Hidden Peak Teahouse's 2008 Lincang Shu. Goodbye, beloved teacher! Goodbye, old friend now in the form of a tiny 3 gram chunk of tea! Goodbye....Goodbye!!!!

Just finishing up the last of a ten gram sample I bought over a year ago from Hidden Peak, the 2008 Lincang Shu. Every session I liked it more, did it age over this brief year and a half lingering in its little sample bag, stuck in the dark all alone in  tiny ceramic cupboard drawer? I don't know but I know my palate has evolved a TON over this time, and I know further that I LOVE this tea.
It is a great introductory shu I think, and I furthermore think, I am off to buy some more! This shu is deeply earthy, dark from first flash-rinse, almost meaty in color and texture and has all that forest undergrowth mossiness I have come to love. Clean earth, great energy and of this writing, the last three grams of this teacher of a tea are still telling me tales that change with each steep, going on the 9th as soon as I finish this brief missive to you, my readers.
Visit Hidden Peak Teahouse and check it out for yourselves.

(Photo from HPTH website with my thanks. Gonna go buy me a brick o'this right now!)

Smacha's White Peony aka Bai Mu Dan. Gorgeous and sweet.

White Peony is thus named poetically for its leaves shape as it steeps and opens and for its lovely aroma. I also would have to add it is by far the prettiest tea I have seen all year, lovely colors mixed with long thin pieces and gorgeous leaves, before brewing it is as pretty a picture as I could ask for...

This tea just made the start of my day a lovely one, a perfect choice for the first day of sun in a week, outside still dewy on my cactus' and my resin lawn buddhas, Trader Joe's trip for dinner tonight a distant memory and its only nine a.m. Perfect time to open this new years offering from Smacha of this perfect white tea.

185f and three grams only as I don't want to go through it too fast, steeped less than a minute ( but not by much) in a 70 ml gaiwan. Just a total delight. Heading back in for steeps three and four, see how long it lasts! Gently, gently goes the pour! Want to treat this particular Bai Mu Dan like the treasure it is!

A floral, complex and distinctive oolong from White2Tea

Just finishing a first time session with W2T's OBSX, which is a really nice change of pace from my usual Sunday morning Oriental Beauty options, and a very wakeful brewing session. I don't know much about Wuyi Yanchas but this was a good one to start to learn with. Very easy to drink, lightly floral and mineral notes both. Started with an eye-balled amount of most likely 3 grams in a 130ml hohin at 205f. Too light. Added another 'pinch' which I am guessing made it 4 grams and upped my water temp to 209, and the next four steeps were lovely. Rich golden color, wet leaves smell just great. Not a heavily floral tea, more mineral notes and really a rather sophisticated taste in my humble newbie opinion! I will not be eye-balling any more tea any time soon, I was just being lazy in not reaching for my scale this morning, my suggestion to myself and to my newbie readers is to count on your scale and if you don't have a little digital scale, get one. This is mine. Under $20, found mine with free shipping, just get one, it's actually fun to use.
OBSX is an acronym for 'Old Bush Shui Xian' and is super fragrant, floral and has a medium roast and a nice depth.

Tea Haikus by BuddhaMomTea herself.

dearest kyusu

i will be back for you soon
please don't forget me.





yuzamashi mine
sit patiently with your friend
winter will come soon.

there are flowers here
honey and warm afternoons
sunshine in my mouth.

the tea tray is wet
porcelain tasting cups shine
waiting for more tea.

i may never see
yunnan in the summertime
scott will be my eyes.

Loving on Smacha!

https://www.facebook.com/hannish.gerber/videos/10209497364884074/

New Year's Day and Tea-Drunk as all git out!

