interestingly, brewed GFC style, the beidou im having loses a certain aromatic quality it had brewed otherwise. ill need to try some other parameters

thetea.pl 2014 tanbei tieguanyin and 2003 yancha. the yancha is clean and smooth, lacks any acidity, the earthy "aged taste" is minimal and has a slight lingering sweetness and mineral note. has nice aromatics. #tea #gongfucha #oolong #teasky

after 2 failed attempts to find a tolerable aged baozhong, I found one that actually tastes good! floral, thick, rich and with a bit of high mountain creamy character. proper analysis impossible because my brew was interrupted, but no wet or potato notes. yum!

walking home, and the air smells like liubao

drinking a taiwan natural stored XG tuocha. this feels very similar to anhua heicha? a lot rougher than anhua material a lot younger, though. last XG i had was just bad, guess I have to give factory puer a shot again...

@onerivertea.bsky.social daily rougui nice simple yancha. goes well western style and gongfu style. soft, sweet, no harshnesses even at high ratio (not here). roast feels correct. aroma fills the room #tea #teasky #oolong

@white2tea.bsky.social's 2016 Fade haven't had it in forever. big mistake. if this isnt in your order you're making a big mistake. nice solid tea. ive said all i need to say about this tea before, so i won't say more #tea #teasky #puer

@onerivertea.bsky.social Roasted Zhangping Shuixian nice creamy thick texture, sweet like a dancong, good aroma! tasty. however, the huge 10g format makes brewing it in any vessel kinda hard - standard gongfu didnt get good results either. quite strong astringency and roast harshness #tea #teasky

the conditions for growing koji are roughly similar to the optimal conditions for heicha aging: ~30c, 60+ RH i guess this makes sense, because aging heicha is basically the same thing as growing mold (sorry if this is how you found out)

tried out an unrested Baishaxi 07 Qianliangcha. didnt intend to evaluate from this but it seems like a very solid tea. interesting chocolate and marzipan adjacent notes off to the side, nice full texture. sweet, but not very. dominant moss taste similar to other anhua heicha #tea #teasky #heicha

just got sent heicha with a desiccant in the bag....

set up for a side by side with 4/5 of @onerivertea.bsky.social's hankow bound sampler. lets see if i can make myself a qimen fan #teasky #tea

ORT's anhua heicha selection is overall great. Really love their 2019 wild, the 2022 isn't quite aged enough yet. I'm going to return to this notion once I've become a complete and utter qianliang freak and see how it holds up

www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/... wow, a real elers piece up for auction! It's pretty interesting to see a classic mug take form so early into English tea drinking - drawing from beer mugs?

interesting blogpost from yunnancraft about sourcing yixing pots: www.pageoftea.com/yixing-teapo...

low stakes conspiracy theory: the government of zhangping city has paid or otherwise incentivised western tea sellers to visit the city and thereby end up stocking the tea

ORT's broom teas are definitely among the top 5 tea compression methods

having fallen ill and lacking lu'an to cure my ails, I've made do with (EoT's 2016) aged hongcha. 've come to identify dianhong's "aged taste" (from my grand total of 3 samples) as a form of sweet root vegetable note. I need more of them, and from a variety of storages... #tea #blacktea #teasky

winter has descended, which means overcast daylight that makes for poor tea photography. would you believe the liquor here is red? 00 kai yuan purple stamp from EoT. syrupy coating texture, warming in the head and neck but a little rough on the body. i liked it as a whole #teasky #gongfucha #puer

the problem with drinking yancha is that it's too good, and you end up running out. I'm down to my last 12g of yancha overall, and other oolongs, while nice, are certainly no substitute. pictured is Postcard Teas' Shuixian #tea #gongfucha #teasky

06 Seadyke AT102 Shuixian, via EoT. Even at 8g, the character remains unchanged. Thick texture, but today with a puckering yet pleasant acidity, owing to the humidity that sneaks in when a bag is opened. "Aged taste". Not much longevity. Quite simple and quaffable. #tea #teasky #oolong

hell yeah i’m a gamer

brewing liubao like a maniac at 11g/100ml. this tea, 05 duoteli first grade, is weak enough that it needs it. i dont reccomend putting yourself in the position that you need to brew a liubao at this ratio for it to be good. its thin and steeps out way too quickly otherwise #tea #gongfucha #heicha

twl 80s ripe feels very hard to extract. maybe i just need to brew it at as aggressively as possible for the start, my first steep is never more than 30s. tastes like it needs heat #tea #gongfucha #heicha #teasky

twl 4gc > eot 4gc > pcth 4gc

ersatz coffee made using acorns, light roast and slightly less light roast. need to brew it stronger. tastes like roasted grains, unsurprisingly. #coffee #foraging

smoke extraction appears to be very water dependent! same parameters today, different water, and the smoke is gentle, and more reminiscent of walking into a church that is burning incense. it had a bit of florality and no fruit character. i prefer the harder water for this tea...

