion 12, I put this tea up and finished my session. It started to get watery and the taste of liquid happiness was disappearing, leaving me with a cloud of great sorrow hanging over my head…. Conclusion - What? The conclusion already? Wow. I need to praise this tea on the fact I got so much out of it in such a short period of time. The fact that the bourbon/bitterness is already subsiding this early in a sheng is something that really stood out to me. Rarely do I enjoy a sheng that is this fresh, but the potential it has is completely mind blowing. Ned Stark raised from the dead to reclaim the throne!!! ...if Caitlin can come back alive as Lady Stoneheart than goddamnit, so can Ned! The flavor was something completely unexpected and gave me an experience I’ll never forget… Well, until I drink it again ;) I bought two of these cakes and I can guarantee you that i’m going to buy more from Alistair. Ranking: 9.6/10 Drunk Level: "You know that special kind of drunk, that you're a better driver because you know you're drunk. You know the kinda drunk that you probably shouldn't drive but you do anyway, because... come on, you gotta get a car home, right, I mean what do they expect me to do? Take a bus? Is that what they want? For me to take a bus? Well screw that! You take a bus!" - I'm that kind of tea drunk.... [Props to anyone who knows that quote]