8:20 pm, and New Year's Day is settling down into evening, it is far too late to   be drinking tea but how to stop the celebration of 2016 being over and done with? My tea table looks like it's been partying all by itself, the Jian Shui dancing with the Lin's, the Petr Novak Yunomi worked the tea-table with the ten whopping grams of 2005 Mengku Zheng Shan Daye Sheng from Yunnan Sourcing in its belly, giving it up to their hostess, yours truly for over 14 hours now!
Ok, enough gangasta talk from this old woman, and it's time to get mellow. It is time to revive from 'the party' and move into more ethereal pleasures and so what do I drink now, as the first day of 2017 ends? What's the best thing to feel on your lips as day becomes night and I need something of the highest quality to make me feel renewed? I will tell you now, you lucky, lucky bastards. Smacha's Mao Feng.
I don't drink a lot of greens these days, but when I do? Yeah, this is the kind I like and Smacha's Mao Feng is their best selling green tea for very good reason.
I follow their directions of four grams but use a smaller vessel, a 70 ml gaiwan, and the water temp I use starts at 190f and cools accordingly from steep to steep.
The smell itself reminds me that life renews itself, that things grow and rivers flow, and time slows, and a bunch of other rhyming idioms, all true.
It is a thinking woman's tea, and one to savor.

I am not afraid of 2017. For I have followed my bliss and am ready to start January with this tea by my bedside. Again, tea becomes my answer to the alcohol question and no champagne is required or desired. Thanks to all my tea vendors and especially Smacha for keeping me sober another year!

'Autumn Moonlight Pavillion Pure-Bud Bi Luo Chun.' Have prettier words ever been spoken aside from 'The Dude Abides'?

Maybe so, but still, while sipping this delicate, lovely tea the words all dance through my noggin and are as charming as can be. The only 'word' I left out of the description is '2015' because no-one will accuse '2015' of being a lovely word, or even a lovely year. I think we are all ready for a fresh new start, am I wrong?
Yunnan Sourcing's MPPBBLCWAUT15, (a much less poetic way of saying 'this tea' without the hassle) is a wonderful varietal of two different kinds of Bi Luo Chun, and is the smallest pure-bud tea grown in the whole of Yunnan.
It is clean tasting, floral and has a light sweet and lingering aftertaste that I am finding thoroughly enjoyable.
I was told, (or did I just dream I was told? That happens a lot lately) that this is a most delicate tea and needs to be handled carefully but I did not do so, I simply put a small handful(maybe 4-5 grams?) into my 6 ounce celadon pot and used the Keurig machines' water (175f) to fill and refill the pot. Gasps? That is not very Gongfu Cha of me, I readily admit, but come on, man! It's a Saturday, it's raining( yes, in California!) and I am stuck in the house, the rather small bungalow if you will, with many more beating hearts than I am used to and nowhere to go. Everyone from the bearded dragons, snake, birds, husband and child have their own things going on and I needed to have something of my own to do but with so many other energies in the house I cannot create Gongfu Cha at my usual meditative pace. So instead of getting uptight I consciously chose to just take it easy and just brewed to brew, made at least three separate tray messes, with trays in every room beginning with a nice spicy new sheng and once I was high from that I moved on to this delicate sweet Bi Luo Chun. This tea abides, and today, so do I.

Mountain Tea's Heritage Honey Oolong, a perfect holiday tea for grinches like me not leaving the house for the next two weeks!

Mountain Tea's Heritage Honey Oolong is a perfect tea for on-the-go. Take it to the pedicure place, take it to the DimSum joint, even take it to the mall, where you can sit in the car and drink it out of a thermos while the kids are in that terrifying place spending their ill-gotten booty. (Or is that ill-booten gotty?) In any case, have tea will travel, but you are on your own if you leave your zipcode. Personally that's as far as I myself will go in regard to exotic destinations; the parking lot of the local mall especially the week before X-mas, a holiday I am thankful I do not participate in. (Love the lights though, keep on putting those lights up every year, folks! Love those lights!)

Heritage Honey Oolong is another of those tightly rolled, super easy to drink full-bodied floral teas that seem to do well in a variety of brewing vessels, with mixed parameters.
I will not, however, offend my tea by using microwaved water (hair salon, I'm talking to you,) even if it does come piping hot, just can't do it.