new teaware day is nice, but it is especially nice when it's teaware you made yourself. my first ever cup! in it is teaside's lao dongding from 2013. pretty nice grandpa style

today is my first attempt at fixing up my water. thought I'd have an RO system by now, but that didn't end up working out, so I got a zero water in the meantime to get from 200 TDS to 80. 80TDS seems to be pretty good for yancha (below), but i'll need to adjust my brewing to accommodate. #tea

i love the variability in what one considers to be light smoke, because the "lightly smoked" lapsang i have repulses most people from the mere aroma of having the bag open. what is your strongly smoked lapsang? would it kill a dragon, let alone a man?

was bidding on a teapot today, estimated £40-60 by the auctioneer. tapped out pretty early on, someone placed a max bid i couldnt beat. checked back later, after the auction ended. hammer price? £3700

tried an interesting tisane late last night - olive leaf. early steeps have a slightly oily coating texture and the experience is overall like drinking olive oil (spicy, herbal, bitter, etc in the same way) without the consistency of actual oil #tea #teasky

Also tried EoT's 03 Jingmai and their 04 Xiang Yun Hao the other day. Both were quite strange, with the Jingmai being discordant and having a distinct menthol cooling effect and the XYH having a very thick brothy texture and a grain note. Need more sessions to dial in #tea #gongfucha #puerh

It's pretty interesting how much and how little a pot (and your brewing) can make a difference on your tea. Today's session with EoT's 05 Duoteli is a nice and clean liubao with some interesting notes, while yesterday's tasted like carrot cake and was incredibly vegetal

Currently drinking Postcard Tea's Classic Tieguanyin, which has revived my interest in Anxi oolong, which I have generally found to be too green or fragrant in processing to be enjoyable. This one has no such flaws, and an aroma that fills the room without tasting like perfume.

no picture today but EoT's 1999 light ferment shou is real nice. quite clean tasting, thick. no bitterness or astringency, even when overbrewed. has a few lower grade leaves. will let it settle a bit longer but it's already quite promising. good candidate for getting an entire brick

three shuixians from eot 1. 2020 zhang hui chun. strong roast, done well. material slightly weak 2. 2006 seadyke at102. overripe fruits, thick, earthy/aged. sweeter than 1 3. 2016 rui quan. vanillic, mushroomy, hints of chocolate. i would id this as tianjian in a blind #tea #gongfucha #oolong

Essence of Tea are very generous - got a $1/g puerh as a free sample in with my latest order

"between a rock and a hard place" 1oz brandy 1oz shuixian liqueur 3/4oz dry curacao 1/2oz aperol 1/2oz amaro montenegro simple syrup to taste

thai wild single tree oolong. tasty. fruity. thick, sweet, without sourness astringency bitterness etc. not as much longevity as promised - started with 8g, had to add 4g in because it was getting thin. last session had harshnesses but this one redeemed it #tea #gongfucha #teasky

drinking the last of my @onerivertea.bsky.social 2016 Gold Coins; very nice tea. strong floral (fruit adjacent) aftertaste, rich body, some welcome astringency. surprisingly good pairing with Nixing! I wonder what this says about brick tea? #tea #teasky #gongfucha

i dont mean this in a mean way, but if a potter has a particular way of making a teapot spout, you can kinda instantly see that they were trained in taiwan or by someone who was

charged twice for shipping on a tea order...

really cool shuiping located on yahoo auctions

teaswelike 12 cent brick. nice dry storage sheng, clean, sweet, floral, smokey, just a plain delight that can't be argued with for the price. i should get more of them. #tea #puerh #gongfucha

da xue shan wild red tea from essence of tea's club. purple black tea is one of my favourite smells. smells and tastes like a ripe non storebought grape. not excessively malty, chocolatey or hongy. i sniffed this bag daily until it had rested enough for a session #tea #gongfucha #teasky #blacktea

they should make an oolong that gets things going in the same way as a ripe tea

drinking @onerivertea.bsky.social's 2014 Tianjian to beat the heat. sweet, smooth, smokey, and a touch minty today. very nice. i need more tianjian in my life #teasky #gongfucha #heicha

@sky-larke.bsky.social A while ago, you mentioned a Chaozhou pot that you had with a slow pour, which seemed contrary to the 'chaozhou gongfu' brewing that we've been exposed to, as you need the pot to evict contents as fast as possible to prevent overextraction. I've been doing some research since