So how do you travel with your tea? Write me at buddhamom@outlook.com and tell me your outlook at tea-drinking on the go. Article to appear end of January on this topic, and in the meantime, it is back to my honey oolong, settling my fat-butt into the chaise-lounge in the spotty sunshine of a December afternoon in Los Angeles to imagine, only imagine, what kind of trouble you tea-drinking-travel-bug maniacs might be getting yourselves into next week! Be well and drink on!

You can take my 1980 Shou stash out of my cold, dead hands but until then...

My own personal stockpile in case of Armageddon.

You can take my oolongs, my bulangs, the shengs and (most of the) shous. You can hand out my sencha, the tencha, the matcha and the bancha to whoever is in need but do not touch, I say, do not touch my Mountain Tea 1980 Shou Puerh. 
As a reckless Shou shopping newbie I do take the time to ask myself these questions even while I am ranting;Where did it come from, why is it so special? How come you were able to afford it? Who cares what you, a newbie dumb-dumb wanna-be tea expert hoards or hides? Who? Anybody?
And I don't know, dear readers; I do not know if anyone cares and I do not know if this is an actual 1980 shou, but if Mountain Tea says its so, that's good enough for me. They are some of the good guys, I like them, and I am choosing the believe this shou was affordable simply because they are amazing human beings and chose to bless their part of the universe with it at an affordable price.
At $17 for two ounces, I was able to buy half a pound and am nestled into my bungalow ready for anything awful that comes my way. I got the shu-pu, I got the dogs, I got the ten zillion other amazing teas, but really one taste of this shou back when it was a sample, was enough to make me know I could live for EVER with this tea on my tongue, I could ride the waves of apocalypse and I can withstand all my own stupidities and mediocrities and those of the world at large, if only I can be at home with my darlings( human and otherwise) and this damn wonderful tea.
Regardless of my fixation, I am willing to share it, but dudes, you have to come to me!
And bring cookies.

Smacha's Da Jin High Mountain Oolong creates longing and desire for more and more steeps!

It's true I only write up the teas I love, or think I have the capacity to appreciate so if you, Dear Reader get tired of my praise, do look elsewhere for more true 'reviews'. However, if like me, you like to be just wow-ed, floored with pleasure and are indeed, as I am, a  light-hearted hedonistic creature of pleasure, always sought, quickly found, never sated and always ready for more, well, then, you belong right here reading this.
That being said, I am a Buddhist, and I work diligently at non-attachment. (Good luck with this one, Buddha-Mom, for when you run out, you will be feeling all kinds of attachment-related angst!)

I am only on the third steep of this tea, and for all I know it's about to get all astringent on me and end our little mutual appreciation society but right now, twenty minutes after finishing that third steep, I am still savoring the mouth-feel of this delightful little Oolong. So let's talk about what the heck I tried, shall we? This is a sample from Smacha whose tagline is 'Tea Makes A Happy Day' to which I can positively attest.

This is Da Jin High Mountain Oolong.


Here is what I know about this Da Jin Oolong from information provided by Smacha;
"Fugian, China.
1,200m
20% fermentation.
Harvested from a 60 year old mountaintop tea garden, "above the clouds" and made in the style of the great Taiwan High Mountain Oolongs, Da Jin High Mountain has complex flowery aromas and a sweet, deep floral taste."

The tea coming out of the sealed bag smelled subtle and wonderful, the heated leaves in my hot gaiwan were intensely good, the lid of the gaiwan smelling even better than the cup itself. Two quick rinses at 195f, and then steeps one through three at around 190 were utter heaven.

Its now been twenty minutes since I finished the third steep and I can still feel it in my throat and in my chest cavity, a cooling tea, I am not sweating, yet my chest feels warm and my tea belch was like incense. Ok, ok, so maybe I am pushing it, but truly, not a bad belch.
This is a tea I am buying.
Like today.
Well, alright then! Clap-clap, moving right along! Time to go back into the Trenches Of Tea with this most suitable of companions!